DS20

My top two: 
 

 
DS Pallas - much squashy velour, more comfortable than my own sitting room.   
 
 
 
 
 
Rover 800 - not as initially appealing as some, but wondrously comfy for long trips.  I loved mine.  

My Range Rover looks no different now to this time last year, before it went in for major surgery (rot removal). I've never known vehicles like these (mk 1 Discoveries and arrange Rovers) for holding savage rot beneath an apparently clean exterior. I think Land Rover had read the Portrait of Dorian Grey (picture in an attic story) and thought 'I know, that's the perfect design for a vehicle'.

The Ford Territory, as seen in Australia (possibly New Zealand, too - I don't know).  I'd thought it was a rehash of the Ford Explorer, but since seeing them when I was in Oz in 2012, I've learned they're actually developed from the Ford Falcon BA.  Definitive proof: a 2WD Explorer is FWD while a 2WD Territory is RWD.  
 
They're not sold over here, which I think is a shame as I quite like the look of them, and don't object to the jacked-up-estate-car type of vehicle.  I'd happily buy a second hand one when I'm next looking for an estate car.  

I have a recurring dream in which I own a 1989 Astra GTE, only with an analogue dash instead of the digital one, and it's parked in a lockup I can't remember how to get to. This last bit irritates me mightily.

It's taken me ages to get around to this, but better late than never...anyways, a little while ago, I went to the south of the county to meet cros and buy his diesel-converted P4.  Nice chap, interesting vehicles to look at, and a completely charming P4 to drive away in
 
Here are some recent pictures of the Rover in action: 
 
 

 
It has been foggy.  
 

 
 
Trying to fit in with the younger generation:  
 
 
 
 
In Sleaford.  It's not an optical illusion - the P4 really is the same height as an old Jeep Cherokee.  It's like a 1960s saloon-crossover-thing - speedbumps are not overly concerning - look at the depth on those sidewalls.  
 
 
 
 
It's a lovely thing to drive; probably noisier than a petrol model, but goes very respectably indeed.  Overtaking is possible, and dual-carriageways aren't a terrifying blur of passing trucks.  And it's up there with the DS for generating conversations and (positive) comments from total strangers
 
 
Anyways, work is calling, so better go - but will keep the Rover-TDI-thread updated from time to time.  

Not a triple-wiper setup and not at the front, I know, but there can't be many cars with a tailgate wiper setup like 90s Camrys 
 
 

Not a triple-wiper setup and not at the front, I know, but there can't be many cars with a tailgate wiper setup like 90s Camrys 
 
 

Not a triple-wiper setup and not at the front, I know, but there can't be many cars with a tailgate wiper setup like 90s Camrys 
 
 

New residents just moved from Liverpool "Sometimes confused by the luxury of a pleasant environment "
 
 
It seems like the middle-class developers thought that it was still the 1950s and that people were uniformly decent sorts who wouldn't litter the place, graffiti-tag everything, and use the pedestrian underpasses for dogging and drugs. Shame.

Mmm, square sausage...I miss square sausage
 
 

The Sang Yong Rodius, which even in 20 years' time will be driven by extreme masochists and hatchet-faced men and women with enormous families.  
 
The Citroen C3 Pluriel, which in 40 years' time will be viewed in the same* way as Chapron DSs are today.  Maybe.
 
 
Edit: 
Pluriel, not Plural.  Sodding autocorrect.  

It's taken me ages to get around to this, but better late than never...anyways, a little while ago, I went to the south of the county to meet cros and buy his diesel-converted P4.  Nice chap, interesting vehicles to look at, and a completely charming P4 to drive away in
 
Here are some recent pictures of the Rover in action: 
 
 

 
It has been foggy.  
 

 
 
Trying to fit in with the younger generation:  
 
 
 
 
In Sleaford.  It's not an optical illusion - the P4 really is the same height as an old Jeep Cherokee.  It's like a 1960s saloon-crossover-thing - speedbumps are not overly concerning - look at the depth on those sidewalls.  
 
 
 
 
It's a lovely thing to drive; probably noisier than a petrol model, but goes very respectably indeed.  Overtaking is possible, and dual-carriageways aren't a terrifying blur of passing trucks.  And it's up there with the DS for generating conversations and (positive) comments from total strangers
 
 
Anyways, work is calling, so better go - but will keep the Rover-TDI-thread updated from time to time.  

Half my family live not far from the Muff Diving Club, to be found in County Donegal, on the road from Derry/Londonderry to Moville.  Although Muff wouldn't be more than half a mile from the coast, I'm not sure quite how much, ah, sea diving the club gets around to.  

