The modern car market has a distinct lack of upmarket British saloons, unless you look to exotic marques like Rolls-Royce. But from the late-1940s right up to the mid-2000s, Rover produced saloon cars with class, luxury, comfort and quality in abundance.
The Rover P4 ushered in a new era for the firm, featuring unusual modern styling in stark contrast with the outdated P3. While not necessarily the most sporting offerings – or the perhaps the highest quality towards the end – a saloon with the Viking on the nose ensured that you were in for a memorable driving experience. With 75 years having passed since the P4 emerged, we’ve decided to look at six decades of Rover saloon cars.
P4 (1949-1964)
Rover was so keen to start building cars again after World War 2 that it restarted production of its pre-War P3, introducing new engines with overhead inlet valve and side exhaust valves in models that it called the 60 (four-cylinder) and 75 (six-cylinder). In truth, the Wilks brothers saw these refreshed models as merely a stopgap to restart the revenue stream; they wanted an all-new Rover. The pair were heavily influenced by American design, particularly Studebaker – they bought a 1947 Studebaker Champion and grafted its body onto a Rover prototype chassis. Very few details were changed in the transition to production car and less than four years after ceasefire had been called, at the 1949 Earls Court Motor Show came the new Rover.
Codenamed P4, the 75 name was carried over, and it was initially powered by the same 2.1-litre engine, albeit featuring twin carburettors. However, the body that engine was carting around wasn’t as heavy as its bulk would suggest; steel was in short supply following the war, so Pressed Steel made the doors, bonnet
