Many brands have complex and surprising histories, which may or may not be reflected in their later or current images and reputations. Companies like Wolseley that evolved from sheep shearing, Vauxhall from a foundry business, BMW from aero engines or Citroen from making gears. Perhaps the most common origin in Europe at least was from the cycle industry – Peugeot, Morris, Humber and Rover all emerged from cycle businesses. But only one can claim to have built the first successful safety bicycle.
In the latter part of the 19th century, Coventry, in the English Midlands, south east of Birmingham, and closer to the centre of England than any other city, was the centre of the then burgeoning cycle industry, which had itself come out of the watchmaking industry. James Starley and his nephew, John Kemp Starley, started manufacturing bicycles in 1877 and by 1883 were naming them as Rover.
In 1885, the first Rover Safety Bicycle was built – defined as having two equal sized wheels, chain drive to the rear, thereby keeping the rider’s feet away from the spokes and being more stable than the treadle bicycles and penny farthing designs, as well as easier to mount and dismount. Starley died in 1901 and the company subsequently started to diversify into motorcycles and then cars. But not before several central European languages had defined words for bicycle that are derived from the word “rover”.
After Starley’s death in 1901, Rover was bought by the monopolistic entrepreneur Henry Lawson, and moved under his direction into motorcycles, and from 1904 cars. For the next 25 years or more, Rover built a business out of car production, sometimes licence building others’ designs, but never achieving the ambitions of great volume or large margins. No dividend was paid after 1923, and in 1929 a major restructuring was enacted, and Spencer Wilks, undoubtedly the most significant figure in the Rover Company’s history, was hired.
Wilks came from Hillman, where he had been Joint General Manager, serving alongside John Black. Both Wilks and Black were sons in law of the late William Hillman and were not required by the incoming Rootes brothers and their new regime. Black moved to become Managing Director at Standard, and Wilks to Rover as Works Manager and then as General Manager, or CEO in current business school terms.
Wilks moved promptly and consistently to bring Rover to, if not a niche, then a defined spot in the market. This was the conservative luxury area, nothing flash or racy, but a car for the successful professional man, competing with Humber, Wolseley, Triumph, Riley, perhaps the smaller models from Lanchester and Armstrong-Siddeley, rather than Morris, Austin or Hillman. SS Cars and Jaguar were emerging as a competitor, but with a very different image – brasher, more sporting, even of (say it quietly) new money. By 1939, Rover were making a consistent but strong return on 2-3% of the UK production volume, around a product that was typically a four light saloon with four and six cylinder options, wood and leather interior in a upper premium market position and marketed on its appeal to a conservative but not sporting clientele.
After the war, during which Rover built aircraft components and aero engines, the company’s big initial issue was how to fill factory capacity whilst managing with a minimal allocation of steel. After being bombed out of Coventry, Rover moved to Solihull, the next stop on the train to Birmingham, where the company had established a factory before the war for aero engines and was now focusing its manufacturing. The answer to filling the capacity was the aluminium Land Rover but Rover retained the ambitions for a successful car range as well, and turned, as we shall see, to an unexpected source for style inspiration.
Initially post war production was of the P2 range, marketed as the 10, 12, 14, 16 and 20 depending on the engine size, and first sold from 1936. This was a thoroughly conventional and conservative product, and earned Rover a reputation for solid if unexciting cars. This is the vision of Rover many associate with the brand, and survived the reset in many brands and their reputations that developed after 1945.
After the war, the car evolved into the 1948 P3, sold as the 60 and 75 depending on the engine size (1.6 or 2.1 litre) and with Rover’s first independent suspension. The chassis was substantially altered from the P2 – shorter, wider and the engine was all new. The 1.6 litre 4 cylinder and 2.1 six cylinder were closely related, with overhead inlet vales and side exhaust valves. Whilst only running for 2 years, the car was intended to act as a basis for the first true post war Rover design. Life is never simple though, is it?
The original intention was that the P4 would use much of the newer chassis engineering and engine of the P3. However, performance issues on the piston type dampers and corrosion of the rear spring mountings led Rover to build a new much more substantial chassis frame, with a significantly revised front suspension. But perhaps the most surprising thing about the car was the style.
