grifterkid said:
I'm especially intrigued by the fact that '1' was locked out on the gearbox! Did this mean that first gear could not be manually engaged?!
My dad was a Met Police Area car driver at the end of the seventies and you can imagine the countless stories I've heard over the years of his exploits. They mainly drove Triumph 2.5 PI's from his station at Hackney but on occasion, depending on vehicle availability, would drive 3500 autos and remembers very clearly the plate on the gearstick to prevent him engaging first. When on a call they wouldn't leave the box in 'Drive' but continually shift between 'Drive' and '2nd' giving them better control of the car. Prior to the plate being added he did inadvertantly shift into '1st' on a couple of occasions at the wrong time! He tells me that some cars had been damaged by doing this hence the addition of the plate.
He prefered the PI Triumph as an area car in inner London (the 3500 Auto was used more in the outer Met stations and by the Taffic Department) as it was easier to chuck about and with very controllable oversteer. Remember that this was the seventies and he tells me that a 180 degree spin in the street was more than acceptable if the 'shout' was in the other direction
He tells me that many a quiet night shift was spent on Hackney Marshes doing doughnuts and in the early hours of one morning he broke the diff on a P6 doing a doughnut in a empty T-Junction leaving a pool of oil on the road, a fellow collegue towed him with the Transit van back to Rigg Approach garage whereby the garage Sergeant was told that the diff just gave up whillst pootling along
His memories of the P6 were that it was very much more refined than the Triumph which was a bonus as you spent at least eight hours per shift sat in them. The Rover had better brakes but it needed to be treated with respect when cornering; you had to know your roads and what speed you could carry into the corners and junctions as the Rover had a tendancy to 'dig in' rather than the Triumph hanging its tail out. Again, I'm told that some drivers who got thier conering wrong did roll the car!
His other fond memory was that this was the time before the high visability 'Jam Sandwich' police cars. The area cars were blue and other than the single blue lamp and 'Micky Mouse' lamps you could almost blend in with the other cars. Especially handy when creeping up on villians