Right before the catastrophic ‘70s laid waste to Britain’s automotive sector, there were plenty of superb UK-made designs throughout the ‘60s. The Triumph 2000, the Jaguar XJ6, the BMC ADO-16, the Rolls Silver Shadow, the Lotus Elan… And it could be argued that the absolute best one of them all was the Rover P6.
If you feel that my employ of the word “Symphony” is a tad over the top, I have to wonder whether you have misconceptions about the Rover P6 or about music. A symphony is a complex piece of orchestral music, something only attempted by the greatest composers. Similarly, Rover reached so kind of pinnacle of harmony and complexity with the P6. It’s in the same league as the Mercedes 600, the Lancia Flaminia or the Citroën DS, and it was definitely influenced by the latter. And then, they stuck a V8 in there for the Allegro (the symphonic movement, not the BL atrocity)…
The P6 was originally slated to replace the lower-end of the venerable “Auntie” P4. When it was launched in 1963, it had a thoroughly modern 2-litre OHC 4-cyl., but Rover figured this new car was to be their mainstay for the foreseeable future, so they put just as much effort in the suspension and looks as they did the motor.
In terms of looks, the P6 was chiefly the work of David Bache. His avowed source of inspiration was the Citroën DS, especially from the cowl backwards. The front did not share the Citroën’s shark-like nose, however, but the end result was both elegant and distinctive. Right out the gate, the Rover impressed everyone who saw it, and conquered those who drove it. It’s no coincident that it won the first European COTY trophy in 1964.
Suspension-wise, Rover chief engineer Spen King opted for a De Dion tube rear axle, along with in-board brakes. On the other end was a completely novel IFS that, thankfully, CC’s Aaron Severson has discussed with his customary talent in this seminal post. This “bell and crank” contraption was devised to ensure that, should a new engine find its way under the bonnet, the suspension would not be in the way. In the early ‘60s, Rover still thought their pioneering work with gas turbine propulsion, but they were also actively working on a 6-cyl. solution, hewn from the OHC four, for a potential P7.
As luck would have it, General Motors decided to junk a perfectly good Buick small-block all-alloy V8. Rover heard about it and made an offer, which was accepted in January 1965. By 1967, the new 3.5 litre engine was tried out in the P5, which direly needed a shot of vitamins. The P6 was the next logical transplant recipient, in 1968.
The V8 was an ideal candidate for the P6. It weighed the same as the 4-cyl., only took a bit more space and provided about 40 extra hp, compared to the twin-carb 2-litre, that turned the Rover into a proper performer, snapping at the heels of BMW and Jaguar, and competitively-priced, too. Let’s take a look at the P6’s loyal opposition. To attempt an apples-to-apples approach, I tried to select automatics, as the P6 3500 had that transmission by default.
If you were in the UK circa 1970 and a couple thousand pounds were burning a hole in your pocket, the P6 was outstanding value for money. Only by spending £500-1000 more would you be able to find anything offering the same dynamic range. The Citroën did not yet exist with the dreaded Borg-Warner 35 that half of that table, including the P6, made use of.
One facet of the P6 that was perhaps on the lacklustre side was the interior. The dash was utterly dull, with an outdated horizontal speedo and not a very user-friendly layout. The front seats were very pleasant, but the rear ones were notably stingy on both headroom and legroom, particularly when compared to its foreign rivals. Rear boot space was also deemed below-par, due in part to the rear suspension taking up quite a bit of real estate.
At the end of 1970, Rover gave the P6 a facelift that chiefly affected the front end. They also introduced the 3500 S, which had a 4-speed manual and improved the car’s performance and fuel economy. The P6 carried on until 1977; pre-facelift cars like this one were still screwed together decently well, but by the last few years, the BL rot had set in and major quality control issues were harming its reputation.
Rover sold about 240k P6s with the 2.0 (and later 2.2) litre 4-cyl. between 1963 and 1977; the V8 models, sold between 1968 and 1977, tallied just over 80,000 units. Yes, they certainly made the P6 last, but people kept buying them. Even in the mid-‘70s, the car was still avant-garde technically – again, like the Citroën DS. Parallel lives, but the French car never did get the engine it deserved. Rover should have lent them their borrowed V8.
Related posts:
The Peculiar Front Suspension Of The 1963–1977 Rover P6: “I Say, What If We Turned The Springs Sideways?”, by Aaron Severson
Storage Field Classic: The Very Advanced (But Mostly Forgotten) Rover 2000TC, by David Saunders
Car Show Classics: 1963 Rover 2000 and Triumph 2000 – Britain Leads The Way, by Roger Carr
CC Outtake: Rover P6 3500 – Back To Work Special, by Don Andreina
They were nice cars but iirc in the early ’70s they had the absolute worst repair record of any car sold in the US, as did the 2000TC 4 cyl version. Lovely to drive though evidently. Best thing about them was the excellent Buick aluminum V8, which was even better when put into an MGB.
