For those interested in old cars.

[Rugd1022]

A bit of nostalgia around Leamington...

 

 

 

 

 

[Rugd1022]

Taken seventeen years ago today on Boxing Day 2006, my '73 Rover 2000TC 'WCW 375M next to the remains of the GC 'birdcage' bridge at Abbey Street in Rugby...

 

 

 

 

[APOLLO]

I always fancied a V8 P6, very modern shape for the day. 

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

20 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

I always fancied a V8 P6, very modern shape for the day. 

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

 

A very nice motor car in every respect, and the 4-cylinder ones aren't bad either. 

 

John

[Rugd1022]

33 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

A very nice motor car in every respect, and the 4-cylinder ones aren't bad either. 

 

John

 

My 2000TC was all the more enjoyable for having power assisted steering from a V8, fitted during the previous owner's custodianship by P6 guru Colin Gould in Farringdon. These were taken the day I went down there to look at it in January 2006, I actually wanted the P5B Coupe next to it but couldn't quite afford it at the time...

 

 

 

Colin very kindly let me take the P5B out for a drive and I remember desperately wanting to buy it, alas I was about £2k short so bought the P6 instead. Having bought and sold two P5B Coupes since then I really fancy another one - of all the classic cars I've owned in the past thirty five years, the P5Bs and P6s have managed to get under the skin far more than any others, and that includes the sublime S2 XJ6 I had for a couple of years.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

 

The P5 had, and still has, a "presence" that can only be equalled by spending an awful lot more money, IMHO. 

 

[russ p]

With the risk of being cast into a blazing tar pit for sacrilege I'm on the look out for an SD1 vitesse.  Ideally a really good to mint single plenum one. Twin plenum ones command a premium for little reward.  I've heard stories of the being 220bhp but the owners club told me this is not true and only advantage is hand built blueprinted engine when new. The throttle bearings wear on them causing idling issues which are very expensive to sort 

So my ideal car is a manual late single plenum with the big front spoiler 

[jcredfer]

3 hours ago, APOLLO said:

I always fancied a V8 P6, very modern shape for the day. 

 

Brit15

 

 

I was fortunate enough to have one for 3 years and travelled many miles in it.  What a delight to drive, quiet Wooosh!!! on demand, comfort, handling, predictable, doors close with quiet clunk, muscle with total dignity and looks that turned heads, still does.  It was a privilege to have one to drive, I am clearly lucky. 

 

Come to think of it, maybe a time to look for another one, in todays traffic...

 

[Northmoor]

14 hours ago, russ p said:

With the risk of being cast into a blazing tar pit for sacrilege I'm on the look out for an SD1 vitesse.  Ideally a really good to mint single plenum one. Twin plenum ones command a premium for little reward.  I've heard stories of the being 220bhp but the owners club told me this is not true and only advantage is hand built blueprinted engine when new. The throttle bearings wear on them causing idling issues which are very expensive to sort 

So my ideal car is a manual late single plenum with the big front spoiler 

You won't get any criticism from me.  SD1s had a terrible reputation for build quality but certainly not as driver's cars and the Vitesse was the dog's watsits.  I remember some bloke my sister knew had one, you could get a Vitesse for about a grand at that time....... There was a road test where they stuck it in top at 30mph and flooring it, describing the sound as the revs climbed as like Steve McQueen's Mustang in Bullitt.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Northmoor

[russ p]

22 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

You won't get any criticism from me.  SD1s had a terrible reputation for build quality but certainly not as driver's cars and the Vitesse was the dog's watsits.  I remember some bloke my sister knew had one, you could get a Vitesse for about a grand at that time....... There was a road test where they described sticking it in top at 30mph and flooring it, the sound being like Steve McQueen's Mustang in Bullitt.

 

I wish they were a grand now, I'm looking at 15 to 20k. To be honest I'm sort of looking at it as an investment.  Probably not the best one but certainly a fun one

If I buy the best I can afford get decent insurance and keep it in heated garage it may work

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, russ p said:

 

I wish they were a grand now, I'm looking at 15 to 20k. To be honest I'm sort of looking at it as an investment.  Probably not the best one but certainly a fun one

If I buy the best I can afford get decent insurance and keep it in heated garage it may work

 

But don't forget what you've spent on keeping it warm when you come to count your "profit".....😉

 

[APOLLO]

My P5B saloon has always been garaged since I bought her in 1982 for around £800

 

In the garage behind me as I type, along with the gas boiler, nice and warm(ish). A handy thing with the P5 is the boot mounted battery. Mine is fitted with a battery mounted isolator so the car is not permanently live.

