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...........
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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