Why is it that every time I spell aluminum properly with the ‘ium at end, as the Canadians do, (look at a periodic table where virtually every element ending in -um is -ium, but somehow we ignorant ‘muricans incorrectly lost the 2nd “I”), the stupid autocorrect changes it back, and as a retired Biochemist I object!
Luckily we didn’t end up with magnesum or thorum or gallum somehow. Dumb dumb dumb.
I had to smile. Somehow I’ve managed to turn off autocorrect. I wish I could tell you how! I make so many mistakes that sometimes I wish I could undo it.
I’ve had trouble trying to get it through to my computer that I’m not American, and that I want it to default to Australian English, or failing that, British spelling at least. I think I’ve finally won that battle.
When you consider how many long words could do with a bit of shortening, you have to wonder why some American picked on that one. And it stuck.
Not only do we spell it different than British English, we also pronounce it differently. Must be on account of the missing “i”. Brits also laugh at me when I pronounce Jaguar.
As a Canadian I have always considered “aluminum” a UK spelling. In most situations Canadians follow UK spelling (e.g. colour), but not for “aluminum”. If you look at the website for ALCAN ( Aluminum Company of Canada) you will not find the second “I”.
I also find autocorrect is a hindrance rather than help. It requires an extra proofreading. If you really want to be frustrated try writing in another language. I occasionally write to some francophone relatives in French, and it is always changing things on me. I don’t do it often enough to change languages, so I just try to be careful.
Auto-correct caught me again. In the first line it should have been “aluminium”.
The first name proposed for the metal to be isolated from alum was alumium, which Davy suggested in an 1808 article on his electrochemical research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.[40] It appeared that the name was created from the English word alum and the Latin suffix -ium; but it was customary then to give elements names originating in Latin, so this name was not adopted universally. This name was criticized by contemporary chemists from France, Germany, and Sweden, who insisted the metal should be named for the oxide, alumina, from which it would be isolated.[41] The English name alum does not come directly from Latin, whereas alumine/alumina comes from the Latin word alumen (upon declension, alumen changes to alumin-). The form aluminium, the modern preferred British word, was proposed by January 1811 in an account of Davy’s published experiments written by William Hyde Wollaston. Davy later used aluminum (by 1812), which remains the U.S. word.
So it seems both versions are correct. Now about that “u”.
yes, i remember being excited when i saw one of these in the neighborhood growing up. i have to agree with randerson that in the us british cars especially, rovers and jaguars, had a terrible reputation for reliability. i suspect it really had more to do with that in 60s and early 70s most ameicans expected to be able to bring their car to any service station for repairs. we didn’t really have the dealer network or foreign car specialty mechanics outside of nyc and la back then.
And yet Mercedes or Volvo didn’t have that problem, did they? The problem with a lot of carmakers was they treated the US market as a bit of an afterthought, just throw some cars there with air conditioning and an automatic and the rest will take care of itself. It wouldn’t and didn’t and that’s why the Japanese cleaned up with much better dealer networks.
It was similar in Australia, too. Although we’d had British cars here for decades, as they got more technically complex the standard of workmanship seemed to drop off. Cause and effect or random timing?
BMC Australia and Leyland Australia had to fight the old fogeys back home to implement the necessary design changes needed to be competitive here. Once Aussies discovered Japanese cars it was pretty much game over for the mass-market Brits especially – why put up with the hassle?
Over 2,000 of the 3500s sold in Australia between 1974-1976 were assembled from CKD packs at the NZMC (New Zealand Motor Corporation) plant in Nelson. In a barter-like exchange, Leyland Australia shipped CKD packs of the Leyland P76 to an equivalent NZ$ value. Most at the time probably concluded Australians got the better part of the deal although the P76 is now a fixture in the lower end of the local collector market. While it may be unfair, the exchange may be compared with the “Seriously, would you trade her in for Paula Yates?” caption the English periodical GQ used for a photo-montage of Helena Christensen and Paula Yates when reporting on a pop star “moving on” from the former to the latter.
The RoW 3500S with the manual transmission was very good; testers reported a top speed over 120 mph (195 km/h) with the de Dion rear end doing its usual good job and the brakes were said to be state of the (pre-ABS) art. The fuel gauge also seemed at attract comment, commended for its untypical accuracy.
I didn’t know this.
Whilst the P76 was good to drive, if not to behold, I cannot imagine its other, er, difficulties were assisted by a nice sea journey that would promote the one thing that didn’t blight it – rust.
Besides, I reckon it must have been 2 P76’s for one Rover, as they were a pricey car in Oz.
