Brookjm's Rover p4 detective work

[HMC]

I shouldn't really have sold my old P4 but I did and regretted it.
In the meantime I've had other similar sorts of cars but the p4 itch was needing to be scratched again.

Picked this up today. It's a 1964 110 which gives you a bit more power ( breathed on cylinder head), P5 instruments and some snazzy wheel finishers. Very late ones like mine had the retrograde step ( to many eyes) of steel rather than alloy doors; after rotting out a couple seem to have been replaced with ally ones again.

Previous old skool woodbine smoking owners have resisted any sort of nod to the times- covers are crossplies at each corner and I haven't yet found a seatbelt!

[Pete-M]

Great old things these.

[Shep Shepherd]

Lovely!

 

'Aunties' always put me in mind of the 1979 film "Radio On" as its lead character drives a well-used example throughout:

 

 

 

Back in the day when the P4 was 'just an old car' in the eyes of most people, the film's director Chris Petit bought the car in order to use it to look for suitable filming locations between London and Bristol, as well as for use by actor David Beames (who totally comes across as a proto-shiter) in the film itself. Sadly, it broke down not long after filming was completed and was scrapped

[RobT]

Lovely. Rovers are for winners, especially the olde worlde ones. Nice bit of patina going on there, but looks a solid old thing too.

 

I'm also glad to see the fleet reduction didn't last long Matthew!

[danthecapriman]

Very nice. I love these, proper old British cars. The P4 and P5 are two of my favourite cars ever, just a shame there's so few around now.

[mercrocker]

Absolute bounder!   Very nice car, is it true these are best on crossplies?

[michael1703]

Nice choice, I've got a 1958 "60" model p4, there's a guy that breaks them in Devon, think he is near ivybridge, I've bought bits off him when visiting relatives down there

[xtriple]

Absolutely love P4s. My old man had one when he was skint (runs in the family!) and they were dirt cheap and even though it was falling to bits, it was still a lovely place to sit/be ferried about in. It did some interesting things though, brakes used to come on for no reason and stay that way for about five minutes - totally randomly.

 

He progressed when he was back on his feet to a P5B and that was awesome - he used to drive it like he stole it long before the term came into being and was convinced the police left him alone on his late night sojourns from Sunningdale to Kew (he was steward of Sunningdale golf club and we lived in Kew) because it was such a stately old thing driven by bank managers and police high ups. Seemed to work as he never got knicked in the bloody thing and he regularly had the speedo well into the wrong part of the gauge!

[saucedoctor]

Marvellous stuff.

[Cavcraft]

Ace that, looks like it's on a re-registered Chester area plate as well.

[dugong]

PHWOAR. I might be driving a Marauder next year, but if it ends up being a P4, it wouldn't be a hardship.

[oman5]

That's bloody lovely. P4s just effortlessly ooze with class.

[hairnet]

you are siegfried farnon aicmmfp!!!!!

 

nice car

[Sigmund Fraud]

Lovely ! All it needs* now is a 1980s Landy turbodiesel transplant

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I love P4s but it seems amazing that by 1964 the P6 had been in the showrooms for a year, were they above or below the 2000 in the price list ?

This has reminded me of a guy in Cosgrove near Stony Stratford that had loads of P4s just rotting away, a friend stored his caravan on the land and when I picked it up for him once about 10 years ago there must have been 20 odd dotted around. This Google Earth shot seem to show a lot less, they mY all have gone by now.

 

I can only see 10, but some maybe in the sheds. I've no idea what he's intending to do with them- the guy empties sceptic tanks in a tanker sign written 'The Poo Lorry' so if anyone sees him in North Bucks/ Northants ask him.

[purplebargeken]

Nice old things, I might have an owners handbook in the cupboard from when I had mine. You can haz if you wish.  

 

Check for chassis rust and hope that the interior is good and not in need of refurb 'cos that is fuggin' expensive to do properly. Wings are eye wateringly pricey.

[lisbon_road]

Looks great, if I ever won the lottery (unlikely as I never buy a ticket) then I'd be very tempted. 

 

I like the period registration plate too. 

 

Old friend of my father's ran a breakers yard and decided to make restoring these his retirement project.  He'd collected about 15 together but apparently got stung for some sort of tax on the number of cars he had - I have no idea what, I am doing this from distant memory - and the got cut up.  Long time ago mind, probably more than 30 years.

[dollywobbler]

Fabulous. These really are proper motors. I'd love one.

[Asimo]

Excellant.

I always associate these with Scout Leaders and Clergymen.

ISTR the engines are incredibly quiet at tickover. F head is so eccentric!

[Junkman]

Whoa, how friggin ace is this?

[Guest Breadvan72]

Excellant.

I always associate these with Scout Leaders and Clergymen.

ISTR the engines are incredibly quiet at tickover. F head is so eccentric!

 

 

You mean professional kiddlyfiddlers?  Way harsh!

 

Brookjim, this car is giving me THE SEX.   Top gifferbombing!

[scruff]

Very nice, I love P4s as well, just a nice old car and built to last.

[Steviemillar]

Lovely old bus, I really like P4s nowadays. A work colleague has an absolutely mint white 1962 P4 100, I had the pleasure of travelling from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and back in it one day last summer in lashing rain and it was more than capable at motorway speeds especially with it's overdrive engaged.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Like very much- I've been admiring these for a while, plus they're good value for what is an executive motor barge. A bit like my 164 but more grey, stodgy, bluff, sedate, monumental, lumpy, avuncular, seedy.

[vulgalour]

om to the nom to the omnomnom

[warren t claim]

Seatbelts are for people who are insecure behind the wheel. I've done well over half a million unrestrained miles and counting and I'm still here.

[Ghosty]

Nice! My dad used to have a Cyclops - probably while he was in the RAF in the '60s.

[Bucketeer]

You've done us proud again. Fantastic.

 

There's so much fine metal floating about the forum at the moment.

If somebody on here could please just get a Zil V8 truck and a Strada Abarth then I'll have vicariously lived pretty much my entire dream car list through AS members.

[Uncle Jimmy]

So...would Rover have fared better or lasted longer if they'd kept making cars and in this vein? What would Rovers P7, P8 and even P9 have been like? I think the Rover P6, fine car though it is, was a bad move. The SD1 was even more mixed up.

[mercrocker]

If the world had kept wanting P4s it would have been an illustrious future for Rover.   Humber couldn't sell their equivalent into the 1960s hence the Sceptre.   Difficult to imagine exactly WHAT the logical successor to either a Hawk or a P4 would have been - Chrysler tried to uplift the Aussie Valiant which would  have been a nice car with English flavour interior fitments but nobody saw them as Super Snipe replacements.   Look at Austin's attempt to life-support the VdP/Westminster, too, with the ill-received 3 Litre.   I think Ford got closest to what the market needed (as always) with the 1600E and Zodiac Executives.   It would only have been the likes of us on here and our 60s equivalents that carried on buying the P4 (and obviously still do!)