Sixties Britain

We called them ‘The Solicitor’s Rover’ and used to see them everywhere on the roads in the early 1960s.

Rover had, and had always had, a reputation for making quality cars that embodied the best materials and these vehicles were squarely and unashamedly targeted at the middle classes. And the middle classes were appearing in numbers in the late 1950s and early years of the 1960s decade.

Fatigued from the war, Rover set about designing a new car to carry forward the fortunes of the firm and produced, in 1949, the Rover 75, the first of the P4 designs. This was a good car that came to be nicknamed ‘Cyclops’ because of the one central light in the radiator at the front. It was a solid-looking car that had a comfortable interior and used the best materials to produce a sort of cross between pre-war luxury and modern day design. In truth, it was modelled on the American cars appearing after the war but still had, or so I believe, a British middle class look, rather staid and old-fashioned yet still very able to compete in its chosen market. That market, of course, was for the professional classes of doctors, solicitors, civil servants and upper management who all wanted to be modern yet retain the old values of style and comfort. Continue reading →