 

Yes the main reason I bought her & keep her is the driving experience, nicknamed "The Flying Armchair"

 

An easy car to keep on the road too, many parts are (old) Land Rover, especially service parts. Easy to get & not expensive.

 

AS to her value, I don't really know, she is insured for an agreed £10,000. About right as she is good and roadworthy but not perfect - then again is any 40 year old car perfect ?

 

 

Brit15

[PhilJ W]

36 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

My P5B saloon has always been garaged since I bought her in 1982 for around £800

 

In the garage behind me as I type, along with the gas boiler, nice and warm(ish). A handy thing with the P5 is the boot mounted battery. Mine is fitted with a battery mounted isolator so the car is not permanently live.

 

Yes the main reason I bought her & keep her is the driving experience, nicknamed "The Flying Armchair"

 

An easy car to keep on the road too, many parts are (old) Land Rover, especially service parts. Easy to get & not expensive.

 

AS to her value, I don't really know, she is insured for an agreed £10,000. About right as she is good and roadworthy but not perfect - then again is any 40 year old car perfect ?

 

 

Brit15

There's a P5b saloon for sale locally for a tad under eight grand. If I had eight grand and a suitable garage I'd be interested.

[RANGERS]

On 21/12/2023 at 20:20, APOLLO said:

I bought a tatty but serviceable 1970 J Reg VW 1302S Beetle for £350 (It had a 1600 engine so I never understood the 1302 bit).

 

Brit15

The 1302 distinguished the biggest technical development the Beetle ever saw with the introduction of McPherson strut front suspension on what was known as the ‘big Beetle’.  
 

The standard cars had torsion bars front and rear, this both pre-dated and outlasted the strut set up with the Mexican and Brazilian built cars that saw Beetle production into the 2000s having the traditional platform.

 

The 1302 range (flat screen/ strut suspension) only lasted three model years before being replaced by the 1303 (curved screen/ strut suspension) in late 1972. Both versions came in standard 1300cc form (1302 & 1303) or 1600cc (1302S/ 1303S) but the 1300 versions were rare in the UK, the extra cost of about £150 probably put buyers off when they could have a 1300 torsion bar car with the same performance at less money.

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

My P5B saloon has always been garaged since I bought her in 1982 for around £800

 

In the garage behind me as I type, along with the gas boiler, nice and warm(ish). A handy thing with the P5 is the boot mounted battery. Mine is fitted with a battery mounted isolator so the car is not permanently live.

 

Yes the main reason I bought her & keep her is the driving experience, nicknamed "The Flying Armchair"

 

An easy car to keep on the road too, many parts are (old) Land Rover, especially service parts. Easy to get & not expensive.

 

AS to her value, I don't really know, she is insured for an agreed £10,000. About right as she is good and roadworthy but not perfect - then again is any 40 year old car perfect ?

 

 

Brit15

 

What a beautiful example it is - the saloons look lovely in the darker colours and I notice yours is nicely finished off with the sill trim in place below the doors, this is often missing from P5Bs that have had work done of them over the years. In good condition with a decent shine on it, Zircon blue reminds me of freshly applied BR blue!

 

Have you ever been tempted to put the hand painted coachline back on it below the body side trim...?

 

 

[Rugd1022]

14 hours ago, russ p said:

With the risk of being cast into a blazing tar pit for sacrilege I'm on the look out for an SD1 vitesse.  Ideally a really good to mint single plenum one. Twin plenum ones command a premium for little reward.  I've heard stories of the being 220bhp but the owners club told me this is not true and only advantage is hand built blueprinted engine when new. The throttle bearings wear on them causing idling issues which are very expensive to sort 

So my ideal car is a manual late single plenum with the big front spoiler 

 

Nothing wrong with an SD1 Russ, not at all - there are some good Vitesses about and the chaps in the club will know when a decent one comes up for sale as they're not always advertised.

[Rugd1022]

Asking prices for Rover P5Bs have been rising steadily for a while now but there's still quite a gap between the mostly solid usable ones needing some work and top notch examples which look almost factory fresh...

 

1972 P5B Coupe for £9,650, needs work but looks ok : https://www.carandclassic.com/l/C1667719

 

1972 P5B Coupe for £10,995, needs some work but looks ok : https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1656627

 

1969 P5B Coupe for £13,995, has a manual conversion and looks very solid but interior needs a thorough clean : https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1649623

 

1969 P5B Coupe for £34.995, top whack for one of these but very nice indeed, and in the same price bracket as a very nice Mk2 3.8 Jag : https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1670087

 

With P6s the prices are all over the place but good usable V8s have been rising for a while, the manuals are still top of the tree for some enthusiasts but these two autos are rather nice and are for sale at the same vendor in Northants...

