Have you ever visited Disneyland's "Tomorrowland" or watched Back to the Future or The Jetsons and thought, "Gee, futurism is dandy. How can I drive it?" There's a certain nostalgia in old-school futurism. It's a feeling very strongly invoked by the presence of a Rover P6, a car whose future predictions were that strange blend of avant-garde or just odd for odd's sake – like only including vertical pictures in a craigslist ad. This twin-carburetor 2.0L offered less horsepower than the Buick V8 variant, but could be had as a manual. If only rear-drive, manual-transmission sedans were indeed the norm today. Find this 1969 Rover 2000 TC for sale in New Orleans, LA for $6,500 via craigslist. 
Rover wrote the recipe for virtually every passenger car from the 1980s to the present with innovative features such as overhead cams, unibody construction, four-wheel disc brakes, three-point safety harnesses in both seat rows, and anti-roll bars. It also featured oddities like a De Dion tube suspension in the rear (good enough for the Vector W8, Auto Union Type D, and all-wheel drive Dodge Caravans). Some carried the rear tire on the trunk, instead of the more conventional (comparatively speaking) vertical trunk-mount position.
PhiLOL actually likes the tuna here, but abhors structural rust. Save the manuals.
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ReplyDeleteThe " disconcerting green glow could be the most melodramatic of all coolant leaks, or a grass stain" but really it's juts the sunlight reflected off the fluorescent green interstate battery label.
ReplyDeleteThe coolest thing about these cars is that all the exterior bodywork is made of very easily removable aluminum panels.
Supposedly it makes pushing out minor dents very easy.
I had a highschool teacher who had one of these with complete sets of blue and red bodies. He would change them every once and a while.
My father had two of these. Only the hood and trunklid were aluminium - other panels were steel, though you're right that they were easily removable.
ReplyDeleteDang these were pretty. Back in the day, I drove a Ford Cortina GT, but I lusted after these. I saw them as luxury sports sedans. Sadly, I never got to drive one.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I could fix that oversight now for $6500. On the other hand, it might turn out like one of those 40-year-later chance meetings with a former subject of high school lust. Sometimes it is better to just keep the memory....