Rather than continue to evolve the P3 style and retain clear links to post war cars, as Daimler and Jaguar saloons did for example, Rover opted for a completely fresh style, clearly and unambiguously derived from the post war Loewy Studebakers. Indeed, it is widely accepted that Rover bought some Studebakers and put the bodies on P3 chassis, creating what are referred to as Roverbakers. And it was not just the exterior style – the interior had a column change, bench seat and flat instrument panel, albeit built in African walnut, and with full leather trim. Even the suicide rear doors, probably the last example on a British car other than a Rolls-Royce, made the journey from South Bend to Solihull.
In contrast to the image of Rover as an always conservative brand, the first P4s had a very untraditional front aspect – no classic or formal grille, few Rover cues, and a central spotlight, commonly referred as the Cyclops lamp. Linked to the suicide doors was a very upright rear shutline, which only highlighted the car’s tall and formal stature and dropping tail shape. The design was, if you hadn’t seen the Studebaker, a distinctive and original one officially credited to Rover with no formal acknowledgement of Loewy.
But his influence can be seen – I’ll let you decide how much influence there was. The interior, despite the column shift and bench seat, perhaps fitted the Rover stereotype more closely, and certainly has a less radical feel, especially when you factor in the upright seating position and height.
The cars were sold from early 1950 as the Rover 75 priced at £1100 (£38000 adjusted), having been launched at the 1949 London Motor Show. Alongside the distinctive styling (with hidden running boards) and traditional interior, there were some technical innovations and distinctive features. The bonnet, doors and boot lid were made of Birmabright aluminium alloy, as used for the Land Rover, there was a freewheel in the transmission and the car was most definitely not a product of a larger business inheriting parts from a Consul, Minx or Oxford. Just like you can spot the differences in ambience, materials and contact points between, say, a BMW or Mercedes-Benz and a Kia or Nissan of the same size, you could spot, sense even, the Rover from the Humber or Wolseley. Not just the stance, stature and size (length 178 in, wheelbase 111in, height 63.in, 3200ib approx) made it stand out.
As happened to Rover again in later years, the car had to be, in some eyes, toned down. The Cyclops lamp and almost grille less front went in 1952, as did the column change; in 1955 the striking tail was restyled by David Bache and in 1956 the front wings were adjusted to match the then forthcoming Rover 3 Litre.
Mechanically, the car started as the Rover 75, with the 2.1 litre 6 cylinder engine. This grew to 2.2 litre in 1954, and lasted to 1959. Also, from 1954, Rover offered the 90 with a 2.6 litre engine, in the restyled body. To many, this is the definitive P4 – later styling, six cylinders, but still no sporting or performance pretensions.
In 1957 came the 105R, based on the 2.6 litre 90 but with a higher compression engine and twin SU carburettors, and using a semi-automatic gearbox, named Rovermatic, which was a two speed automatic with an overdrive unit, giving three gears in total and the 105S with a fully synchromesh four speed manual gearbox and some sporting accessories such as spotlights.
From 1959, the 90 and 105 were consolidated into the Rover 100, using a version of the Rover 3 litre engine, short stroked to 2.6 litre but differing to that fitted to the 90 and 105.
And from 1962 to 1964, the 100 was replaced by the 95 and 110. The 95 was a Rover 100 without overdrive and with revised gearing; the 110 was treated to a revised cylinder head to get as much as 123bhp and could top 100mph. Fuel consumption was significant though. Our feature car is a 1963 Rover 95 on daily driver duty. A late, final model car, with a child seat in a works car park. CC indeed.
As an entry level option, Rover offered the four cylinder 60 from 1954 to 1957 and then the 80 from 1960 to 1962. The 60 had a 2 litre engine derived from the 1.6 litre used in early Land Rovers, and this was enlarged to 2.3 litre for the 80. Both, while more economic than the six cylinder cars, were significantly slower and missed out on the always present smoothness of the six cylinders.
