Rover 20002200/3500 (P6)
Born: 1963 Died: 1976
Destined to be the equivalent of BMW today as the car for the coming young executive, the Rover 2000 was both a breath of fresh air in styling terms and highly innovative in its engineering. It was quite some time in development, with initial design work well under way in the middle of the 1950s. And if things had worked out differently, it could have had a gas turbine engine, or a flat-four and hydropneumatic suspensions. All these were in the minds of the engineers, and Rover at the time were putting a lot of resources into the gas-turbine project, which, however, eventually came to a dead end.
The sharp styling of the car was very distinctive for the time, but the underpinnings were even more ahead of their time, using a "base frame" to which the various body panels were bolted. In addition to making it a very strong car, the system was also envisaged as being amenable to quick styling updates and also less expensive to repair.
The suspension was innovative too, with a unique system in the front using horizontal springs bolted to the bulkhead and a racing-developed De Dion tube setup at the rear. It provided a level of handling that was enough to have it proclaimed as among the top three cars available in Europe. It was a car for safety too, with that frame chassis raising the bar on this account, and the provision of disc brakes all round. Even GM-basher Ralph Nader proclaimed it as how all cars should be built.
The Rover 2000 was unashamedly a four-seater only, but a luxury one, with leather seats and lots of wood trim. The instrumentation was housed in a boxy affair and featured a ribbon speedometer. The gearshift came out of a deep centre console which added to the essential sporty feel of the car. The engine which eventually powered the production car was a 1978cc four with a 104bhp output, and despite the fact that it didn't have the silkiness of the arch-rival Triumph 2000 power unit, the car was an immediate success.
It wasn't a rubber-burner, with a 0-60mph time of a little under 15 seconds, but the 2000 brought down the buyer demographics of the brand almost overnight from the ageing group who were its predecessor owners. At the same time, remarkably, those older Rover loyalists also bought into the new car, eschewing their traditional 3-litre models. A year after launch, there was a waiting list, with the factory running to capacity.
While sales continued to be healthy, Rover bosses were anxious to bring the car further. The original look, designed for far more power than the four-pot, would be well able to handle something much more than the 2-litre and this is what they did.
Acquiring the rights to build an aluminium V8 engine being phased out by Buick in America, the company squeezed it under the bonnet, added an automatic transmission, and in 1968 the fastest police car in Britain was the result. Of course, the police were only a small part of the customer base, and the P6 was now a really sexy car.
In 1970 the car got a new interior design, with proper analogue dials in a smoother binnacle, and a year later the manual-transmission V8 was rolled out, the 3500S, again punching the sales graph ever upwards. In 1974 the four-cylinder engine was enlarged to 2205cc, and along with a new front end that included a distinctive black plastic grille and twin bulges in the bonnet, the 2200SC and 2200SC were the bread and butter models.
The car was phased out in 1976 to make way for the supercar styled SD1, using the same running gear as the P6. It should have been an even greater success, but because it was no longer being built by the dedicated Rover workforce and was now at the mercies of the British Leyland quality levels, it was beset with recalls and finally abandoned by disgruntled customers.
I could have told them. There was nothing quite like the P6, and the Rover brand in its ups and final downs never produced anything that was so right for its time. At this point I have to confess a bias: my Dad bought a 2000, and subsequently the V8-engined 3500, while I was the proud owner of a 2000TC and a 2200TC in the mid-70s.
Call it appreciation for the best things in life.