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When the Citroën DS debuted in 1955, it was indisputably the most advanced family sedan in the world. Naturally, the proud British auto industry was not about to take such a challenge lying down, but it took almost eight years to field a British contender: the remarkable Rover 2000. This week, we examine the history of the Rover, from its abortive turbine engine to the calamity of the British Leyland merger.
If our American readers know the Rover name at all, it's probably because of the Land Rover and Range Rover sport-utility vehicles, luxurious SUVs that are the only remnants of the original Rover Company still sold in the U.S. The last Rover passenger cars sold here were the unloved Sterling 825 and 827 of 1987-1990, related to the contemporary Acura Legend.
The Rover Company, however, has a long history, stretching back to the 1800s. In 1877, John Starley launched the Starley & Sutton Company, manufacturing tricycles, velocipedes, and "Penny Farthing" bikes. Starley & Sutton's Rover Safety Bicycle, launched in 1884, is generally considered the prototype of the modern bicycle. Based on its success, Starley went public in 1896, changing the name of the company to Rover Cycle Co. Ltd. Rover moved into motorcycle production in 1902, and automobiles in 1904. The firm was named Rover Motor Co. Ltd. in 1906, although until the 1920s, most of its business was still in bicycles.
Rover's fortunes waned in the 1920s, until the arrival in 1929 of new general manager Spencer Wilks, formerly of Hillman. Wilks -- joined the following year by his brother Maurice, who became chief engineer -- decided to take the company up market. By the start of World War 2, the Wilks Brothers had established Rover as a thorough respectable, middle-class brand.
Rover's production cars of the 1940s through the early 1960s were very conservative, in both styling and engineering. Rover had a reputation as a kind of middle-class Rolls-Royce -- thoroughly respectable, but somewhat stodgy.
TURBINE AMBITIONS
Behind the scenes, Rover had grander designs. During the war, Rover had been a contractor for Frank Whittle's Power Jets Ltd., developing the "Whittle Unit" gas turbine that became the basis of Britain's first jet engines. Although Rover transferred the work to Rolls-Royce in late 1942, after the war ended, Rover hired several former Rolls gas turbine engineers, including Frank Bell and Charles Spencer ("Spen") King. Frank Bell proposed adapting the gas turbine for automotive use, leading to an enthusiastic, highly secretive development program. By 1947, Bell and King had completed the first running prototype, and by 1950, unveiled the world's first turbine-powered car, the JET 1.
The turbine was one of the great unfulfilled dreams of the fifties and sixties. Smooth, simple, and offering a better power-to-weight ratio than most piston engines, it soon came to dominate the aviation world, and many saw it as the automotive powerplant of the future. Unfortunately, gas turbines were badly handicapped for passenger-car use by high fuel consumption, poor throttle response, high exhaust temperatures, and the cost of machining suitable turbine blades.
Nevertheless, Spen King, Gordon Bashford, and Peter Wilks kept working on the Rover turbine program throughout the 1950s. In 1956, they developed the T3, the first car specifically designed around a gas turbine engine. Aside from the turbine, it had a variety of other advanced features, including unibody construction with fiberglass body panels, a de Dion rear suspension, and four-wheel disc brakes. The T3's performance was greatly improved from earlier turbine prototypes, but its fuel consumption -- less than 10 mpg (23.5 L/100 km) -- was still unacceptable.
THE P6 TAKES SHAPE
The Wilks Brothers realized that the turbine was far from ready, but many other aspects of the T3 were very promising. In 1957, they approved the development of a new midsize model, the P6, which would use many of the concepts from the T3. Since the engineers were still hopeful that the turbine program would bear fruit, the P6 was to be designed to accommodate either a turbine or a conventional engine.
While Bashford, King, and Peter Wilks worked on refining the T3's advanced engineering, styling director David Bache and his team set to work on the exterior design. Possibly inspired by a number of one-offs by the Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti, with proportions mildly reminiscent of the Lancia Flaminia, the P6 emerged as crisp, slightly rakish four-door sedan, with styling that foreshadowed the angular Giugiaro designs so popular in the 1970s.