The P4 may never have been fast or sporting, but it had a well deserved reputation for refinement, comfort and luxury, and that feeling that all was well with the world when underway. Rover were content to leave the more sporty market to Jaguar, the fashionable, maybe even flashy, to Vauxhall and Rootes, and the ordinary dressed as special to Wolseley, while bettering Armstrong-Siddeley and Daimler on value for money.
The P4 range was retired in 1964; arguably some parts of the range were, if not superseded in the market, replaced in buyers’ preferences by the 3 Litre from 1958. This was the first Rover to feature David Bache styling throughout, again picking up clues (as Bache always did) from elsewhere, in this case the 1955 Chryslers.
The P4 was the basis for a some of bespoke derivatives that deserve mention. In 1951, a car was sent to Pininfarina for conversion to a cabriolet four seat tourer. The result was promising, visually, as you’d expect but Rover went no further. Funds and factory capacity are normally quoted.
In 1950, two key engineers, Peter Wilks, a nephew of Rover’s then Technical Director Maurice (brother of Spencer) Wilks and colleague George Mackie, supported by Wilks’ cousin Spen King (later father of the Range Rover and Rover SD1), left roles at Rover to form the Marauder Motor Company, and to build a derivative of the P4 as a two seat sports car. The engine was relocated rearwards, the free wheel replaced with an overdrive, the chassis shortened and the suspension stiffened. An all new, but clearly derivative body was fitted. In all, 15 cars were built, sales being hampered by the prevailing tax rules, on-going shortages and supply chain issues, and the state of the competition, and the principals returned to Rover.
Their return to Rover enabled another stage of the P4’s history which, while not directly connected to the production car, forms the visible automotive part of a tale well worth telling. In early 1940, Rover were approached by the UK Government requesting that the company support a young RAF officer with some engineering development work, under conditions of great secrecy. A small company, named Power Jets Ltd and based at Lutterworth close to Coventry, was doing pure development work and need a partner capable of developing a design to production. That young RAF officer was Frank Whittle, later Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle and recognised as one of the twentieth century’s great engineers. The product he was working on was to become the jet engine.
Rover’s role was to support Whittle in the development of the W2, Whittle’s second and larger trial jet engine. To achieve this, Rover established and ran a development factory in a disused cotton mill in the town of Barnoldswick, 50 miles north of Manchester on the border of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and some 150 miles or more from Coventry. Why Rover, with no turbine or aero-engine experience was picked for this has been made clear, though lack of vested interest in existing aero-engines may have been a factor.
In the event, the W2 proved to be underpowered, and without informing Whittle, Rover started development of their own design, known as the B26, which first ran in November 1942, and ultimately was developed into the Rolls-Royce Welland, and used to power the Gloster Meteor jet fighter from 1943, and which saw action from July 1944.
During this period, the relationship between Rover and Whittle had deteriorated, whilst Whittle had established a strong link with Rolls-Royce, arguably a much more logical partner. In January 1943, Rover exchanged the Barnoldswick jet engine factory and intellectual property for an engine factory in the Midlands, then building a tank engine based on the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, and a design that Rover built for over twenty years.
However, the interest and expertise in the gas turbine engine had been established within Rover. The key players, including Technical Director Maurice Wilks (above), returned to Coventry, and over the next 20 years, Rover would continue to work with gas turbines if not jets. By early 1950, the first Rover gas turbine powered car, registered as JET1, was ready.
Clearly derived visually from the Rover P4, and based on a P4 chassis as that is all Rover had to base it on, and even complete with a Cyclops lamp at this stage, the car was demonstrated publicly.
Power was supplied by a rear-mounted turbine which drove the rear wheels. In its initial guise, the JET 1’s turbine delivered 100bhp, sufficient to enable it to reach 60mph from rest in around 14 seconds and go on to a top speed of just under 90mph.
Two years later, a more powerful version, with around 230bhp, was taken to the very level, very straight Jabbeke Highway, part of the Ostend-Brussels motorway in Belgium, and Rover were able to claim a recorded 151mph and the fastest (and then only) gas turbine car in the world. And one which visually was clearly derived from the bank manager’s saloon.
Rover continued to experiment with gas turbines during the 1950s and into the mid 1960s, including entries at Le Mans in 1963 and 1965. Ultimately, for road use, the technology was used by Leyland Trucks in a series of demonstrator vehicles and also in the experimental British Rail Advanced Passenger Train.
