YOUr cHaNce TO BUy £120k P4
Money-no-object P4 restoration feted as nation’s best has £9-11k estimate
A Rover P4 claimed to have had £120k spent on its restoration is going under the H&H Classics’ Pavilion Garden Sale hammer tomorrow (19 July).
The 95 model, originally supplied in 1963, is being sold with a £9-11k estimate. Late model aficionado, Brian Griffiths, revived it in 2003, and the auctioneer says that the bills racked up during its rebuild by Clitheroe-based specialist, Automotive Services, come to more than £120,000, including £2500 on engine work and £2680 on a cabin retrim.
Having stayed in Brian’s family since new (his father’s insurance firm originally bought it) he added overdrive, cruise control and power-assisted steering to the 95’s equipment list, pitched originally as the penultimate model in the sixcylinder P4 range.
An H&H spokesman said of the car: ‘One of just 268 surviving Rover 95 cars currently known to the DVLA, chassis 76001071A must be unique among its siblings.
‘It’s still highly impressive some 15 years and 25,000 miles after its rejuvenation was completed, and worthy of close inspection.’
Brian sadly passed away in 2016, and the car went on to a new home, losing its original registration number, 300 LG in the process.
P4 Drivers’ Guild chairman, Stan Johnstone, said: ‘It certainly caused a stir in the Rover world when it was restored. I think some of the figures flying around at the time were greatly exaggerated and I would say it was more like £40,000 when it was finished. Brian and his mechanics were telephoning me almost weekly for advice when the restoration was underway. Brian was obviously wealthy and wanted the best P4 you could produce. It was very well done and lovely to drive but I don’t think it makes it any more valuable than any other topnotch P4.’
handh.co.uk