Buying Guide

Rover P5

‘If you’re tempted by a Rolls or Jaguar, look at one of these first’

You won’t travel far in a P5 or its P5B sibling before realising why royalty and politicians liked them so much. Spacious and boasting a healthy serving of old-school, understated luxury, the cabin is a lovely place to be, and with a smooth straight-six doing duty in the engine room the miles slip by very nicely indeed. If you’re tempted by a Rolls or a Jaguar, you really should look at one of these first.

So, what does the £5000-8000 required for a tidy one buy you? Well, David Bache’s exterior styling certainly cuts a dash, especially in coupé form, and the P5 exudes class and gravitas in equal measure; if you wanted flash and ostentation (and many conservative-minded 1960s owners didn’t) then you needed to look elsewhere. The model arrived in 1958 as bigger brother for the upright Rover P4. The newcomer was initially available only in saloon form, but it was joined in 1962 by the rakish coupé, whose roofline was 2.5-inches lower. Although ahead of the times in some ways – it was the first Rover to feature monocoque construction – the engine was older tech, being a development of the inlet-over-exhaust valve unit that had seen duty in earlier models. It lacked the mellifluous burble of the later V8 and was no ball of fire either, managing just 115bhp in original form. The following years would see improvements that upped power and torque for the sort of wafty performance that befitted its luxury status.

A further – and much needed – change was the adoption of front disc brakes shortly after launch, and as the P5 moved through MkII and MkIII iterations it gained numerous tweaks to the exterior trim and cabin, the last models benefitting from improved seats and separate rear heating controls.

Refined and comfortable, the P5’s quintessentially British charm is very hard to resist.