Rover continued to operate a subsidiary, Rover Gas Turbines Ltd, into the 1960s.
Applications included fire pumps for airport and military purposes, pumps on ships and for aircraft auxiliary power and starting, for which the equipment was used on the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod maritime surveillance aircraft developed from the Comet jetliner and HS748 turbo-prop airliner, and for starting the Bristol Siddeley (later Rolls-Royce) Pegasus engine in the Harrier jump jet.
The P4 remained as Rover’s only saloon offering until the P5 3 Litre was launched in 1958. By then, Rover was a two product company – the Land Rover and the upmarket conservative saloons, epitomised by the image of the P4, known to many as the “Aunty Rover” – a reference to the conservatism and safe place that Rover ownership suggested.
But the independent Rover was a less conservative organisation than suggested by this nickname, or by the P4 in isolation. This was the company that took the plunge with the Land Rover in 1947, developed the innovative, both technically and in terms of market positioning, Rover P6 (the 1964 2000), then put an American V8 in it, came up with the Range Rover, went racing with gas turbines and acted as the incubator for the minds that led to the Rover SD1, a car about as far removed from the P4 or P5 as you can imagine in just two generations.
However, there’s also no doubt which part of Rover’s history BL and its successors were looking to for the Honda based Rovers from the 1980s and 1990s. And for the 1998 BMW funded Rover 75, designer Richard Woolley has been quoted as seeking to evoke his childhood admiration for the P4….….with a four light saloon with four and six cylinder options, wood and leather interior in an upper premium market position and marketed on its appeal to a conservative but not sporting clientele.
And are that reputation and those interpretations of it directly linked to the fate of Rover? Well, not solely, but certainly in the mix, I’d suggest.
Great history though I drove a P4 once and it was slow and swayed on every bump and corner.
My friends 3500 coupe v8 was a good one.
Pininfarina designed the SD1 initially for Austin.
Saw this one , yes it’s full size, on the wall at the motor museum at Glasgow.
I don’t come here for old British car coverage but I’ll take it. I wouldn’t have guessed the Lowey influence on the 75, but one little Studebakeresque bit is the slant of the front vent window, which also appears to have originally overlapped on the main window instead of having the usual bar in between which later appears. As years went by it seems like the Land Rover picked up more of the look of the original 75 face.
It’s interesting how long the dashboards and other parts of the interiors of upper class British cars remained like cabinetry, with the original 75 sporting two handles that look like they came from the local hardware store.
I think there’s a “never been” missing from this sentence:
“Why Rover, with no turbine or aero-engine experience was picked for this has been made clear, though lack of vested interest in existing aero-engines may have been a factor.
Excellent history of a very well known brand, to me anyway, P4s were everywhere in my home town when I was young along with Jags quite simply due to what is now RJR Rover Jaguar wrecking yard supplying the world now with parts but back then it was keeping these cars on the road, Nice cars to ride in but certainly not sports cars at speed they do not hold the road well with scary understeer but the ride is superb the lower control arms are very long pivoting very near the centre of the axle beam and they soak up bumpy roads really well, the chrome bore engines burn oil from new but run basically forever very torquey they made great towing cars, Old Rovers still arent exactly rare here yet but they are thirsty old beasts to keep fed. The cylinder heads were by Westlake if memory serves
My Uncle had two P4 Rover in the late ’60s/mid ’70s. The first was green, I think a 75 though the series had so many similar numbers I’m not certain of that. It was reasonably smart, if dated in appearance, and very solid. Part of the reason for getting it was that it was often used to launch gliders. Something must have gone wrong with it as later it was replaced with another P4 that was largely a dark blue but also had panels in bauxite and grey undercoat. Both had brown leather interiors and the later, wrap-round rear windows.
Thanks for a great essay on Rover. I admire the vehicles but have had little knowledge of their history.
RR may have got the jet engines business, but RR jet engines are still designated in a series beginning ‘RB’, for Rover Barnoldswick.