I really can't stand the Kahn versions of Land Rover products. To think that they cost so much, and make the vehicle so much worse...

Some brief thoughts about driving this one.  The big difference between this and the other members of my fleet is in the steering department; it needs much more concentration and far more in the way of minor inputs to keep the car in a reasonably straight line.  Even though its design and that of the DS come from a similar era - P4 first sold in 1949, DS in 1955 - the difference in steering feel and accuracy is decades apart.  The P4 is more like a series Land Rover, or even my mk1 Range Rover in this regard.  Possibly having a separate chassis is a factor.  Even though steering the P4 requires more attention than I'd expected, it is far more planted on the road than I'd thought.  The steering is unassisted, therefore the steering wheel is enormous.  It is also made of Bakelite, or something similar for added WIN.  Seriously, it's a lovely wheel to hold - nothing like the mushy, over-padded tiny wheels that most modern cars use - I'm looking at YOU, M-Sport BMWs.  The route between Grimsby and Lincoln (minor roads to Caistor, then A46) is my favoured road to try to get a feel of how a vehicle handles, as it has a mixture of tight bends, a couple of twisty sections, a straight bit, and a hilly bit (yes, there is a hill in Lincolnshire), and the P4 can cope with this route at the same sort of speed that I might expect from a mid-range modern hatchback, although if I'm honest it feels comfortable travelling a little more slowly.  But then it is over 50 years old.  Regardless, I've yet to find the ragged edge of the car's handling, and based on the similarity of steering feel to a series L-R it wouldn't surprise me if extreme cornering led to some sort of four-wheel-drift rather than heavy under- or oversteer.  I hope there won't be an update on this, accompanied by a photograph of the car in a hedge.  
 
Brakes.  These are surprisingly effective.  The pedal needs a good shove to inaugurate retardation, but once the signal has been rung down to the engine-room the car stops sharply.  I had to do an emergency stop in Lincoln on Friday, stopped rather more quickly than I was expecting, and far more quickly than the driver of the car behind was expecting.  I nearly had a Chrysler Cruiser-thing in the boot.  Once you've adjusted to the amount of pressure needed on the pedal, all is good.  I imagine switching between this and the DS would be an interesting* exercise.  
 
The suspension sorts out bigger bumps, long-wave undulations in the road, bigger potholes, and speed bumps really effectively.  It's not magic-carpet-rivalling (I've never driven a Jag XJ40 and would love to), but it's far from agricultural and unrefined.  I imagine that the tyres, with their super-deep sidewalls, help a lot with this.  Broken road surfaces, where the very top layer of last year's blown-over surface dressing has partially failed, present the P4 with a bigger problem.  This sort of road surface makes itself felt through the steering wheel, and to a lesser degree through the whole body of the car.  It's a shame that we have a LOT of this sort of road surface around here.  
 
I've not driven any other P4s, so I don't know how the Land Rover TDI engine compares with the six-cylinder petrol this one had when new.  It's probably much noisier.  As is, this one is quite noisy around town, and still audible but not deafening on the open road.  It helps that I love the sound of L-R TDI units  It pulls really well, with a pleasing touch of turbo whistle, just letting you know it's there.  This isn't the car for drag-racing, but neither is it a rolling roadblock, holding up the rest of the world.  It's noticeably quicker than the DS, and quicker than some of the modern cars I've had in the past.  Like the Hi-Torq Corsa B that I detested, for instance.  Hills aren't a problem, and neither is passing slow traffic.  It doesn't overheat, even in very heavy traffic (anyone tried to drive out of Lincoln up Canwick Hill recently?).  
 
The massively-long gearstick is taking some getting used to (fnar), as is the absence of synchromesh on first gear.  As long as the gear-changing isn't hurried, it's a pleasing thing to use; and I'd say that while the overdrive *may* have been optional when the car was new, it is in fact a necessity, not an option, certainly with this diesel engine.  There isn't a rev-counter, so I can only go on gut feeling with this one.  
 
What isn't left to personal opinion is the fuel economy.  I doubt that the original 2.6-litre engine would often better 30mpg, while this one has been giving 45mpg on average, which is ACE.  
 
