P8

[NickDunning]

Look what Adrian Mitchell managed to come across hiding in the open, but fenced-off, security area at Gaydon yesterday. I've never seen her before. I managed to get back to my car and grab my camera and reel off a few photos before we were ushered off the premises.

Despite her severely bedraggled condition she has some serious presence. She's a lot more sleek in the flesh than the old styling room photos suggest. Length-wise she's no bigger than a P6 in my perception.

This damage is from where she famously fell off the lorry when being taken to Gaydon in approx 1998.

Severe lack of windows is causing things to get wet inside. Hope she's out of the elements soon.

Having been in the presence of P7 a couple of years ago I can now claim to have seen the entire set.

 

[rockdemon]

Woah I thought these things didn't actually exist. That would have so much road presence!

 

[NickDunning]

Woah I thought these things didn't actually exist. That would have so much road presence!

It is the only survivor. The other five or six running cars were scrapped in 1971. The records at Heritage very sadly have wording similar to 'Cars scrapped, log books destroyed July 1971' against them.

Jaguar 1 - Rover nil.

P8 is a fascinating subject. The car was close to production when cancelled - IIRC launch was actually scheduled for Autumn 1971.

I'd love to have driven one - I know of some cine film shot at MIRA which shows it flying round the banking with P6's chase cars having real problems staying with it..

The Wiki entry is generally on the money, but I think has the dates wrong slightly as I remember the cancellation stuff being 1971:

"The company's other major project at this time was the P8, a successor, styled by David Bache, for the 3-litre.

The car's shape owed much to Detroit, with a front bumper concealed under a "bumperless" poyurethene nose, in a manner reminiscent of contemporary Pontiacs, and a side profile reminiscent of a slightly chunkier Opel Rekord. Although the original brief was for the car to be no longer externally than a Rover 2000, management changes led the project to be redefined as it progressed, and the P8 scheduled for launch at the 1971 London Motor Show was substantially larger than any existing Rover sedan, with the Rover V8 engine expanded for this application to 4.4 litres. The car followed the P6 in employing a steel frame structure with bolt-on steel or aluminium panels. The manufacturer was nevertheless short of cash and of focus at this time: the P8 was one of several new model projects subjected to a slipping time-line.

By the revised launch date towards the end of 1972 the considerable development costs had been expended and pre-production prototypes had even undergone extensive testing in Finland. Production capacity had been set aside for the P8 at the Solihull plant. However, an expenditure review in 1970 found the project subjected to criticism from Sir William Lyons, by now an influential member of the British Leyland board: speculation has arisen that Lyons saw the car as a threat to future investment in the recently launched Jaguar XJ6.

It later emerged that Rover's contender would not have been particularly cheap or easy to build, and the shrinkage of the European market for sedans of this size that followed the 1973 oil price shock suggest that abandonment of the project in 1972 - even at the eleventh hour - may have been the right decision for British Leyland; but the P8 was not entirely ummourned nearly thirty years later. Some of the P8's styling cues turned up two years later on the Leyland P76, and the driver's view of the instrument panel (albeit without the Austin Allegro style "quartic" steering wheel that appears in one of the surviving pictures of it) would have been not entirely unfamiliar to the driver of a 1976 Rover 3500."

Some more relevant P8 stuff here:

http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/2011/08 ... -solihull/

 

[SydneyRoverP6B]

Looks like a mix of a number of cars. The 'gills' in the front guard remaind me on a Jensen, the grill of a Toyota Celica. The side view is a bit like a Toyota Crown or an Australian Holden Kingswood. I can see the SD1 interior evolving with the dash, instrument binnacle and the appaling steering wheel.

Ron.

 

[rockdemon]

What is the deal with the heritage organization? Surely something like this really shouldn't be sitting outside with no windows?

 

[The Rovering Member]

No, it shouldn't. That really does look like those bigger Toyota's, I always thought it did. Not sure I like it though it would have been good to see it in full production form.

 

[NickDunning]

No, it shouldn't. That really does look like those bigger Toyota's, I always thought it did. Not sure I like it though it would have been good to see it in full production form.

I have warmed to it having seen it in reality - the colour is not flattering (the dull grey Rover used for incognito prototypes).

Those vents behind the front wheels may have been more than cosmetic (cooling?). I suspect Chris will have something to say about that.

 

[Pilkie]

Somebody needs to approach them and try to buy it and restore it before some idiot there just scraps it.
Or they need to store it properly and display it as is.

