Owning a Rover P5B

Phil Hart has owned his P5B for less than a week. He says, ‘It was the working class Rolls. Dad always wanted one and didn’t quite make it. I had the money sitting around not even earning enough weekly interest for a ham sandwich, so I started looking for a Coupé. ‘I wanted it to drive not stare at. Cars are built to be used. Most of the difference on the Coupé was behind me, so I thought why pay £5000 more for that? I totally fell in love with this one because of the history with it. It’s been sitting in someone’s private collection in Germany for 32 years – I’ve got a wad of German receipts where they’ve looked after the car. It has done 62,000 miles in total, only 9500 since 1987.

‘I didn’t want a renovation job, but I’ll do a few bits – I’m going to replace the engine mounts. It’s running rich so I’ll get a professional to tune it up. Some things only work when they feel like it, and I know there are going to be issues to sort out. It’s amazing the number of people who wave.’