The interior is a comfortable place to be.  The seats are relatively upright, which contrasts with a lot of more modern vehicles, but in combination with the large areas of glass all around gives a good view of the world around.  The rear-view mirror is curved at either end, giving a slight fish-eye effect and helping to lessen the blind spots, which is altogether a Good Thing as the wing-mirrors, actually mounted on the front of the front wings, seem to be a million miles away and offer a far-too-small view of what's behind.  For the sake of my wellbeing and inner equilibrium, I might move these to the doors as changing lanes on dual-carriageways is more exciting* than it should be.  Age and wear have taken their toll on the outside of the front seats, meaning that the occupants end up leaning towards the doors.  I'm not sure if it's my imagination, but the floorpan seems to slope towards the outside of the car, too.  With the front seat set far back enough for me, leg room in the rear is adequate rather than excellent; and head room is ace.  It wouldn't surprise me if Rover designed this car to be accessible for those wearing bowler hats.  
 
Heating and demisting are...well...better than the DS.  That, however, isn't setting a desperately high bar.  Looking on the bright side, it's far better than on an MGB GT that a friend had for several years, in that the P4 allows for the driver to adjust the heating level without stopping the car and clambering into the bonnet.  And it's possible to drive the P4 in the rain without having to stop every mile to wipe the windscreen and side glass free of condensation.  So, not up there with the Saab's overengineered heating and ventilation, or the Range Rover's ability to get from stone cold to normal operating temperature in under a mile, but not cataclysmically abysmal either.  I imagine that this level of provision would have been entirely adequate and reasonable when this P4 was born in the early '60s.  The boot isn't as big as you might think from the car's outside appearance.  This is because there is a spare-wheel 'slot' at the bottom of it (I'll have to take a picture.  It's hard to explain.), and because the floorpan curves up to clear the rear axle.  Probably there's only room for one body in the boot, but then in the early '60s crims used mark 2 Jags, didn't they, and not Rovers?    
 
People seem to love the way the P4 looks - and it looks way different to anything else on the roads.  I've had a number of people come up to me the car and tell me it that their parents / uncle / aunt had one back in the day, and how much they like it.  There've also been about a dozen children drag their parents over for a closer look and to ask questions like 'is it Victorian, mister?' (answer: no), and 'is this EVEN OLDER THAN YOU, MUMMY?' (answer: yes, although so far none of the parents has found this a flattering comparison.  Can't think why.)  The only slightly negative reaction has been from a couple of repmobiles driven by people desperate to pass the ancient car.  Like the Ford Focus 'Sport' that took over a mile to overtake me on the Sleaford bypass.  That could be their normal driving mode, though.  
 
 
Verdict after a couple of months mixed use: 50-year-old-car is pleasing to use as an every-day vehicle.  I genuinely didn't think this would be so.  

It's taken me ages to get around to this, but better late than never...anyways, a little while ago, I went to the south of the county to meet cros and buy his diesel-converted P4.  Nice chap, interesting vehicles to look at, and a completely charming P4 to drive away in
 
Here are some recent pictures of the Rover in action: 
 
 

 
It has been foggy.  
 

 
 
Trying to fit in with the younger generation:  
 
 
 
 
In Sleaford.  It's not an optical illusion - the P4 really is the same height as an old Jeep Cherokee.  It's like a 1960s saloon-crossover-thing - speedbumps are not overly concerning - look at the depth on those sidewalls.  
 
 
 
 
It's a lovely thing to drive; probably noisier than a petrol model, but goes very respectably indeed.  Overtaking is possible, and dual-carriageways aren't a terrifying blur of passing trucks.  And it's up there with the DS for generating conversations and (positive) comments from total strangers
 
 
Anyways, work is calling, so better go - but will keep the Rover-TDI-thread updated from time to time.  

Privet plate. Nice, you don't get many hedges on cars these days. And i like how the car probably has new brakes because they feel new.
 
"Should go streat threw a MOT". That's good to know.......

Now driven this over 200 miles with no issues...

What's not to like?
 
DSC_6847 by srblythe, on Flickr

Breaking news....
 
That blue 740 i posted?  I've just put in a bid.  3 hours left and I'm winning.

Name stolen to gain some glamour?

The winner of the last round was this, a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr convertible.  I couldn't find a reference for it in this body type, from this angle and in this colour so ended up using half a dozen reference images to put it together how I wanted it.  End result is very satisfying, even if the scanner did ignore some of the yellow coachwork.

 
Suggestions for the 17th of April are as follows, I'll pick one:
> Bunny Buick (my eyes!)
> White Metro
> Tatra 603
> Gaz Volga
> Singer 9 Bantam
> Ssangyong Rhodius
 
Suggestions for Friday the 24th April are now being taken.

Hasnt he done a lovely job painting the wing?