Interesting. I had not caught the Barnoldswick mention the first time I read this, I have been to Barnoldswick in one of my trips to the UK in company with some friends who reside in Lancashire. I still have a terry-cloth robe and towels from my shopping in the town.
I am an American who is currently hard at work on restoring a 1970 3500S which I purchased new in April 1970 and drove for 20 years, the last 10 with an Oldsmobile manifold and 4 barrel carburetor. The reincarnation will be driven by a rebuilt 3900 engine from a Land Rover but with an Edelbrock carburetor. (assuming the new pistons ever arrive from Australia)
This wonderful article fills in the gaps in my understanding of Rover history which comes mainly from James Taylor’s very well written book on the Rover P6. He writes a a little about the gas turbine program but I had no idea that Rover had ever built any working prototypes.
Thank you for this.
Keith Hennessee
The unusual front suspension design of the P6 was in anticipation of offering the gas turbine for volume production, but was ultimately abandoned, but too late (and expensive) to change. It’s still surprising to me that when I’m out in my P6 that very few people make the Rover connection to Range- and Land-Rover. A few do, and of course ex-pat Brits (and Aussies) know what it is and express surprise at seeing one, There’s a few in the PNW and more in the Northeast/New England area, virtually none in-between.
I live in San Antonio, Texas. I do not think I have ever seen another Rover car in Texas although the Range Rover is very popular here.
I have had a love hate relationship with the front suspension design for 30 years. Never had a problem with it but it kept me from replacing the brake master cylinder and remote power cylinder with a conventional firewall mounted booster and cylinder. I had given up on being able to repair the brakes for years, until the internet came along and I was at last able to visually match up the master cylinder, the power cylinder and the front calipers with some from XKE Jaguars. Those required some adaptations, but are all now installed and seem to function correctly. No road tests yet.
Any good US based sources for parts will be gratefully appreciated.
I enjoyed this a lot. I saw some Studebaker in this design from that rear 3/4 and the way the deck lid narrows as it slopes downward. I was debating about whether to bring that up when your text solved my dilemma.
This is the sort of British car that appeals to me. It is quite interesting how Rover succeeded in ways other British companies did not. Everyone in the US knows about Land Rovers and Range Rovers, but these are quite obscure. Thank you for this tour.
Some very interesting stuff here. As a youngster I didn’t care for the “Cyclops” cars, and didn’t know about the pre-1953 Studebakers, but the final face-lifted P4s looked pretty good to me.
I saw one once in a scrapyard, on its’ side, and the chassis reminded me of a battleship…
I was always under the impression that Rolls-Royce were brought into the Jet engine program because Rover weren’t making enough progress.
Ah! One of my favourite authors writing on one of my favourite cars. Fresh cup of coffee, comfy chair…..
Roger, thank you for setting Rover in its place in Thirties Britain. This is something which I feel is not often attempted, and which 21st century readers find hard to understand. Do you feel you could show us the rest of the ‘league ladder’ some time – who ranked above whom, who was on their best game, who was just coasting…. How was Rover viewed compared with the likes of Humber, or Wolseley; was it a faux-pas to turn up in a Rover when dropping off your child for the new term at St. Murgatroyd’s?
That 1935 advertisement would surely have raised eyebrows – shouldn’t it have been ‘proven’ rather than ‘proved’?
It’s interesting to compare the profile of the Loewy Studebaker with that of the P4. The Studebaker seems to have a longer cabin and shorter front end, almost modern-car proportions, compared to the Rover’s proportions reminiscent of their P3 Sports Saloon body, with the Rover’s much more conservative rear fender treatment.
For all that we think of the Cyclops Eye as being rather a radical look, it was actually carrying on the central spotlamp from the previous generation of Rovers. Perhaps its flush integration into the grille was the truly radical part, as many postwar British cars seemed to be accessorized with a spotlamp or two. And the front end as a whole was much more conservative than the Studebaker. even if the grille bars were horizontal,
and body-colour, the grille size and shape was something of a nod to tradition.
BTW, the postwar Singer SM1500 also had suicide rear doors, with a vertical trailing edge to the door – the whole body design was rather a Rover-on-the-cheap. Except for the somewhat Vanguardesque grille.
