Classic Cars Rover 2000 P6

The Rover P6 – the 2000 – was one of the classic cars that, for those who pay a little more for their transport, defined the comfort and style of the 1960s and was enormously popular.

It was stylish with reasonable performance, comfortable but, particular in TC form, quick and with neat handling for its size. But most of all it was designed for effortless, long distance cruising and it’s here that most sales went

History
Gone were the big, heavy lines of the P5, this new model had a stylish, almost streamlined, body with soft, generous curves that disappear into thin, narrow angles to give the car a very smooth and almost gentle look.

This model had a much wider appeal than the staid P5 and sold in good numbers and one customer (on two separate occasions) was my Dad! He had two P6s being extremely happy with the first and not so with the second. This second car was poorly made and had various faults with the bodywork which could never be put right and so it was sold off within a year or so and the episode put down to bad luck. It was just one of those rogue cars.

In the 60s decade there was the SC and TC models which stood simply for single or twin carburettor. Later on a 2200 model was introduced to handle emission control problems and a 3.5 litre version made available, first with automatic only, that took the car into the next decade.

The Rover 2000SC
A stylish, comfortable body, the Rover was a four seater with wide single bucket seats at the front and single tailored seats for the back bench with a pull-down armrest. However, the armrest would rise up to cater for an occasional fifth passenger and I recall travelling as such on several occasions. In those days I was, of course (and some say considerably so), slimmer and probably a little shorter!

The body, I recall, at least on the first car was well built with a firm, almost safe-like sound as you shut the door.

The engine was a single carb 2.0 litre of reasonable performance while the road holding was good but it was the ride that probably for most people sold the car. The ride was superb, whatever the road surface the car just glided across with a feeling of comfort and grace for the passengers and it was probably the first comment that passengers made about the car.

Inside you had the usual controls and instrumentation was provided as a ribbon speedometer, common in that period, along with little square dials for fuel and temperature. This was changed in later models to the more usual dials as you can see in the image of the Rover 3500 interior.

Variations
There was the SC and the TC for the single and twin carb models, the TC being slightly quicker.

In additional to it’s two carbs, the TC had a raised compression ratio to 10 to 1, new camshaft and new cylinder head. Power was then 114bhp at 5,500 rpm and with better torque.

Later, towards the end of the decade, the 2200 was introduced but this made little difference to performance.

However the addition right at the end of the decade of the 3500 with it’s lovely 3.5 litre V8 gave the performance a considerable boost. Available in automatic only initially, the manual was introduce in the early 1970s.

Borg Warner automatic transmission was offered as an option in, I think, the mid-60s on all models.

Statistics 2000SC
Engine………………………1980 cc
Bore………………………..85.7 mm
Stroke……………………..85.7 mm
Comp ratio………………..9/1
Valves……………………..single ohc
Carb………………………SU HS 6
BHP…………………………91 at 5,000 rpm
Length……………………..14′ 10”
Width………………………5′ 6”
Height……………………..4′ 7”
Kerb weight……………….24.75 cwt
Max Speed…………………104 mph
0 to 50……………………..10.1 sec
0 to 60mph………………..14.6 sec
MPG (overall)……………..29 mpg
MPG (touring)……………..23 mpg

Price
In 1963 the Rover 2000 SC was £1046 0s 0d with purchase tax of £218 9s 7d making a total of £1264 9s 7d.

This makes it just a little less than a third of the price of the Porsche 911 and £700 cheaper than the Mercedes 190.

The 1966 prices (including purchase tax) had risen to:
Rover 2000 SC £1357 9s 10d
Rover 2000 auto £1452 2s 8d
Rover 2000 TC £1415 5s 2d
This was a modest rise of approximately £30 a year.

Finally, by 1973 the Rover 2000 SC had risen to £1841.13 (price now decimalised).

So, in ten years, the price went up (in round figures) £600 from £1200 to £1800.

Diecast models
Surprisingly there are no models on Amazon UK and not that many on the internet. Search in your favourite search engine for ‘rover 2000′ rather than P6 or, alternatively, look on Ebay UK.

Books
There is a useful looking set of road tests from the period for the whole production run of the Rover 2000 1963 to 1977. I don’t know this book but go and have a look and see for yourself.

Rover 2000 and 2200 1963-1977 (Brooklands Books Road Test Series) (Brooklands Road Tests)

Images
This was a very popular car that had a long production run so, while I hadn’t expected as many images as, say, for the Porsche reviewed recently, I hadn’t expected to have a problem sourcing images. However not that many photos seem to exist which is something of a puzzle. The previous P5 model is well catered for but I had to search the whole of Flickr to find these images below.

General Links
P6 owners club

Another club page

An interesting page about P6 development

Photo Credits
Thanks to the following for the use of their excellent photos in this article. Please click on the name to see the original and larger versions. Note that the interior photo is a late model 3.5 and photo 3 is also a 3.5.

Photo 1 - The Pug Father

Photo 2 – The Car Spy

Photo 3 – pyntomyld

Photo 4 –  foshie

photo 5 – ndrwfgg