Raymond Mair's dream of owning a Rover 2000 cc seemed to have been discontinued along with imports of the brand into Jamaica.

It turned out, however, to be a dream deferred but not denied.

Almost 40 years after he admired Tim Brookin's Rover, in 1993 Mair was working as a company executive, driving a Honda Accord. The time to change the company fleet came and by this time the Rover was being imported into Jamaica again, by John Crook. Mair applied for the authority to get a Rover 620, British racing green.

It was an American company and they knew nothing about the Rover. "I had to write and say it would cost less than the Honda," Mair said.

That proved to be the clincher and "I went down to John Crook and got the Rover 620 SLI, British racing green".

"When I drove out that car I was the second person to drive out that Rover," Mair said. The other one had been driven from John Crook's Hanover Street office directly to its rural destination, so Mair was driving the only one in Kingston.

"It was an awesome feeling, to be driving a car that no one else had," Mair told The Sunday Gleaner. In addition to the admiring looks, he got many queries about just what kind of car it was. Of course, more soon came on the road, but for that first week or two "I was a curiosity".

Coming up to the end of the decade Mair was approaching retirement and offered to buy the Rover. It was accepted. "It was my dream car and at the last stage of my corporate life I got it," Mair said.

He no longer has that Rover, though, having sold it two months ago. However, "It's still out there. It's as beautiful as ever. Sometimes you see it and you get a little nostalgia. I was very careful about whom I sold it to, because it takes special care."

So the Rover went to someone who was familiar with and could take care of it. "I knew I would never have sold it to a young person buying their first car. It was sold to a mechanic, who used to assist in maintaining it," Mair said.

Ironically, he now drives a Honda, the same make vehicle he switched from to the Rover 16 years ago.

- Leighton Williams and Mel Cooke