 

1971 P6B 3500 for £12,450 looking very fresh inside and out, engine bay is lovely : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335124385060?hash=item4e06f84d24:g:4EwAAOSwG8FlV9C1

 

1972 P6B 3500 for £11, 950 looks very nice overall but the engine bay needs some love and the sills and bottoms of the front wings need painting black to match on both sides : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335102712436?hash=item4e05ad9a74:g:7e0AAOSwxZRlRWJh

 

The same vendor also has this very tasty looking 1968 P5B Coupe for £21, 950 : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335152145767?hash=item4e089fe567:g:PhQAAOSwIaBlb5AS

 

And Morse Classics, also in Northants have this very tidy looking 1972 P5B Saloon for £14, 994 in Arden Green, the roof would need repainting to match for my taste but it looks tempting : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166263159929?hash=item26b60e7c79:g:Wb8AAOSwTnNlThSQ

 

Usable examples of P5s and P6s can be had for less than the above, but they seem to be few and far between.

 

EDIT : I meant to add this fabulous looking P6B 3500S which appeared only last week - at £19, 995 it's not cheap but having seen it in the metal at the NEC show last month it's a corker : https://www.carandclassic.com/l/C1671918, I found out the other day that it belongs to a friend of a friend...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Rugd1022

[MJI]

I do like the big Rovers.

 

Lovely cars.

 

Got a Land Rover myself

[APOLLO]

46 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

What a beautiful example it is - the saloons look lovely in the darker colours and I notice yours is nicely finished off with the sill trim in place below the doors, this is often missing from P5Bs that have had work done of them over the years. In good condition with a decent shine on it, Zircon blue reminds me of freshly applied BR blue!

 

Have you ever been tempted to put the hand painted coachline back on it below the body side trim...?

 

The coachline was "missing" when I bought the car, it had new front wings fitted and a respray at nine years old !!

Just after I bought it I had new outer sills fitted and I had the whole underbody steam cleaned. I sprayed a couple of gallons of genuine Waxoyl under and wrapped the springs with Denso grease tape. Still no rust at all.

 

I had a full respray done around ten years ago, using 2 pack and it's not Rover Zircon blue but a similar, slightly darker Nissan colour which I really like. The original coachlines were hand painted so a skilled job - not for me.

 

Brit15

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, APOLLO said:

M

 

 

Brit15

 

 

Mate, that is a nice looking car.

 

My dad was a big fan of that British  high waisted saloon car look, he bought a Wolseley when everyone else's dad had a Ford or Holden. The Wolseley was built here by BMC Australia, though they stuck a 2.4L straight 6 in it to make it competitive saleswise.

 

Speaking of big fans, I'm a big fan of that sports aerial. My first car had one, (also a 1973 model) it  added at least 40% more sportiness!

 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, MJI said:

I do like the big Rovers.

 

Lovely cars.

 

Got a Land Rover myself

 

 

My sole Rover experience is that I remember I got a  green Corgi Rover for Christmas in about 1970. I remember that its party piece was that its wheels were removable via little levers that acted like jacks, and it had some kind of weird spare wheel holder on the boot lid that you took the spare wheel out of and replaced the "flat" one with

 

. In practice I lost two of the wheels within a week or so so the whole car became useless and a just took all the wheels off of it, put it up on lego bricks in the corner of my bedroom and threw a tiny tissue tarpaulin over it. 

Edited December 27, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[APOLLO]

I have thought (just thought) a few times of selling the Rover - but then what do I buy as a "hobby" car ?

Having owned the old girl for forty years I know exactly what is right (most) and what is wrong (very little)  with her.

Every little groan & squeak (usually me !!) etc.

 

She has had oil changes every year, even if I've only done 200 miles or so. This is the secret of the Rover V8, oil & filter changes. Also keep the anti freeze at a good strength and use Bluecol rated for the aluminium engine etc.

The clock has never run since I bought her (as I isolate the battery when in the garage not a problem). The rear heater motor also has never run but the coolant flow is there (there is a flow isolator under the bonnet) - this helps engine cooling on a hot summers day, which is when I run her.

 

She is NEVER put in the garage if wet - I learned this the hard way with my Dad's cars, nice when he bought them but soon became rusty wrecks, he only used them weekends then put them in a garage, wet or dry, till the following weekend. The garage was half a mile away on a pig farm, so rats became a problem also but never did any damage as far as I remember. It was fun in winter starting these cars with a handle, especially the Daimler. More than one rat was dispatched with the handle !!  

