P6 Rove
Rover P6 Rover 2000 Mark I
The Rover Co. Ltd (1963 1967)Leyland Motors (1967 1968)British Leyland (1968 1977)
Production 1963
Assembly Solihull, West Midlands, England New Zealand South Africa Designer Spen King, Gordon Bashford, David BacheBody and chassis Class Executive car (E)Body style 4-door
Powertrain Engine 2.0 L OHC I42.2 L OHC I43.5 L Rover OHV V8
Transmission 4-speed manual (2.0 & 2.2)4-speed manual (3500S, modified Rover box to handle the extra torque)3-speed automatic B / W 35 and later B / W 65 (2.2 & 3500)
Dimensions Wheelbase103 in (2,616 mm) Length 180 in (4,572 mm) Width66 in (1,676 mm) Height56 in (1,422 mm) Kerb weight2,810 lb (1,275 kg)(2000TC)2,862 lb (1,298 kg)
The Rover P6 series (named as the 2000, 2200, or 3500, depending on engine displacement) is a saloon car produced by Rover and subsequently British Leyland from 1963 to 1977 in Solihull, West Midlands, England, UK.
The P6 was the first winner of the European Car of the Year award.
Development
The P6 was announced on 9 October 1963, just before the Earls Court Motor Show. The vehicle was marketed first as the Rover 2000 and was a complete “clean sheet” design intended to appeal to a larger number of buyers than earlier models such as the P4 it replaced. Rover had identified a developing market between the standard ‘1.5-litre’ saloon car class (such as the Ford Consul and the Singer Gazelle) and the accepted ‘three-litre’ large saloon cars (typified by the Wolseley 6/99 and the Vauxhall Cresta). Younger and increasingly affluent professional workers and executives were seeking out cars that were superior to the normal 1.5-litre models in style, design and luxury but which offered more modern driving dynamics than the big three-litre class and lower purchase and running costs than sports saloons such as the Jaguar Mark 2. Automotive technology had improved significantly in the mid-to-late 1950s, typified by the introduction of cars such as the Citro n DS and Lancia Flavia in Europe and the Chevrolet Corvair in America. The replacement for the traditionally-designed P4 would therefore be a smaller car with a two-litre engine (although a gas turbine was envisioned as power unit in the future) utilising the latest design, engineering and styling, thus making the Rover one of the earliest examples of what would now be classified as an executive car. The P6 would be lower-priced than the P4 and sales volumes were anticipated to be significantly higher.
Rover T4 gas turbine prototype (1961)
The 2000 was advanced for the time with a de Dion tube suspension at the rear, four-wheel disc brakes (inboard on the rear), and a fully synchromesh transmission. The unibody design featured non-stressed panels bolted to a unit frame, inspired by the Citro n DS. The de Dion set-up was unique in that the “tube” was in two parts that could telescope, thereby avoiding the need for sliding splines in the drive shafts, with consequent stiction under drive or braking torque, while still keeping the wheels vertical and parallel in relation to the body.
The Rover 2000 won industry awards for safety when it was introduced and included a carefully designed “safety” interior. One innovative feature was the prism of plastic on the top of the front side lights. This allowed the driver to see the front corner of the car in low light conditions, and also confirmed that they were operative. The relatively sharp plastic projections did not meet homologation standards in some export markets, including Germany, however and so a lens with a smooth top was substituted where the law demanded.
One unique feature of the Rover 2000 was the design of the front suspension system, in which a bell crank (an L-shaped rotating bracket trailing the upper hub carrier joint) conveyed the vertical motion of the wheel to a fore-and-aft-horizontally mounted spring fastened to the rear wall of the engine compartment. A single hydraulically damped arm was mounted on the bulkhead for the steering. The front suspension was designed to allow as much width for the engine compartment as possible so that Rover’s gas turbine engine could be fitted. The styling outline was first seen in the 1961 prototype T4, a front-engined front-wheel-drive gas turbine saloon, one of a line of gas turbine prototypes built by Rover in the 1950s and 1960s. T4 survives today and can be seen at the British Motor Museum.
In the event, the gas turbine engine was never used for the production vehicle, but the engine compartment width (with slightly amended shape) did facilitate the accommodation of the Buick-derived Rover V8 engine made available in the P6 from April 1968.
The Citro n DS19 inspired the Rover 2000 design
Sculptor Flaminio Bertoni’s Citro n DS body inspired David Bache. With a nod to the new Kamm tail, the finished Rover appearance incorporated a necessarily enlarged boot filled otherwise by Rover’s de Dion rear suspension. It lacked the Citro n shark nose, which it was planned to introduce later as a drooping bonnet with headlamps in pods and projecting sidelights.
Luggage compartment space was limited due to the complex rear suspension and, in Series II vehicles, the boot mounted battery. The spare wheel competed for space also, and was stored either flat on the boot floor or vertically to the side. A later optional ‘touring package’ allowed the spare to be carried on the boot lid; with a vinyl weatherproof cover. When not in place, the mounting bracket was concealed by a circular Rover badge. Series II models briefly offered Dunlop Denovo Run-flat tyre, eliminating the need for a spare, though this was not commonly selected and is very unusual on surviving examples.
The car’s primary competitor on the domestic UK market was the Triumph 2000, also released in October 1963, just one week after the P6. In continental Europe, the Rover 2000 competed in the same sector as the Citro n DS which, like the initial Rover offering, was offered only with a four-cylinder engine a situation which was resolved in the Rover when the V8 was engineered to fit into the engine bay. The Rover 2000 interior was not as spacious as those of its Triumph and Citro n rivals, especially in the back, where its sculpted two-person rear seat implied that customers wishing to accommodate three in the back of a Rover should opt for the larger and older Rover P5.
