All the cars I’ve ever bought

Serial bargain hunter Keith looks back at his classic car CV – how did he get along with this non-running big Brit bruiser?

Rover 3500 (P6)

WHY DID YOU WANT ONE?

As bad as it sounds now, because it was there. I’d been chatting to my landlord, who didn’t realise at the time how much I was into cars. Very quickly, we got onto the subject of his elderly father, who had this ‘big old Rover’ that he wanted shifting from his garage. I asked him to describe it, and all he could confirm was that it was a saloon, it was beige, and it had a V8 badge on the bootlid. That was all I needed to know. I suggested that I go and have a look, and that I’d take it off his hands if it wasn’t too knackered. He wasn’t to know that the young me had already formed something of an obsession with Rovers.

WAS IT A NIGHTMARE OR A JOY TO LIVE WITH?

Initially, it was quite uneventful to live with, because it didn’t actually go anywhere for quite some time. When I turned up at the garage, the engine was dead and the brakes were seized. It was a P6 3500 auto, and looked in fine fettle under its coating of dust and grease – result! The starter was dead, and we needed to pull it out of the garage and on to my mate’s trailer, after liberal knocks to each wheel hub to release the brakes. Back at my mate’s workshop, I initially thought the engine was seized, but we freed it off enough for it to turn over with a breaker bar after several flushes with red diesel and it was on its way.

WHAT’S YOUR ABIDING MEMORY OF IT?

The long, long days rebuilding the brakes, getting the engine running and the sheer joy of driving it once we’d finished. We managed to drag it through an MoT without needing to weld the base unit (a miracle), and any flakiness of the bodywork was treated with Ku-Rust, Isopon P38 and Holts primer. It wasn’t scruffy, but it wasn’t a show queen either – probably a typical early-1990s banger. At 20, I’d already run some decent cars (Rover SD1, Audi 100), but this was something else again in terms of ride and interior quality, giving the driver a sense of well-being, and smelling like old money inside. It was also the first auto that I’d owned, and rapidly taught me the benefits of using intermediate to pass slower mortals in front. It’s one of very few cars that I made a profit on, and instantly regretted selling.

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP TIPS FOR BUYING ONE TODAY?

Make sure that you get one with a sound base unit. I looked into finding a solid one, but have heard some horror stories about trying to weld these up. All the major panels are bolt-on, so if it’s looking particularly horrible, it’s just as easy to source new panels as opposed to trying to fix them. The running gear offers no real horrors and the V8 engine is long-lived if you keep the oil clean and it’s not been left to run hot for too long – so make sure you buy one that’s been loved. Many have been upgraded with later Rover SD1 engines with fuel injection (no bad thing), so if you’re looking at one, make sure that it’s running right and the hydraulic lifters are actually lifting.

WHAT I PAID

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