If you could buy a new P6B in 2017-18

The P6 was a top of the range luxury car in its day so I would expect the same today. Its most comparable equivalent today would be the BMW 7 series so I would want all the goodies that the beemer has.
 
hi there,
Over here the "MG" has just been relaunched on the Ozzy, unsuspecting public, its a pitiful small "Chinese sedan", hoping to cash in on the marque and sporting reputation.
heaven help us if this was applied to the Rover name, what would we end up with?
 
ButterFingers said:
hi there,
Over here the "MG" has just been relaunched on the Ozzy, unsuspecting public, its a pitiful small "Chinese sedan", hoping to cash in on the marque and sporting reputation.
heaven help us if this was applied to the Rover name, what would we end up with?
Click to expand...

now now, thats a bit of an over reaction to the now Chinese made MG, the story is a lot more complex than that. A lot of the UK designed car is supplied with parts and sub assemblies from the UK and Prior suppliers, yes the car is assembled in China but the same original design team are now employed by the Chinese owner, its not just a rebadge.
Incidentally the Rover name is owned by Ford and was unfortunately not sold to the Chinese concern so the Chinese bodged a new name for the Rover based cars.
When the breakup of Rover MG occurred the manufacturing concern was split out many different ways and 2 Chinese companies bought the majority of it however the Chinese Government saw the stupidity of that and forced the 2 competing companies to amalgamate.
I had one of the new MGs for a while as a company car, it was ok, no design or reliability issues at all.
The MG however does not have a good name in China but generally that is nothing to do with the reality of quality or reliability, just a biased perception for the same reasons as mentioned above.

If you really want to slag off Chinese made cars pick on something like Chery, that truly is deserving of vilification and derision even 60's and 70's Skodas were a million % more reliable than these POS


Graeme
 
ButterFingers said:
hi there,
Over here the "MG" has just been relaunched on the Ozzy, unsuspecting public, its a pitiful small "Chinese sedan", hoping to cash in on the marque and sporting reputation.
heaven help us if this was applied to the Rover name, what would we end up with?
Click to expand...

For Rover you end up with this Roewe - Wikipedia

I must say I have looked at many of these in China and the interiors look fabulous in the 75 model
 
Having thought about this a bit more modern P6 simply wouldn't be a P6 because that's exactly where Rover were heading as the SD1 - somewhere else entirely. There really isn't any point in trying to revisit the past. What makes a car innovative in its time also really makes those ideas immune to being recycled. Sadly we aren't really going to see anything like a Citroen DS either for exactly the same reasons. Quite clearly the Rover 75 is to some degree a "modern" P6 but it's appeal was limited and in the end it was merely a fairly competent but also from an engineering point of view rather ordinary car.

So let's look at what makes a P6 interesting.

The quirky engineering - not possible today in terms of flexible platforms which need to be shared across model ranges.
The unique front suspension - Rover themselves moved away from this even with the P7 due to issues with understeer and also I suspect noise transmission.
The dedion rear - even at the time time this was acknowledged as very space inefficient and cost boot space - not workable today on global markets and more compact, fully independent solutions are available.
The V8 engine - not going to happen on any mainstream car today. Efficiency targets across ranges mean small engines and multiple turbochargers.
Baseunit construction - simply inefficient in terms of weight/strength and possibly not so workable with modern crash regulations, although like some Citroens, non-structural panels could certainly be plastic or composite on a modern interpretation.

All of which of course makes the original all that more special. - not to be repeated!
 
Never really thought that much about Rovers being incarnated but really miss Triumph's. I still have my 75 TR6 and would love to see a modern remake. I would also like to see the big Triumph saloon the 2000 in modern form. Only recently bought a new Triumph Bonneville T120 motorcycle (I know that is a completely separate company) but it was nice to be able to buy something new with all the modern fads like abs, traction and disc brakes that still looks much like the 1959 original.
 
Part of the problem is any such product would need appeal on a global market. What would Rover and Triumph mean in China or South America? Even in say the US, it's unlikely that they'd mean anything to anyone under 60 years old. Good point about the Triumph 2000. Although I'm a Rover man through and through as an old car, I almost certainly would have taken the Triumph as a family car "back in the day". 6 cylinders, overdrive and some actual space inside would win the day.
 
You just don't realise how big today's cars have become (in Europe at least - possibly have shrunk in the US) until you see an old car you have not seen for a while. I saw a Vauxhall Cavalier yesterday - a car that was a mainstay in the 70's for the middle classes. Perhaps even being considered a bit upmarket and it was dwarfed by humdrum modern cars around it.

cavalier_zpsbi4adr15.jpg
 
The fact that a P6 has less interior space than a Peugeot 206 is depressing. A ford Fiesta is slightly longer and wider than an Austin Maxi.....

In terms of market, a P6 is/was somewhere between the current BMW 3 and 5 series.
 
My modern Rover would not be a P6 as they stopped making them, these were replaced by the P7, P8, P9 and the current P10 model.
It would be a executive sporting saloon, with a V8 engine. The engine would be a light weight full alloy engine with a fancy modern Atkinson cycle. The body would be made from lightweight alloy panels, these could be removed for easy repair. It would buck the trend of modern cars and provide good visibility for the driver especial when reversing, negating the requirement for heavy reversing TV screens in the dash.
The suspension would provide a smooth drive for the occupants while rewarding for the sporting driver with plenty of grip. Maybe still using a version of the De Dion that Rover first used in the P6. The front suspension would use torsion bars coiled horizontally and the front ARB would have no rubber mounts like most cars, cause they always wear out.
It would have just watched one of the Racing Green factory cars winning this years 24h Le Mans GTE pro class, passing a rear engined German manufacturer’s car on the last lap. (ref. AM passing US car )

So, other than that the model number and the race, not much change then.
 
Top of my list would be aircon. Then adjustable lumbar support for my knackered back. Power steering for all models, plus a beefed up five speed box to handle power. Twin cam heads would be good (don’t know what that would do for engine characteristics though). I think the round instruments are the best I’ve seen on any car bar non, so they should be retained. Efi and related bits to make it more reliable/less juicy. And if we’re talking about a new 2017 car, a little sympathetic attention to the exterior lines which at the moment are delightfully 60s, and some details of which do show their age. I’ve never entirely liked the rear lights standing tall as they do, I think the line loses a little aesthetic beauty here. Redesigned rad grill, maybe some mesh in there to give aggressive cues. Keep the engines but engineer tha weaknesses out of them, eg v8 camshafts. Silence the four cylinders a bit, while keeping that wondrous exhaust note, and make the v8s exhaust note a feature to amplify slightly that v8 burble. Make base units in stainless with ally panels for no rust. Dual braking with abs and airbags. Keep to the spirit of the original above all, that of an older car which was more visceral - you can feel the engine running and hear it too, and everything has a machine like feel - gear selection feels like a rifle bolt and you can feel the mechanism beneath as you use it. I think this would be a p6 in the same way that Saab did with the 900, or that Porsche did with the 911. Development and evolution while keeping essentially the same car.
 
Yes to your last part, that's my intent in starting the thread, just update the obvious and keep the character and essence.

On a slightly different tangent a recent trip to my second home in China I chanced upon a new updated Rover (Roewe) SUV not the MG brand, so we can confidently say that Rover as a brand is successfully transitioning to the new now of a modern world which encompasses China.
 
Yes but for that vehicle there is little parentage with the Rover cars ie 75 lineage, should have grabbed a photo :(
 
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