Background
The Rover P4’s production run spanned 15 years being built between 1949 and 1964; and in doing so, it took bank managers across the Shires from Clement Atlee and the end of the Berlin Blockades through to the very first Top of The Pops and the TV debut of a well-known four-man band from Liverpool.
That it could successfully span such a revolutionary period in our history was at least partly due to a programme of constant revision that saw it evolve from the four-speed six-cylinder 75 all the way through to the gas turbine engined version JET1, which is still on display in the London Science Museum.
A radical departure from the P3 it replaced, the P4 lost the earlier car’s vintage design exchanging them for a more streamlined body with which to scythe its way across a post-war Britain.
And scythe it did. The first P4, the 75, boasted a top speed of 83.5mph and a 0-60mph time of 21.6 seconds, all from a straight-six, 2.1-litre engine.
But not heady enough because the Rover P4 60 and 90 were added to the range in 1953, bringing with them two-litre, four-cylinder, and 2.6-litre straight-six engines respectively.
Modest changes were made in 1954, along with a new 2.2-litre engine for the Rover 75. Two individual seats were available as an option for those middle-Englanders for whom the three-abreast bench front seat reminded them of American cars and all those bloody Yanks coming over here and stealing our women.
And, for those for whom the P4 wasn’t racy enough, October 1956 saw the 105R and the 105S join the range. With high-compression engines designed to make the most of the new-fangled high-octane petrol that had been made available, the twin-SU carb engine produced a whopping 108bhp.
The top-of-the-range 105S had separate front seats as standard, a cigar lighter, chrome wheel trims and twin Lucas spotlights, while the poverty-spec 105R made do without them. Unless it was the 105R De Luxe, in which case it did…
Clearly even Rover’s senior managers were getting confused with which model sat and the range was rationalised in 1958 to coincide with the introduction of the Rover P5.
The P4 range now comprised the 2.3-litre, four-cylinder 80 with 80bhp and a top speed of 85mph, and the Rover 100 you see here. The latter had a 2.6-litre, straight-six engine that allowed the range-topping P4 100 to top the magic ton; heady stuff back-in-the-day when reaching three-figures was still something to boast about.
The end-of-the-run cars were a re-geared and more economical Rover 100, which was badged the 95 and the more powerful Rover 110. However, both were dumbed down to save money with steel door panels in lieu of the alloy panels of the earlier cars; cost-cutting and fuel efficiency was the new name of the game, which leaves the 100 as the model that many consider the last of the real Rover P4s.
And with good reason: the 100 not only boasts alloy doors, it also has the wonderfully OTT ‘Shepherd’s Crook’ handbrake lever, an unnecessarily complex gearchange mechanism, a heater as standard, servo-assisted Girling disc brakes on the front axle, and overdrive on top gear.
It was, as they probably said at the time, the cat’s pyjamas and we’re delighted to be able to offer one for your consideration as our next auction listing.
