Had a bit of a surprise yesterday. I was driving home from Salcombe to my home village near Plymouth, and as I went past what used to be a garage forecourt I saw a rather sad-looking 1949 P3 Rover 60 for sale. This caused a huge pang, because from birth to age around 25 (1952 - 1977 if you must know), P2 and P3 Rovers were part of my life.
The first was a 1948 P3 75 which my grandfather owned, and which I think he probably bought new on his retirement from India. This was a very elegant shade of sage green, and always absolutely immaculate. I was very sad when in about 1962 he traded it in for a Farina MG Magnette. Definitely a downward step in my opinion.
The next was a black 1947 14 six-light saloon (PV8238) which became my fathers's company car in around 1958 when I was six. I have very fond memories of driving home from my great aunt's house in Sussex to our home in Surrey perched in the middle of the back seat between my older brother and sister, being lulled to sleep by the gentle drone of the rear axle, and the reassuring click of the dip-switch. The 14 stayed with us for about three years, and was replaced by a P4 90. My main recollection of that car was of the gentle drone of the rear axle being replaced by the gentle drone of Sing Something Simple on the Light Programme on the drive home from Sussex. A radio was a major advance!
After the departure of the 90 in about 1960, the Rover connection was broken by the arrival of a Van Den Plas Princess, and wasn't remade until 1967, by which time the family had relocated to South Devon. My brother, then aged 20, was looking for something to occupy himself in the evenings and weekends and found it in the shape of a partially dismantled black 1947 Rover 12 Tourer (JUC580) with tan roof, in the back of the local garage. This was duly purchased for the princely sum of £12/10/- and installed in the family garage. Although it hadn't been used for a while, it was actually in reasonably good nick, and after a few months became roadworthy. One feature of interest was the exhaust system. My father was working for a company that made stainless steel tubing for the aircraft, nuclear and medical industries, and the exhaust was fabricated from handy bit of 2" scrap stainless tubing. This was apparently originally meant to be the fuel feed pipe for a Lightning fighter!
Once the 12 arrived, my brother promptly joined the RSR, which was then in the habit of publishing the names and addresses of new members on the back page. This prompted the arrival on our doorstep of a young fellow member from Plymouth who was the owner of two pre-war Rover 10s, one a P2, the other the earlier "top-hat" variety. This was the start of a great friendship which still continues today.
Sorting out the 12 involved getting to know all the scrapyards in a thirty mile radius, and lurking in one of these at Blackawton near Dartmouth was a 1947 16 6-light saloon (DDM798), seemingly in reasonably good condition. This car was in a lovely shade of blue, half way between royal and navy, and unusually had blue Bedford cord upholstery. Needless to say it very soon joined the family fleet, and was returned to roadworthy condition just in time for me passing my test. The shock of navigating that endless bonnet down country lanes guided by a steering wheel that seemed only to be vaguely connected to the front wheels, after having learned to drive on a Morris 1100 , and the triumph of eventually mastering the necessary double-declutch to get the beast noiselessly down into second gear both stay with me to this day.
The final and most beautiful addition to the stable also came from the Blackawton scrapyard, in the shape of a 1938 (I think) 16 sports saloon (COT414). This was in the usual black, but set off brilliantly with emerald green leather upholstery and green wire wheels which gave it a fabulously decadent Art Deco look. Sadly, it had a major problem with it’s gearbox which was never resolved, so I never got to drive it.
Time moved on, the family dispersed and the huge garage we were lucky enough to have to house the collection was no longer available after 1979. By this time I had left home so I wasn’t involved in the process of getting rid of the Rovers, but I do know that the 12 Tourer got the best price, realising £350. 30 times more than we paid for it, and around 30 times less than it would be worth today!
The 12 I know is still running, and the blue 16 I believe now lives in Northern Ireland. The others? No idea...
Oh yes, the 60 by the road in Aveton Gifford. I went to have a look at it yesterday with Dave (the friend with the two pre-war 10s). It’s rough, but basically sound and does have a current MOT. Things like the door bottoms are ok, but the panels all have surface rust. The interior is shabby but perfectly saveable, and it even has most of the tools in the toolkit. The only things missing are the horns and the rear lights, which have been replaced by horrible modern items. And he seems to want £4000 for it, if we interpreted correctly the messages on post-it notes stuck to the windscreen, so that rules it out as a project for me.
I hadn’t thought about the collection much in the last 30 years, but do you know what really brought it all back? That unique smell of leather and oil that they all had invaded my senses as soon as I opened the door and sat in the back seat. Immediately I was six again, dozing off to the drone of the back axle. Ah me....
"My" 16:
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http://www.bensonoutfitters.co.uk
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