One of the minor goals of the P6's "baseframe" construction -- like the Citroën DS, it had a steel monocoque with unstressed, bolt-on exterior panels -- was to make it cheaper and easier to restyle. Ironically, the P6's styling would be almost unchanged throughout a 14-year lifespan, and even at the end of its run, it still looked surprisingly contemporary for a car designed in the late 1950s.
178.5 inches (4,534 mm) long on a 103.3-inch (2,624 mm) wheelbase, the Rover 2000 was a little shorter overall than a Chevrolet Corvair -- but it was a fairly big car by British standards, fully 10 inches (25.4 mm) longer than a contemporary Ford Cortina.
In 1961, Rover unveiled its latest turbine prototype, the T4. It was now front-wheel drive, equipped with Rover's latest 2S160 regenerative turbine, making 140 shaft horsepower (104.4 kW). It had impressive performance, but fuel economy, sub-par: Rover quoted 20 miles per Imperial gallon (16.7 mpg U.S.; 14.2 L/100 km), which was probably optimistic. The T4 proved to be the end of the line for Rover's passenger-car turbine, although development of truck and marine engines continued until the end of the decade, and turbine-powered Rover-BRM race cars competed at Le Mans in 1963 and 1965.
What was more significant about the T4, if less obvious, was that its body was a prototype of the P6, with extended, more streamlined front clip, designed by Spen King. The T4 had FWD, of course, and its rear suspension was different, but much of its structure was the same as the conventionally powered P6 that debuted two years later.
THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN
Even without a turbine engine, the production P6 was a highly sophisticated car, with notable advances in almost every area.
Unusually for a car of its era, it was designed with occupant safety in mind. The monocoque "baseframe" was intended to provide a rigid safety cage for the passenger compartment, with impact-absorbing crumple zones front and rear. In a severe frontal impact, the firewall was designed to deflect the engine downward, preventing it from being forced into the cabin. All these things are standard practice for modern cars, but they were unheard of at the time. Meanwhile, the dash and interior were thoroughly padded, with shoulder harnesses and inertia reels as standard equipment.
The P6 had a peculiar front suspension, designed by Gordon Bashford, and developed to accommodate the bulky turbine engine. To ensure that the suspension would not intrude into the engine bay, it had unusual, horizontally mounted springs, activated by longitudinal control arms.
The rear suspension was another cause célèbre of this era, the de Dion axle. Named for the Marquis Albert de Dion, whose company patented it in the 1880s (although it was actually invented by Charles-Armand Trépardoux), the de Dion is a compromise between the independent rear suspension (IRS) and the live axle. As with IRS, the differential is fixed to the body. Because it does not move with the wheels, it is not part of the unsprung weight, greatly improving ride quality. Unlike IRS, however, the rear wheels are connected by a beam -- the de Dion tube -- which forces them to maintain a constant camber. Although a de Dion axle does not allow the wheels to respond individually to bumps, it great reduces the lurid tail-happiness to which swing-axle or semi-trailing arm IRS is often prone.
The halfshafts of the P6's suspension are fixed, but the track width (the distance between the left and right wheels) changes a little bit as the wheels move up and down. To compensate for these track changes, the de Dion tube has sliding joints that allow it to shorten or lengthen, preventing the driveshafts from binding when the car hits a bump or dip. The de Dion tube is carried on a pair of trailing arms, and located by two leading links and two transverse lateral links. The inboard brakes reduce unsprung weight, but it makes them harder to service, and oil leaks from the differential can raise all manner of hell. (Diagram courtesy Rene Withers' Dutch Rover Archives; used by permission)
The suspension design gave the P6 fine handling for the era, with a surprisingly supple ride. Its agility was backed with outstanding brakes -- four-wheel discs, inboard at the rear, with twice the swept area of some American cars half a ton heavier.
