Well, it was fascinating. However, as a mere punter who bought one in the 1960s and ran it for 2.5 years and about 60,000 miles, I was fascinated, because of the 74 cars I have owned, my P6 was still far and away the best handling saloon car I have ever had , and I would never have identified " shortcomings" . As far as road noise is concerned, I did not think then that it was bad for this. But times have changed ( particularly as a result of the XJ6 and all that followed , not to mention gross deterioration in road surfaces ) and now I find my recently acquired 2000TC noisy. I think it is very unfair to suggest that it "was left to wither on the vine", because its successor the SD1 was equally groundbreaking in a different way, and was another wonderful drive ,f only it hadn't been let down by rust traps and poor assembly