WEST MIDLANDS POLICE, ROVER MAESTRO DOG VAN, L814 GVP, In Restoration, preservation and service.

The Maestro car was launched in March 1983 by Austin Rover to replace the Allegro. At the 1984 Motor Show they unveiled the Maestro van to replace the Ital van. They were initially available as a 1.3 or 1.6 petrol, but in 1986 they were the first Maestro’s to be fitted with a 2.0 Perkins Diesel engine. From 1988 they were badged as Rover Maestros until  production ceased in December 1994. 

They were very popular with fleets and utilities and were used by many Police forces, including West Midlands,         Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, South Wales, Dyfed Powys, Lancashire and Sussex to name but a few. There was a short revival after they had been discontinued, when Parkway Services in Ledbury bought all the CKD kits from a cancelled shipment to Bulgaria in May 1997. These were built 

West Midlands Police purchased Maestro vans between 1985 and 1995 and used them as dog vans or general purpose vans. 

This Rover Maestro 500 L 2.0 Perkins Diesel van was first registered on 25th April 1994 to Land Rover in Solihull & used by the engineering department, before it then passed through three more owners before being purchased by the current owner in 2019.

The intention was to find a genuine ex police one, but after 5 years of searching he could not find one. He missed out on a genuine ex West Midlands police one by a week after it had been scrapped. 

By using photos he had taken of West Midlands Police Maestro vans in service in the 1990s and knowledge from ex serving officers, he set about turning this one into a correct period replica.

Incidentally this vehicle was registered in Birmingham and is only a few numbers off ones that saw service and is white, so was the closest he was able to get to a genuine one.

Maestro Vans seen here in Service.