Proved used to more common than proven in US. I agree it sounds odd to 21st century ears.
Yes, Rover weren’t alone in having rear suicide doors in the 50s: Sunbeam-Talbot 90, Singer SM1500, Austin FX3 and FX4, and of course most limos (Armstrong Siddeley, Princess, Daimler, etc.), though those were coachbuilt…
Some continental cars were still made that way too, from the BMW 501 to the Lancia Aurelia.
I remember reading once elsewhere that designing and marketing for upper-middle class buyers with conservative tastes limited Rover’s export success to countries with a tradition of buying British and/or those without a domestic auto industry.
They sold well in Australia/New Zealand as commented above and in the Benelux countries, but (as also commented above) not in America where the more rakish Jaguars found a ready, if niche, market; the very buyer to whom they most targeted their appeal was not yet ready to consider a foreign car. They might grumble about the styling of the ’55s to ’59s and just how awkward the size was getting but there would be a Buick, Oldsmobile or Chrysler in their driveway.
When I look at the early model front end, I see aspects of the original Morris Minor design as well.
I can’t look at these cars without then slipping away for a quick gaze at the beautiful P5, that perhaps evolved from this earlier design. A P5B coupe has always been one of my fantasy garage inhabitants.
Love the big wheels on all these Rovers – the automotive equivalent of a big pair of wellies, or some stout ‘sensible shoes’, for tramping through the British countryside. 🙂
What a great article, thanks for the effort in doing it up.
Having grown up in Victoria, BC, which is supposedly more English than England, I saw a lot of British cars. A cousin had a Rover 2000 I got to ride in a few times while his mom had a Morgan Plus 4. I really enjoy these histories of British cars.
This one is earmarked for further re-reads! Many thanks for the excellent history of such an iconic postwar design.
I have a major soft spot for the early 75s. The P6 is also one of the greats, but the 75 took even more daring and came out of left field. Nobody who saw the P3 could have figured the same company would reinvent their sole passenger car line so dramatically a couple of years later, when most of the British industry were timidly considering whether to do away with beam axles and separate headlights.
Damn fine effort, Sir Roger. I honestly thought there wouldn’t be a huge amount here that I didn’t know, but it proved inverse.
There seemed to be numerous old Rovers about when I was a kid, and lo and behold if there wasn’t a nice 105S in the garage at the end of my street until a few days ago! Garage owner wasn’t awfully enthusiastic about it: I’m not entirely sure if I was either, now or then. The Studebaker styling is all a bit lost mid-Atlantic when skinnied-up for English roads and heightened-up for an English bank manager. Interior is pretty magnificent though, and very comfy to sit in, though the whole car is somewhat overweight for the interior room and overall size. In a most English fashion, that interior is also just slightly austere, with enough reduced opulence to remind Captain Mainwaring he is not a Director in a Rolls.
I think you’re spot-on that the reputation and the 75’s interpretation was in the mix of their demise. I really liked (and like) the 75, seeing it as a far better retro concept outside and in than the rather crude-looking Jag S-type of the same year. It bugged me that the road testers of the time said that it rode very nicely, but rolled and understeered a bit – that’s a price I’d still pay for comfort, if anyone was selling it. Sadly, in the world it came into, no-one wanted to admit to being non-sporty, even though a huge number of us all clearly are. No, it’s all vigourous upthrusting Nurburgring types, we like to think, so the Rover didn’t sell as it might’ve. Ofcourse, it didn’t help that the V6 liked to blow up, nor that BMW ran away in despair from the standards at which the Rover folk seemed content to build it (which itself might be the tail end of the long decline in skills that Britain once had in the field – perhaps only the lesser dregs were left, but that is speculate).
Anyway, the new 75 did incorporate the charms of the Aunty P4 with a modern and decent vehicle, and it’s pity too that Rover didn’t capitalize on the very history you lay out here to sell its hidden modernities.
Its nice to see 1950 / 75 Cyclops FDN 156 in the pictures here …….. currently on with another 1951 car now .
FDN 156 could possible be one of the best restored Cyclops out there today .
Many people can be unaware of The Rover Co s engineering efforts and input to the British Automotive Industry at their peak time .