 

[Demetris]

That really does look like those bigger Toyota's, I always thought it did.

With that "shoulder" over the rear wheel it reminds me more of the Datsun 160B.
Too much American influence i guess, but it can't hide the fact that it looks rather dull, grey paint job or not. No comparison really with the exciting looks of the P6 and the SD1.

 

[billoddie]

Real shame whats happened to that car,,,would have thought being the last there is, a little more concern for it would be forthcoming.
Where would you even begin to restore it though?

 

[chrisw]

Nick,

It's amazing that it has survived for so long. Looking past the P8 (rear view picture), what's over by the van - Rover CCV, or another Coupe prototype?

I remember being shown the original bonnet from the BRM that was in storage when I was there in 2000. Covered in dust, but still in one piece.

It would be nice if the RSR - for instance - could arrange with Gaydon to see what they have in storage sometime. Would make for a nice day out.

 

[NickDunning]

Nick,

It's amazing that it has survived for so long. Looking past the P8 (rear view picture), what's over by the van - Rover CCV, or another Coupe prototype?

It's the CCV Chris.

I remember being shown the original bonnet from the BRM that was in storage when I was there in 2000. Covered in dust, but still in one piece.

It would be nice if the RSR - for instance - could arrange with Gaydon to see what they have in storage sometime. Would make for a nice day out.

I don't believe that is possible at all - if there's any way I could have seen P8 before now I'd have jumped at it. We knew she was on the premises, but hidden away. Also in the security zone was a booted Metro and the Metro/MGF Test Mule.

 

[chrisyork]

Before you read this, keep in your mind that this post describes events in the autumn of 1971. That's at the point when the series 2 P6 had only just been announced. There was as yet no 3500S, no 2200's and the P6 still had a further six years production ahead of it.

P8 is genuinly the last Rover. It's design was started in 1966 as a joint successor to P5 and P6. Original papers show projected performance statistics for it with the 2000TC engine installed. By the time running prototypes emerged, though, there is no doubt that the car had grown in size. As such the BL board encouraged Rover to abandon its role as a P6 replacement and to initiate a new project to fill that role. That was P10.

P10 looks exctly like SD1 to a cursory glance, but is actually very different. There would have been no V8 and the engine range was based around a new engine built on the existing P6 4 pot production tooling. As such it had the same bore spacings and stroke as the P6 4 pot, but the bore was increased to give a capacity of 2.2 ltrs (ring any bells folks?). But it was a slant four like the contemporary Lotus and Vauxhall engines and had double overhead cams and 16 valves. Individual throttle body injection - remember that Rover was in the vanguard of electronic injection development, it was just that circumstances had conspired never to allow them to launch a production installation - gave a power output of 160 bhp at the time of its intended launch in 1973. P10 died in the conflagration that followed the cancellation of P8. But it rose phoenix like to subsume the parallel replacement for the Triumph sixes and become SD1. So SD1 is actually a P10 with a V8 and the Triumph sixes, but crucially also with Austin-Morris values and pennypinching evident throughout and especially in the interior. So Spen King was able to say that the unusual torque tube rear axle had been a planned feature from the start. It was a P10 feature intended for a four cylinder P6 replacement. A lucky concidence that it allowed pick up points on the shell to correspond almost exactly with the de dion pick ups of P8?

But back to P8. It was a stunning technical triumph. Of course it had a de dion rear end, but this time the tube was ahead of and above the axle. And the spring medium was active gas over hydraulic with citroen-esque spheres living in the engine bay. The front suspension was no less radical. A subframe carrying the double wishbone suspension was able to slide for and aft on a double tube runway.

Rumour at the time was that a poor crash test result had led to the cancellation. Photographs of the crash results demonstrate that this had been fixed by the time of cancellation, so was a bit of spin to camoflage the true reasons.

By any normal consideration the car was well past the point of no return at cancellation. I vividly remember reading the announcement and commentary in the Times business section (long before Murdoch, when it was still a heavyweight paper). The Times had obviously had a very full breifing and described the car as being able to destroy the Mercedes S class. The body tooling had been ordered, manufatured, delivered and installed at PSF. All that remained was the off tools pilot run and commissioning of the production line. A launch in the autumn of 1972 looked likely.