I’m sure you’re right. A fully-assembled, ADR-compliant 3500 would have had a higher book value than a CKD pack P76 of any specification and “two for one” sounds a reasonable guess. It must have been a partial exchange transaction if the most quoted figure of P76s assembled in NZ (circa 650) is correct. In the mid 1970s, the NZ$-Aus$ exchange rate bounced between (roughly) 1.10-1.22 so that may have influenced things depending on how the contract was written. By the mid-1970s the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchanges rates was over but Western countries still set rates in a system called a “managed float”, periodically using a “basket” of currencies (US$ the benchmark; cross-rates from the basket). “Managed float” sounds an oxymoron but the process wasn’t wholly different from modern practice (the interaction of forex markets and central bank interventions).
Were P76s fairly rust-resistant? Remarkably, the Austin Allegro (that other machine emblematic of Leyland in the 1970s although, despite the reputation, it sold quite well) wasn’t, by the standards of the time, susceptible.
They seemed to be. Wags, no doubt, might suggest that’s because they didn’t live long enough to…
Not being familiar with this car, I’m curious. Are those cheap wheel covers that someone put on or is that the actual factory cap/rim?
They really cheapen the car and when compared to the pics of all those other cars, they look like something you would buy at Walmart.
It was one of several versions of the factory-available wheel covers. I agree with you: they look terrible and really detract from the car’s value.
Interesting, I think the wheels are perfectly appropriate period Rostyle (Rubery Owens). They look good on this car and it would look so much worse with modern rims or some hubcaps, but perhaps it’s because I remember these from ages ago and these were the wheels they wore. There’s an episode of Columbo that takes place in London (Dagger of the Mind) and he’s driven around in a cream coloured P6 and also an early XJ6 – I love them both.
If you prefer the classic Rostyle look, I’d recommend these wheels instead:
Those wheelcovers seemed a bit of a Brit staple: notice that they’re also on the Triumph pictured. Perhaps it was the resemblance to actual Rostyles (Fauxstyles?) I also don’t like them. They look like metal bin lids.
These are very interesting cars and ones I have often thought of buying myself. The complex suspension and remotely mounted brake cylinder have always given me pause.
These are rare cars to see in Canada but there is someone that lives near me that has three P6s. Twos 2000TC and one 3500S.
My first time saw this vehicle was in Victoria Island, British Columbia when I was on a business trip in 2013
An old friend of mine has one of these, I’ve never ridden in it but it certainly scooted right along on our road rallies .
-Nate
Loved the P6 since driving a customer’s V8 when working in a garage in the’80s. looked at a few cheap 4-pots at the time (including a one owner series one) but they were cheap for a reason…
Rather fascinating cars, possibly not including the looks, and certainly nicer than all the competition pictured in the first panel. Always well-reviewed, though the steering on that slightly wacko front end was never given high marks, especially at parking when non-PS. Never driven one, and always wanted to. The manual 3500S’ are now quite valuable in good nick.
As an aside, the prototypes did have a DS-like sharknose. It looked ‘orrible.
Do you mean this Frankensteinmobile?
That’s the gas turbine T4. First saw that on the Isle of Man in a museum there in 1981. The early prototypes had single headlights – shades of the original A-H Sprite.
https://www.aronline.co.uk/concepts-and-prototypes/projects-and-prototypes-rover-p6/
No, that was dragged up from a North Sea trench.
Oh, apologies. Yes, that.
In high school in Toronto in the mid 60s the principal replaced his MGB-GT with a Rover 2000TC. He was a man with style. Although I was never in the car, I remember how wonderful those leather seats looked.
That dashboard wasn’t outdated at launch – we still had strip speedos for a very long time.
The safety aspect (deformable bins) and switchgear one could identify by feel were quite novel.
The cars weren’t too badly made at first, but starved of investment by being too tiny in a fragmented market meant the US adaptations weren’t properly developed.
The real problem was due to the Gov’t trying to inflate its way out of war debt, economic planning became impossible and there was no investment possible in the industry. By the 1970s, factories were stuck in the 1940s, just like in the Soviet Union. This did not help workers’ attitudes either.
I think strip speedos were actually considered quite futuristic, and possibly thought to be easier to read at a glance?
I still like this Rover 3500. It featured the “Iceelert” to warn one of dangerous road conditions. As for auto correct, for me it is important. How else coldI be sure to spell pilomatrixoma correctly?
Sort of the CC effect, I watched this video about the P6 police car on YouTube last night.
I’ve posted before; my dad had a 1968 TC 2000 he drove for 18 years before buying a 1986 Honda Accord. With all the reliability problems with Rovers, his car was mostly reliable except for the starter Bendix which put the car in the shop a lot.
An amazing car really.