1966? I dont think so!!

As regards the interior details. A careful look at the photos of the 2000S in the James Taylor book shows that everything was ready by 1965.

You can speculate endlessly as to why these weren't incorporated in production P6B. My personal best guess is around the timing of P6B launch. The final stages of the development span the merger with Leyland Trucks. Company mergers and acquisitions are almost invariably accompanied by an investment moratorium whilst the new management assimilates what's going on across the Group. Rover had just had to spend a lot of unplanned money sorting out the revised front end on P6B after the failed crash test. Each and every new component authorised for production, under the system in place at the time, attracted a large development payment to the parts supplier. Just because something was ready and tested at factory, didn't mean it was "free" to put into production. I could see the new management baulking at paying all the required "Development Payments" when the project was already way over budget and the 2000 was selling well with the existing components in place. They would take a punt that they could fill Solihul production capacity without having to do any more upgrades. AND bank the new parts for a future facelift...........
 
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Many thanks Gents.

Certainly answer our questions.
The Holden V6 and gearbox comment is very interesting. Wish I’d known that a couple of years ago when we had the BW35 rebuilt!:
If there ae no objections I'd like to copy your answers and post them to RCCA mail list.

Mike
 
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Many thanks Andries.
At this stage it is just a discussion a few of us were having on our website, however the possibility of an item for "Torque" is very tempting but won't bother you until the new year, for which I wish you all the best.

Mike
 
Thanks Chris,
I'm a Luddite and don't do facebook.
Am I correct in assuming you are an Aussie but not a Victorian?
Our car is on the Shannons Club TV issue on P6Bs.

Mike
 
Wouldn't the early P6B pre-production mules, or whatever you want to call them, have had the original base units without the inner wing cut outs?

This particular dealer does seem to have, in my opinion, a liking of aspirational prices; that comment isn't specific to the car in question. I looked at some of their exhibits at the NEC and wasn't exactly amazed at the value. If somebody feels they'll obtain value for money from a £70+,000 P6, good for them. All IMHO, of course, and nothing to do with 'talking down values'.
 
Wouldn't the early P6B pre-production mules, or whatever you want to call them, have had the original base units without the inner wing cut outs?

This particular dealer does seem to have, in my opinion, a liking of aspirational prices; that comment isn't specific to the car in question. I looked at some of their exhibits at the NEC and wasn't exactly amazed at the value. If somebody feels they'll obtain value for money from a £70+,000 P6, good for them. All IMHO, of course, and nothing to do with 'talking down values'.

Andries or Chris Wilson can tell you the full story of course, but it is the real deal on the base unit etc. With these sorts of dealers they arent selling to the general daily driver p6 owner - this is for high end collectors.
 
But £70k? I am still not convinced... £20/30 perhaps, maybe £40, if TOTALLY original... But it's a resto so can't be.
 
But £70k? I am still not convinced... £20/30 perhaps, maybe £40, if TOTALLY original... But it's a resto so can't be.

You wouldn't want a totally original prototype, as it wouldn't have lasted this long.

The car has been subjected to a full nut and bolt restoration. Every aspect of the car has been stripped down, rebuilt and reassembled. It's the kind of car that you can get in, drive a thousand miles and not worry about something breaking. There aren't many P6s that you can say that about.

The engine is the oldest known Rover V8 in existence. There is a photographic history of the car from day one by Rover.

This really isn't a car for a P6 enthusiast who argues about paying £200 per tyre. It's a car for a classic car enthusiast who wants a top quality turnkey car to both drive and display.
 
It's the kind of car that you can get in, drive a thousand miles and not worry about something breaking. There aren't many P6s that you can say that about.

When I bought mine in 1970, you certainly could not have said that about them when they were new, but after 48 years of ownership I still would worry but generally there is no reason to do so.
 
It's the kind of car that you can get in, drive a thousand miles and not worry about something breaking. There aren't many P6s that you can say that about.

Not quibbling about the car in question or its credentials, but from what I have seen of the UK Rover P6 collective I would say most of them would do 1000 miles with no trouble at all.
I would be very miffed if I thought mine would not do so, in fact I don't think I would want it around if it wouldn't.

Now, if you said the same thing about my Elan...…………………………………….
 
Not quibbling about the car in question or its credentials, but from what I have seen of the UK Rover P6 collective I would say most of them would do 1000 miles with no trouble at all.
I would be very miffed if I thought mine would not do so, in fact I don't think I would want it around if it wouldn't.

Now, if you said the same thing about my Elan...…………………………………….

Agreed, I would be very unhappy if I couldn't just hop in and drive a thousand miles without incident, in my cars entire history ignoring fuel vapour problems earlier on in my ownership it has only ever let me down once with a heater hose failure in 1989.

But back to the car at issue here, 70K is way too much for a car with a nut and bolt restoration but I guess given the car historical significance some may feel inclined to cough up that sort of cash.

As others have said its good for the brand but sometimes you need to look at the seller too, here in NZ there are some similar sellers asking prices way above to the odds, those cars never sell.
 
