Today on OldMotors.net (link in bio) we’re looking at the history of one of our all-time favorites - the #RoverP6. James Bond may have driven Astons, but George Smiley (of John Le Carré’s famous novels) was a P6 man. Alec Guinness gave Smiley international TV fame two years after Star Wars, and two years after P6 production ended. Guinness was 65 then, and like Smiley he looked exactly like the kind of person associated with “old” Rovers in 1979. The P6 fit Smiley perfectly - unassuming and familiar on the outside, but underneath just as sharp as ever. The P6 compared well with BMW’s “Neue Klasse” 2000Ti in the mid-1960s, and was still a credible rival to the E12 5-series in 1975. It was only “old” because it was familiar and because it was replaced by a similarly radical car. When it was new in 1963, the P6 was radical. The Wilks brothers, Spencer and Maurice, guided Rover for more than 30 years. They built it into a maker of solidly engineered by deeply conservative cars. But they were also interested in radical new ideas and new technologies - and their team, Spen King, Gordon Bashford, David Bache, and others - were all about modernity. Bashford himself designed the upright “Auntie” P4, which by 1956-57 looked old, but had far out ideas - including a smaller executive car built around a “base frame” like the Citroën DS, possibly to be powered by a Gas Turbine. Needing to reach new buyers and build more volume, the brothers agreed with at least some of what Bashford and King proposed for a P4 replacement, and the P6 was born. Gas turbine plans were eventually scrapped, but the 2L 1963 “Rover 2000” was a highly advanced car featuring crumple zones, a de dion rear, a brand new OHC four, a highly functional interior, and sleek space age styling by Bache. It was aimed at newly affluent buyers in Harold MacMillan’s Britain, and built for the Motorway. It only improved with time - with a twin-carb version and eventually the V8-powered 3500, but by then Rover was part of British Leyland, and BL’s problems forced the P6 to carry on for many years, in 1974-75 as the only Rover car. To read the full tale, visit the website! https://www.instagram.com/p/CEhQKUmFchG/?igshid=1w2gdbiff2tjq