SIX BY FOUR
Although the gas turbine never made it to production, the P6 did have a completely new engine, a 1,978 cc (121 cu. in.) overhead-cam four. It had a Heron head, with the combustion chambers formed by the tops of the pistons, rather than in the cylinder head itself. Heron heads, which are more common in motorcycle engines than cars, allow the engine to be shorter (and thus stiffer and lighter), while providing good low-end torque and fuel economy. With a single carburetor, the 2.0 L engine made a reasonable 100 gross horsepower (89 hp DIN, 66 kW), albeit with more noise and vibration than Rover customers were used to.
Despite the license plate, this car is a 1968 2000 TC, not a 3500. The current owner has installed a V8 engine, but opted for a Ford 302 (4.9 L), rather than the Buick/Rover 3.5. Not only was the 302 cheaper, he found it an easier fit in what was originally a four-cylinder car. Although the iron Ford engine is about 120 pounds (55 kg) heavier than the aluminum Rover V8, it is actually about 4 inches (100 mm) narrower overall.
With a new four-speed manual transmission, the single-carb 2.0 L engine could push the 2,800-pound (1,270 kg) P6 from 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in less than 15 seconds, with a top speed of 104 mph (166 kph). That was far from blazing performance, but it was certainly adequate, and competitive with many of its contemporary rivals. The later TC engine, with higher compression and two carburetors, had 124 gross horsepower (110 hp DIN, 81 kW), which trimmed 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) times to a little over 11 seconds and boosted top speed to 110 mph (176 kph), while still returning respectable fuel economy.
A NEW MARKET
Impressive as it was, the P6 caused a lot of consternation within Rover. It was a considerable departure from Rover's traditional quiet conservatism, which had made the P5 the car of choice among British government officials. The P6, by contrast, was more like a Jaguar, with a raffish air that was not entirely respectable.
The Rover marketing department was very uneasy about the P6, particularly its four-cylinder engine, and even the company's suppliers were not sold on the concept. Spen King recalled that many Rover execs feared it would cheapen Rover's image. The object of the new model, of course, was to increase the company's volume and reach out to younger buyers who would not otherwise have considered a Rover. Both the P4 and P5 sold in modest numbers, and total annual sales in the early sixties hovered around 12,000 units. The P6 was planned for much larger volumes, with a production capacity of 350 or more cars a day.
The Rover P5 was a popular staff car for ministerial and consular officials. Queen Elizabeth II drove a 3-Litre, while Margaret Thatcher favored a 1972 3½ Litre. This late-sixties 3½ Litre is a former RAF staff car. (Photo by Asterion, date unknown; used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license)
CAR OF THE YEAR
Although the T4 prototype had been shown in 1961, production delays meant that the P6 didn't make its formal debut until the Earls Court show in October 1963. Dubbed Rover 2000, it made quite a splash, particularly among patriotic British journalists. It won the first European Car of the Year award, beating out the formidable Mercedes 600. Critics universally praised its ride, handling, brakes, and safety features.
Fears that the 2000 would be a commercial flop were soon allayed. With a starting price of £1,264 ($3,540) in 1964, it was more expensive than any Vauxhall or Ford, but less than a Citroën DS21 or Jaguar Mark 2. It was also a good deal more obtainable than its P5 brother, which started at some £600 (nearly $1,700) more. The 2000's only direct rival was the Triumph 2000; together, the two cars controlled around 90% of the 2.0 L sedan class in the UK market.
Thanks to the 2000, Rover's 1964 sales were nearly double those of 1963. By 1966, Rover was selling nearly four times as many cars as they had at the beginning of the decade.
THE COLONIES DEMUR
The 2000 had far less impact in the U.S. than in Great Britain. It was not from any lack of critical approval; the American press was as enthusiastic as their UK counterparts were, Road Test declaring it the best European sedan in its class. Still, by American standards, $4,000 was a lot to ask for a compact sedan with an underpowered four-cylinder engine and a manual transmission; an automatic option didn't appear until 1967.
The bigger problem was reliability. British manufacturers of this era had a very different definition of quality than American buyers were used to. Like many contemporary British cars, the Rover also had a demanding maintenance schedule that few buyers followed closely. When something went wrong, as it often did, both parts and competent service were hard to come by in the U.S.