A few years ago, when stunning Jensen Interceptors were worth at best 25-40K, I was personally present on the stand at the NEC classic car show when an Interceptor sold for £75000. This particular vehicle had provenance and was a one owner car. Although not a full nut and bolt restoration, it had undergone major restoration work and was a beautiful example of the marque. The car was sold to a 'serious' collector of classic vehicles who had seen the obvious future investment potential of vehicles like this. After the show, the forum lit up with a myriad of comments, some with praise,
but mostly from horrified owners and doubting Thomas's. Unfortunately, I am seeing similar comments starting to appear on this forum. This sale undoubtedly pushed the values of the Interceptors to their current figures, seeing some examples now in excess of 100K.
If this P6 sells for the asking price, (I sincerely hope it does and I wish the seller all the best with this) watch the values of your humble Rovers rise and thank your lucky stars that you acquired yours when prices were realistic. As I have stated in a previous post, this can only do you all good, so please encourage this seller and help raise the Rover Marque back to its rightful place among the elite manufacturers where it once stood.
 
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so please encourage this seller

but mostly from horrified owners and doubting Thomas's. Unfortunately, I am seeing similar comments starting to appear on this forum.

watch the values of your humble Rovers rise and thank your lucky stars that you acquired yours when prices were realistic.

Errr... No I won't. I believe the prices we have at the moment are reasonably realistic (see next para) and if they are pushed a lot higher like this sort of thing would no doubt encourage if it sold at it's current unrealistic (in my view) price then whilst I may be better off on the back of it, it would mean any new people trying to come into P6 ownership would have a good chance of losing money when prices (inevitably) went back down to realistic prices.

Whilst i do think the P6 is currently slightly undervalued, it's not that far under and certainly nowhere near what the price of that vehicle would suggest. I am neither a "doubting Thomas" nor a "horrified owner" but it's taken me a long time to get the car I've always wanted and i wouldn't want it taken out of other potential owners price range simply to satisfy the profits some dealer. Your comment I have underlined says it all, they are pretty realistic at the moment, let's hope they stay that way, there are too many people around who see a classic as an investment, not something to treasure, show and admire, this sort of thing just encourages that sort of thing and I'll have none of it, thanks.

I didn't but my P6 as an investment but to enjoy and show to others, if I'd have wanted an "investment" I could find plenty of other, more reliable, methods of investing my cash that would be far safer!
 
Errr... No I won't. I believe the prices we have at the moment are reasonably realistic (see next para) and if they are pushed a lot higher like this sort of thing would no doubt encourage if it sold at it's current unrealistic (in my view) price then whilst I may be better off on the back of it, it would mean any new people trying to come into P6 ownership would have a good chance of losing money when prices (inevitably) went back down to realistic prices.

Whilst i do think the P6 is currently slightly undervalued, it's not that far under and certainly nowhere near what the price of that vehicle would suggest. I am neither a "doubting Thomas" nor a "horrified owner" but it's taken me a long time to get the car I've always wanted and i wouldn't want it taken out of other potential owners price range simply to satisfy the profits some dealer. Your comment I have underlined says it all, they are pretty realistic at the moment, let's hope they stay that way, there are too many people around who see a classic as an investment, not something to treasure, show and admire, this sort of thing just encourages that sort of thing and I'll have none of it, thanks.

I didn't but my P6 as an investment but to enjoy and show to others, if I'd have wanted an "investment" I could find plenty of other, more reliable, methods of investing my cash that would be far safer!

I presume if you were offered £75000 for your P6, out of principal, you wouldn't sell it then
 
I think it needs the perspective that it will probably sell for 50-60, and that to restore the car to that standard isn't going to cost much less than that. In reality 1 or 2 headline cars might fetch that, but most reasonable cars will still be on the 3-10k scale.

What it does do is set a top value for a perfect historically correct restoration. This means that when a historically important car is restored well it can make high values. Therefore is someone wants to make a run of 100 of a part it becomes economically viable, meaning that when you want a new trailing arm for your 5k car it is there and available. A 5k car isn't suddenly going to be worth 20k, it just pushes up the top value and gives us parts availability. It's a win-win for owners in general.
 
To Quote a previous post from Chrisw, who quite rightly states "As for parts running out; I can certainly see that. The problem with the P6 community is that they want a lot for very little. No serious company is going to put money into reproducing parts for a car worth a grand. Little bits might be reproduced, but not the big bits such as the de dion elbows.

Pushing the price up with high class restorations can only benefit the brand."

Stocks of parts for these vehicles WILL run out, and unless the vehicle values rise significantly, the levels of investment required for tooling and indeed the low resale price of these parts means that there is unlikely to be anything reproduced. This will lead to natural wastage, or built in obsolescence and the remaining many will be sacrificed to support the needs of the few, the cars will then (exactly as in the case of the Interceptors) become so rare as to command the sort of price that is currently in question.
Let's get the values up, and encourage companies to invest in producing stock to keep our vehicles on the road, for future generations to enjoy
 
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I'd happily drive 1000 miles in mine and that mainly because everything that could fail has failed and been replaced. In fact I'll be doing three times that in a trip next year. I don't think the P6 has a very valuable future as most low value classics won't and the point will come when petrol fades out of mainstream use. Fuel will certainly be available for decades but becoming more and more restricted. There are about 2000 P6s globally and solid cars need to be worth 5 figures minimum and entry level at £5k to ensure the kind of support needed.
 
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