The Saint
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Swinging London - 1967
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Post by The Saint on Feb 24, 2022 11:56:13 GMT
My first car in 1995 was a 1976 Rover P6 3500 V8 in Lunar Grey with black vinyl roof.
I have always loved the V8 version of the P6, here is a detailed review and test drive of a 22k mile 1976 example.
The Saint
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Palmer
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Post by Palmer on Feb 24, 2022 12:28:13 GMT
Loved my two P6's and would truly love another one day...
KMH 909K - Series 2 2000TC manual in Almond with beige leather. I bought this for the princely sum of about £300 some 17/18 years ago but it did need a heck of a lot of work doing to those difficult to access rear brakes!! It was a crusty old tub but I loved it, I truly loved it...
JPM 458N - Series 2 3500 auto in Tobacco with black box pleat cloth (although I think the original seats were cream as the door cards were cream). I think I bought this for about £1600 maybe about 10/11 years ago... This was a real brute and was in pretty good condition to be honest. I swapped the standard 3500 wheel trims for the 3500S trims and wheel nuts and that was all I did to it. It did suffer awfully from fuel vaporisation though which gave me some really interesting journeys (getting stuck on Putney High Street on a Fulham match day was a real highlight!)...
I wish I had kept both of those cars but I was just keen to move on to the next classic so they got sold on.
The P6 really is one of the finest British cars ever made in my eyes!!
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The Saint
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Swinging London - 1967
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Post by The Saint on Feb 24, 2022 15:17:07 GMT
A selection of photos of my P6 taken in 1996. It was a one owner 33k mile car when I purchased in 1995, I sold the car in 2001 with 42k miles. Use the arrow to scroll through the photos. The Saint http://instagr.am/p/CaXV0z1KoFa
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Feb 24, 2022 15:31:58 GMT
What a great example Saint
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Palmer
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Post by Palmer on Feb 24, 2022 16:16:27 GMT
Lunar Grey is such a superb colour.
If I were able to get another P6 (and I'd love another V8!!) I would either go for Paprika or Mexico Brown but, quite honestly, I would take one in any colour if the price was right (i.e dirt cheap!)...
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The Saint
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Swinging London - 1967
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Post by The Saint on Feb 24, 2022 16:22:41 GMT
Lunar Grey is such a superb colour. If I were able to get another P6 (and I'd love another V8!!) I would either go for Paprika or Mexico Brown but, quite honestly, I would take one in any colour if the price was right (i.e dirt cheap!)... They are not cheap cars any more unfortunately, I think the white one in the video I posted earlier was up for £17k a few months ago, but it was 22k miles and looked immaculate. Mine was £3500 back in 1995, it would probably be £12k to £14k today with the same mileage and condition. I could definitely be tempted by another one. The Saint
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Feb 24, 2022 18:16:16 GMT
Superb car Saint. I like the P6, probably my favourite Rover.
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Post by D.C. Burtonshaw on Feb 24, 2022 19:06:00 GMT
Yours was certainly a lovely car Saint, I do love P6's too, my favourite Rover too, as Carty has said. Always liked the P6 S2 3500 especially with the Bolt through "S" wheeltrims - the big air intake too - looked like it meant business! Also one of the best looking police cars too!
P6 fans may like to check this wonderful documentary out regarding the Rover 2000's development - presented by actor John Carson (who may be familiar - did a lot of work with ITC/ATV) - That them music, sounds like the theme for a spy thriller of that era!! Lots of footage of the prototype cars too under test too.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Feb 27, 2022 14:46:29 GMT
The engine bay in the P6 was made as wide as possible as Rover experimented with gas turbine engines in one of the early prototypes. This wasn't proceeded with but it meant that the engine bay was big enough to accommodate the V8.
It was a hang over from an earlier experiment with a gas turbine in an open top P4 called JET 1. This was a legacy of world war two, where the contract to develop jet aircraft engines was initially given to Rover, who struggled with it as they had no experience of aircraft engines, so it was transferred to Rolls Royce
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Feb 27, 2022 22:20:44 GMT
Rover had some interesting designs under development at the time of the British Leyland merger, one was the P8, which was a replacement for the P5, and also a mid engined sports car code named P6BS, both were dropped when Rover went into Leyland, the P8 as it was felt that it could take sales off the then new Jag XJ6, not sure what the reasoning behind dropping the sports car was.
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