as the Vanden Plas EFi. To meet the demands of the luxury executive car market, where automatic transmission tended to be preferred, Rover first offered an auto as an option in the Vitesse, but later withdrew the option and lured the customers to the plush Vanden Plas EFi instead which had all the standard comforts of the Vitesse, such as electric mirrors, windows and locks, a trip computer, headlight washers, an adjustable steering column and a four-speaker stereo (something special at that time). Additionally, it added as standard leather seats (velour cloth was a no-cost option), an electrically operated sunroof (available on all models) and cruise control; the only option being air-conditioning. Very rare are the "Twin Plenum" Vitesses; these had two throttle bodies mounted on the plenum chamber instead of one and were produced in very small numbers as homologation for the twin plenum racers. The SD1 continued until the launch of its successor, the Rover 800 Series, in July 1986. the third product of the British Leyland/Austin Rover venture with Honda, which had been in development since 1981 as "Project XX" and also formed the basis of the Honda Legend. Despite production ending in 1986, stocks of new SD1s remained available well into 1987, with the latest civilian spec examples were registered under the "E" registration prefix, with some stockpiled police specifications being registered even later, the fastback version of the 800 arrived in 1988. The Rover V8 engine remained in volume production and continued to be used in Land Rover products until 2003. List of model names The car was never marketed as the "SD1". The models produced (throughout the life of the range, not all at once) were usually named according to their engine size. Rover 2000 Rover 2300 Rover 2300 S Rover 2300 SE Rover 2400 SD Turbo Rover 2600 Rover 2600 S Rover 2600 SE Rover 2600 Vanden Plas Rover 3500 Rover 3500 SE Rover 3500 Vanden Plas Rover 3500 Vanden Plas EFi Rover V8-S Rover Vitesse The initial June 1976 launch was for the 3500 only. A little over a year later the 2300 and 2600 were added; the V8-S was a short-lived model introduced later (remembered for its headlamp wipers, gold alloys and the option of bright metallic "Triton" green paint), and dropped before the first mild facelift, after which the range was 2300, 2300 S, 2600 S, 3500 SE and 3500