 

Dad's car list includes an Austin Princess Sheerline, Riley Pathfinder, Humber Hawk, Alltin (Austin) A40, Jaguar Mk 7 and his last, the Daimler Majestic which I learned to drive in (along with a Mini). What a list !!

 

I traded the Daimler in 1974 for a 1973 Morris Marina 1.8HL - a fast car but NOT in corners !! Not big enough I traded that in 1975 for a brand new BL Princess 1800HL which I ran till 1982. A much maligned car, but mine was fine and had brilliant road holding. 1982 was the year the old beetle went, replaced by the Rover and later that year in August the Princess was sold to a workmate and a new Ford Capri 1,6 Cabaret bought - nice car in Ming Blue.

 

I was saving for a house deposit so later I sold the Capri and bought an Audi 100 GL5E 2.3 Auto - an absolute (to me) Flying machine. Warrington Gas Works to home in Wigan, 11 miles, 10 minutes, faster than a Pendolino !! The Audi was a superb drive but cost a bit in spares / repairs, The engine & gearbox were sound, mainly daft things like a CV joint right next to the engine exhust header kept drying up & wearing out. After two at £100  each mate suggested buying CV grease and a syringe, inject into the joint and job done (every two months !!).

 

A new BL 1.6 Montego followed, reliable but boring, and the Audi bug bit again, this time a 2 litre Audi 90 Auto. Again engine & box were superb, but again many niggles not least a water leak into the cabin etc. Had to go so traded for a car that took my breath away - yes a Peugeot 405 diesel. A lovley car, 45/50mpg (no turbo), no silly DPF /EGR etc. That car never missed a beat, never needed money other than servicing / tyres / brakes.

 

I was soon to get married, and wanted to move house so I sold the Peugeot to a Taxi firm for cash (nearly got what I paid for it) and got a company car, another Peugeot 405 GTDT - a turbo, a lot less mpg or was it the way I drove. That was another superb & reliable car. Not many (if any) around today. Company cars followed untill I retired were mainly Citroens (Xantia, 3 synergys, Picasso) and a Ford Focus Ghia (Very nice car) - All were good reliable 90's cars.

 

Edited to add, when my wife learned to drive I bought her a Rover 213 (old shape), in "Hearing Aid" beige !! - Quite a good reliable car, traded in for the Galaxy.

 

When the twins were born in 2001 I bought an 18 month old Ford Galaxy 2.3 Petrol, I still have this but getting on a bit and starting to cost - her days are numbered (though I have just changed the oil & fitted 2 budget tyres)

Other second cars (The Rover is the third car these days) have been a 96 Polo saloon, 1.6 Petrol bought off a mate for a Grand, that I got 12 years out of and gave it to my son for a year to learn in and currently an 08 Seat Leon Mk 2 1.6 Petrol (same VW Engine)  which is in suprisingly good condition and very dependable.

 

So with the Galaxys days numbered (Tatty paint, rust starting but that 2.3 engine will run for ever), I will be looking soon for a replacement. Not a clue at the moment though.

The Seat will stay, as will the Rover.

 

Jags have crossed my mind, but my local mechanic has warned me away from diesels, ALL diesels as he says I just do not do the mileage or longish runs the DPF EGR etc need. Modern motoring is no fun anymore, and all the electronickery etc is just a PITA, as is ULEZ etc etc. Insurance and road tax needs to be taken into acount also.

 

Are Dacia Dusters any good as a replacement for the Galaxy (I only need 5 seats) ? They get good reviews etc and have a 1.6 Petrol engine as an option.

 

BANG - Down to earth, From a Daimler to a Dacia !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by APOLLO

[Sidecar Racer]

 If someone fancies a big Jag for a major refurb , or what look like a couple of MGB

shells or a Landy  then a trip up to Scotland could see you in luck .

 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@56.0375954,-4.5103539,3a,31.2y,139.26h,86.11t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0RjDcedJzdR-PrtMX6CRXQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

 

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 If someone fancies a big Jag for a major refurb , or what look like a couple of MGB

shells or a Landy  then a trip up to Scotland could see you in luck .

 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@56.0375954,-4.5103539,3a,31.2y,139.26h,86.11t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0RjDcedJzdR-PrtMX6CRXQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

 

I'll take the Landy.

[alastairq]

12 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I'll take the Landy.

 I would too, having 'worked' with them on & off for 20 years...But , sadly, I can't 'fit' behind the steering wheel of any of the series types.....and struggle to ge t behind the wheel of any of the Deaf-ender types...aside from the military versions, which have most of the interior trim absent, enabling my legs and elbows to find room to stow themselves...!  :(