With a little more power and better support, the 2000 -- particularly the quicker 2000 TC -- could have put Rover on the map in America. Unfortunately, Rover seemed reluctant to invest too heavily in building a U.S. presence. A few years later, Lord Stokes, head of British Leyland, told the German magazine Auto Motor Und Sport that he didn't believe BLMC (which by then included Rover, Austin, Triumph, Jaguar, and MG) should sell more than 150,000 cars a year in the U.S., lest the company become too dependent on the American market. After 1971, Rover withdrew from the U.S. market entirely, save for Land Rover, which lingered until 1973.
This car's notable "California rake" is not a standard feature. The owner had clearance problems after adding the 15-inch wire wheels, forcing him to shim the rear suspension to avoid the tires contacting the fenders. Wire wheels were available for four-cylinder P6s, but they were not very common, and they were not deemed strong enough for the V8 cars.
BENT EIGHT
The 2000's limited power was an ongoing source of frustration to Rover's marketing staff, a problem that the 2000 TC didn't entirely address. Although work was done on five- and six-cylinder versions of the 2.0 L four, Rover managing director William Martin-Hurst -- who had replaced Spencer Wilks in 1962 -- found an entirely different solution.
During a 1964 trip to the U.S. headquarters of Mercury Marine Company (to pitch the Rover turbine for marine use), Martin-Hurst stumbled upon an example of Buick's recently abandoned 3.5 L (215 cu. in.) aluminum V8. He soon discovered that it was only an inch longer than the 2000's four-cylinder engine, and, thanks to its aluminum block, weighed only 12 pounds (5.5 kg) more. Martin-Hurst arranged to buy the engine and ship it back to Rover's Solihull works, where he persuaded engineer Peter Wilks to install it in a 2000 sedan. Even Spen King, who strongly opposed the idea of buying an outside engine, admitted that it was the only production Rover he'd ever driven that didn't feel underpowered.
Martin-Hurst eventually purchased manufacturing rights to the Buick engine, enlisting the services of retiring Buick engineer Joe Turley as a technical adviser. (More details about the origins of the aluminum V8 can be found in our article on the Buick Skylark.) Dubbed "3500," it found its way into the P5 in 1967, then into the P6 the following year.
The V8 engine required only modest changes to the P6, and it was only about 50 pounds heavier than the four-cylinder engine. Fitted with two SU carburetors, the Rover 3500 engine was rated at 184 gross horsepower (146 hp net, 109 kW), a healthy increase on even the twin-carb 2000.
The "Three Thousand Five," as it was pronounced, was expensive, bowing at £1,791, but it gave the P6's performance a shot in the arm. Despite the compulsory automatic transmission, it was more than a second quicker to 60 mph than a manual-shift 2000 TC, and fully six seconds quicker than a single-carb automatic 2000. It would have been quicker still with a better transmission; the clumsy Borg-Warner 35 made the powerful engine feel unaccountably sedate. A slightly hotter 3500 S model was added in 1971, with a five-speed manual box that made it by far the fastest P6 model, capable of 123 mph (197 kph).
In 1968, a new 2000 TC with manual transmission cost $4,198 POE in the U.S., which didn't include tinted windows or a radio, although it did include radial tires and Rover's novel "Icealert" low-temperature warning light. For the same price, you could have an Alfa Romeo Sprint GT, a BMW 2000ti, or a lavishly equipped Pontiac GTO with nearly three times the horsepower. Although the 3500 was more suited to U.S. tastes, the V8 pushed the price tag to $5,398, and few were sold here.
ENGULF AND DEVOUR, INC.
In 1967, the Leyland Motor Corporation, which had acquired Standard and Triumph earlier in the decade, bought out Rover. The following year, LMC -- with no small encouragement from Harold Wilson's Labour government -- took over British Motor Holdings, which included BMC (Austin, Morris, MG, and Riley) and Jaguar, as well as various automotive suppliers. The result was British Leyland, an enormous, unwieldy conglomerate of more than 100 different car, truck, and bus manufacturers and suppliers.