There is little doubt that the initial offering was going to be a carburettored V8 of 3.9 ltr, subsequently transferred to the Range Rover Classic. All published photographs show the car badged as a Rover 4000. But our family was still plugged in to the works grapevine at the time, and the rumour mill was buzzing with the idea that this was very much a stop gap engine and that the intention was to go to a 4.4 V8. For many years I assumed this was the engine that subsequently appeared in the Australian P76. I now know that that engine couldn't have been built at Rover without a major re-work of the Rover V8 production line. The Australian 4.4 is a genuine Rover engine - contrary to much hot air from Leyland Australia at the time - indeed it had been projected right at the start of the V8 programme. But it has different bore spacing to the 3.5 and the line had been built with no provision to accomodate that - apparently a cock up! Now that I've seen the P10 2.2 slant four, I wonder... Could the 4.4 rumour be true? But actually refer to a V8 version of the slant four? Both Vauxhall and Lotus had built slant fours as part of programmes that included V8's - only the Lotus one made it to production. If that is true, then P8 is really a 300bhp quad cam 32 valve Uber-Saloon!

The Rover engineering team and senior management team had survived pretty well intact from the initial Leyland merger in '67 through the merger to form BL in '68 right up to the point of P8 cancellation in autumn '71. The only change brought about by the incorporation into BL was that major investment decisions were having to be referred up from the Rover board - still intact - to the BL board. BL had been almost totally consummed by trying to sort out BMC and took very little interest in Rover. So P8 really is a true Rover and owed almost nothing to BL.

The consequences of the cancellation were extremely far reaching. The Rover engineering team were opened up to the rest of BL as part of the Specialist Division (hence SD1) and also found roles within the BMC design team at Longbridge. BMC people also got access to Rover. As a result SD1, although originating as a Rover project, is contaminated by much more than just the reworked Triumph sixes.

P8, therefore, really is the last Rover. But the story isn't quite over. That body tooling was still sitting at PSF embarrassing everybody. So a project took form almost as a hobby job, with the MG Abingdon design and development team taking on, as their last job before disbandment, the engineering of a new car for Leyland Australia. Supervised on a part time basis by David Bache and Spen King, they produced P76. It carried the abortive 4.4 Rover V8 as well as other Australia only engines - the RWD 2.6 ltr versions of the Austin Maxi and 2200 Land Crab E series. I an certain that P76 carries P8 doors, it seems very possible that other major elements of the car link back to that spare P8 body tooling.

Rover clearly felt a fatherly interest in P76. Two were brought over to the UK from the first batches and were given to Vanden Plas to see if they could make a credible replacement for the P5B out of them. But that idea died as soon as the British press got hold of them and started mocking the live rear axle.

And that really is that! The end of the original Rover Co Ltd.

Except that the P10 DOHC 16 valve engine does have some remarkable similarities to the subsequent BMC M16 engine.... We know that the engineer who lead the P10 engine team had a 1 day per week duty at Longbridge. Is it possible that the ghost of Rover lived on in the 800?

Chris

 

[adamjack]

All I can say is WOW :shock: what a fantastic car she would have been ,the story of the P8/10 reminds me so much of the TSR2

 

[chrisyork]

For completeness, a couple of pictures of P76's:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nzcarfreak/6122872403/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dedlinz/5521720474/





There was a nice coupe as well - showing distinct links to Bache's P6 coupe - Gladys





Chris

 

[herts2000]

It would be nice if the RSR - for instance - could arrange with Gaydon to see what they have in storage sometime. Would make for a nice day out.

That would be great

 

[NickDunning]

All I can say is WOW :shock: what a fantastic car she would have been ,the story of the P8/10 reminds me so much of the TSR2

Yes - I've thought the same thing - but TSR2 was killed by the Government. P8 was killed by politics within BL.

 

[NickDunning]

I an certain that P76 carries P8 doors, it seems very possible that other major elements of the car link back to that spare P8 body tooling.

I spoke to a very well known ex-Rover person last year on this subject - apparently not the case.

Just found this shot online. It appears to be TXC160J, but the colour is wrong. Still looks a lot more complete than what's left now, so could be an image taken sometime in the 1980's.

 

[NickDunning]

I an certain that P76 carries P8 doors, it seems very possible that other major elements of the car link back to that spare P8 body tooling.

I spoke to a very well known ex-Rover person last year on this subject - apparently not the case.

Just spoken to Chris and it transpires the gent who told me this has said that on second thoughts he doesn't know....

 

[testrider]

The door silhouette does look the same, the only difference I can see is that the P76 rear doors don't overlap the wheelarch/D post like on the P8 and P6 so the tooling would have been different or at least modified.

Are there any photos of the engine bay or chassis of the P8 to compare with the P76?