Selective BL marque revival - your ideas?

perro    on 28 June 2009

I take my hat orf to you Brother P6B - you certainly have a fair knowledge of British rolling stock that was around before you were even a twinkle in you dad's eye!
I've owned 2 P6's both auto's, one of which had SD1 heads and went quite well and was finshed in that sort of pale fern green colour which sounds a tad naf but looked quite distinguished actually.
The 1st P6 I owned was an ex Police car in Zircon blue complete with holes in the roof!
I had it spayed old inglisch white + black vinyl roof :)
I was in the auto trade from 78 - 92 so got to drive most cars over that time ... I would class the Rover P6 alongside the Triumph 2000/2500PI like Audi and BMW are equally top notch mota's IMO.
I also owned a Dolly Sprint in Sebring red, black vinyl + Webasto full length sliding roof, but it certainly was no match for a beemer or any sort - and I've owned a few of those as well=525e + 320i + the old 2000 ~ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MHV_BMW_2000.jpg
I am known as being a doom n' gloom merchant (hehe!) so I will say that the UK car industry has (sadly) had its day apart from foreign owned top range stuff, and I'm quite content to drive my British (built) Almera 1.8SE which does all (and more) I require of a car.
Don't get me wrong though - I'd luv to see Triumph triumph and Singer sing a'new but alas there are too many car-l marques offered in this sceptred isle thes days, and too many £'s bound for South Asian shores!

Rover P6B    on 28 June 2009

8< snip. It's so much easier to delete than it is to edit when someone thinks the no swearing rule doesn't apply to them.

Edited by Webmaster on 29/06/2009 at 01:42

Rover P6B    on 29 June 2009

The Rover brand once stood for the very finest of all mass-produced cars: there is no reason not to defend that. The P6s were very well-built and, mostly, reliable - the V8s even in stock form pulled like trains, the autoboxes were smooth and very robust, the car would, even today, get a 3-star EuroNCAP rating (or so I was once told) - built-in crumple zones, dash structures made of honeycomb plastic to absorb energy in an impact, engine and transmission designed to go under the cabin not into it in an impact... I believe it was even designed - unlike any other such car - with offset impacts in mind. It's a shame that the SD1, while well-designed in many respects, was let down by 70s bad taste in the cabin and bad build quality all round. The six-cylinder engines were basically the old Triumph 2000/2500 engines, I believe, and were just as troublesome as their progenitors. I wasn't aware of the Landcrab having any issues except the usual somewhat suspect build quality - and Issigonis' daft insistance on front-wheel-drive and having the transmission in the sump. In fact, the 2200 engine made it into the South African SD1 2300 and was reckoned to be rather better than the Triumph version.

The 800 had its good points and, after the facelift, was even passably nice-looking, but you could see the cost-cutting (still dodgy build quality, according to a friend of mine who had an 827 coupé), it had hellish body roll, was really not very good on windy B-roads, and tracks? Forget it! It needed better build quality, less evidence of cost-cutting, REAR WHEEL DRIVE and the 3.9L Rover V8.

I've never understood people's criticism of the P6 space-wise - I am not a small person by any means and I have no problem with space in the P6. OK, so it wasn't a Tardis like the Triumph, but the Triumph sacrificed so much else for that space (looks, handling, etc).

I must disagree over the Honda partnership - the Triumph Acclaim was a truly dreadful car that, again, was far too big for FWD, the SD3 (aka 213, 216) was just yawn-inducingly boring, if rather better for reliability, the 800 just wasn't able to compete, as the competition was miles better, the Mk2 200 (214, 216) and its 400 sisters had nasty steering, were dodgy on the reliability front... the 600 was where things began to look up, though it still needed RWD. The Mk3 200/25 and the 400/45 weren't bad cars, just they were rapidly outclassed. Again, I don't think the Rover K-series engines were really all that great. The 75 could have been superb - it was going to be based on the BMW E34 platform - rear wheel drive and well-proven on that 5-series. However, they had to spoil it all, put in K-series engines instead of those lovely BMW I6s, and FWD! Still, can't blame Honda for that! What BL/Austin Rover really needed was to have that BMW partnership earlier on, in 1979.

davidh    on 29 June 2009

Someones been drinking too much coffee?

bell boy    on 30 June 2009

Wolseley should be revived for one reason and one reason only: the Wolseley badge on

the cars' radiator grilles used to be illuminated. A classy touch :)

>>>>>ive got a grille in my cellar,ive covered it in grease so it will be worth something in years to come,unfortunately the little wolseley bit is missing
i saw a same type grille at a the truck fest at harrogate last year and the trader wanted £60 for it