Although LMC chairman Donald Stokes received a peerage for his efforts in the birth of British Leyland, the results were chaos. British Leyland now included nearly every automaker in the UK. Companies that had previously been arch-rivals were now corporate siblings; what had been healthy competition abruptly became cannibalism. Lord Stokes was primarily a salesman and a promoter, not a manager. While he played the confident captain of industry in the press, the scope of his new empire soon proved to be beyond his abilities.
THE END OF THE BEGINNING, THE BEGINNING OF THE END
For a little while, things at Rover proceeded apace, but Lord Stokes soon began to order rationalizations and cutbacks throughout British Leyland. The P8, the planned successor for the P5, was canceled on the grounds that it would compete with Jaguar's new XJ6, after Rover had already invested around £5 million in the project. Rover and Triumph were combined into a new Specialty Division, and ordered to develop a joint replacement for the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000/2500.
The P6 was left to languish. It got a minor facelift for 1971, and in 1973, the 2.0 L engine was bored out to 2.2 L (134 cu. in.), making it more competitive with its latest European rivals, but it was otherwise little changed. While the P6's styling still looked sharp, and its engineering was far from dated, its minor foibles had become harder to overlook as the competition improved.
The Rover 2000 had reasonable interior room for its size, but its boot space was disappointing, a consequence of the bulky rear suspension. The brilliant red color, incidentally, was not an original paint choice.
Reliability, never a strong suit to begin with, took a nosedive. "We became a music hall joke," Spen King lamented to interviewer Keith Adams in 2002.
P6 production continued until the spring of 1977, bringing total production to 322,302, plus a few CKD (complete knocked down) cars for overseas markets. Its replacement, the SD1, was an impressive car in many respects, but -- at least on paper -- it was a technological step backward. Alas, the SD1 was even less reliable than the seventies P6, which did nothing for Rover's reputation, nor for its ill-fated effort to return to the American market in 1980. Rover would go on to produce some decent cars, but none as advanced or impressive.
Rover's subsequent misadventures -- and the fate of British Leyland -- are a story for another day. Suffice to say, the tale doesn't have a happy ending, leading to the eventual dissolution of Britain's native auto industry.
What the Rover P6 makes clear is that the fate of the British industry was not the result of any lack of talent. In design and engineering, the P6 was a match for any sedan in the world. That today it is little more than a historical footnote (at least outside the UK) is sad testimony to the damage done by decades of ill-advised mergers and catastrophic mismanagement. It's hard to look at it today without imagining what might have been.
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NOTES ON SOURCES
Our primary source for this article was Rene Winters' Rover P6 pages from the Dutch Rover Archives (date unknown, http://www.rover-v8.nl/dutchroverarchives/index.html, accessed 24 March 2009); Rene was kind enough to allow us to use his splendid diagram of the P6's de Dion rear suspension. Additional information came from road tests excerpted by German enthusiast Rüdiger Wicke on his Rover P6 page (date unknown, http://www.roverp6.info/reports___tests.htm, accessed 24-26 March 2009), many of which sadly were not properly attributed. We also consulted "The $4000 Imported Sport Sedan," Road Test, April 1967 (Vol. 3, No. 2), pp. 5-27, which compares the Rover 2000 TC with the Jaguar 3.4, Citroën DS21, BMW 1800 TI, Mercedes 200, and Alfa Romeo GTV. Information on Rover and British Leyland came primarily from a candid interview with Spencer King conducted by Keith Adams (13 December 2002, AROnline, http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?kinginterf.htm, accessed 24 March 2009). Lord Stokes' infamous comments about the American market, from the German magazine Auto Motor Und Sport, came from AROnline's translation by Bjørn Honne (date unknown, AROnline.co.uk, http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?stokesinterf.htm, accessed 25 March 2009). Background on the Rover turbine project came from John Wheaton, "The Rover Turbine Cars" (date unknown, Rover Car Club Auckland NZ, http://www.rover.org.nz/pages/jet/jet5.htm, accessed 25 March 2009). |
What's this "California rake" you mentioned in the article?
Anyway, thanks for this history of the Rover P6. Even I haven't heard of this car before, so it's really worth knowing it. The Rover's a pretty car!