Seriously?

[BicycleBoy]

Originally Posted by Othen

That would be incredibly cool: Baroness Thatcher's Rover

Cheap way of becoming a Tory MP; you've only got to impress the constituency selection committee!
You could make back the cost of the car in a couple of months on expenses alone.

Denis's Cortina? Bet he sold that the day they left no.10.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

That would be incredibly cool: Baroness Thatcher's Rover - but what would be even cooler would be Sir Denis Thatcher's Ford Cortina (the one he bought after being told his old Rolls was too conspicuous).

:-)

You wouldn't want the fuel economy of that P5B Alan, with the armour plating underneath it drops it to 8-10mpg on a good day!

[Steve 940]

If only they'd have made a p5b shooting brake......😀

Cheers
Steve

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Steve 940

If only they'd have made a p5b shooting brake......😀

Cheers
Steve

They made P6B shooting brake aka the "Estoura" Steve.

https://ddclassics.com/car-listing/r...ra-estate-rhd/

That one is a manual (hence the "S" for "Syncromesh") and i'm not even sure it's a current ad but they do come up from time to time.

There was also the SD1 estate of course, two prototypes built, one of which famously (or maybe infamously) had a Volvo 245 back end grafted on to the SD1 body. Allegedly Prince Charles used one for a while and Sir Michael Edwardes (then boss of BL as it was) used the other as a daily :

https://www.aronline.co.uk/concepts-...er-sd1-estate/

One resides in Gaydon Museum and i think Haynes at Yeovil have the other in their museum although i can't verify that second bit.
Rover certainly missed everal tricks with the SD1, an estate and also a saloon.

Values for good SD1s are now in the £12-20k region for good ones, exceptional a bit more and you can guess the rest up to £12k. Projects (basket cases) go from a grand upwards, with or without running gear.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by BicycleBoy

Cheap way of becoming a Tory MP; you've only got to impress the constituency selection committee!
You could make back the cost of the car in a couple of months on expenses alone.

Denis's Cortina? Bet he sold that the day they left no.10.

I think you would be wrong about that BicycleBoy, Sir Denis carried on driving the Cortina (if I remember correctly a brown estate) down to the golf club long after the baroness retired (much to the chagrin of the Special Branch).

:-)

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

You wouldn't want the fuel economy of that P5B Alan, with the armour plating underneath it drops it to 8-10mpg on a good day!

I'm sure you are right Dave - but still cooler than a big bag of cool things.

:-)

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

I'm sure you are right Dave - but still cooler than a big bag of cool things.

:-)

When (pre-scamdemic) we used to have the "All Rover" meet at a local (ish) hostelry on the first saturday of each month, someone turned up with an ex-ministerial P5B once. He was telling me about the armour plating underneath (remember they were built in the early 70s and the IRAs weapon of choice for govt people was a car bomb or device slid under) and the resulatnt fuel consumption.

It wasn't that particular P5B i hasten to add, just one from the "pool". I recall him saying the armour plating added a lot of weight making it something like 2T so nearly double the standard version. Even with uprated springs they still sat low.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Lucien

FYI Alan the E in GLE stands for Executive, which is why a 264GLE isn't fuel injected and a 264TE is Top Executive. So it may just have been that 240GLE's came with carbs that year.

regards
Lucien

Originally Posted by Othen

Hi Lucien,

You are both right and wrong (I just had to look this up). GLE does stand for Grand Luxe Executive, but all of the 240 GLE's sold in the UK had the B21/23e engine, there were no carburettor versions.

I was wrong about the 'E' meaning 'einspritzen' - I think I misremembered that from the P1800ES (where I think it did stand for 'einspritzen'). My apology.

Alan

I've researched this a bit more Lucien, and it turns out you were absolutely right on both counts. I found this page from a 1983 240 brochure which clearly shows that fuel injection only came with the 240 GLT and 260 GLE models:



... I was surprised, but it is very clear that the GLE came with a B23a motor that year.

I was completely wrong, my apology.

Alan

[BicycleBoy]

Well, they're still using armoured vehicles nowadays, just the materials are a bit lighter/thinner.

Rest of the non-ministerial civil service fleet is a right state: Couple of Prius (Prii?) in one big Whitehall ministry to serve all requirements (good luck getting them at short notice), some right ****e elsewhere - an X-reg Prison Service Mk1 Fiesta is my favorite (probably lovingly maintained by inmates between trips to the big smoke).

Interesting fact: HM Government self-insures all its vehicles & drivers (civil and military) rather than bunging your taxes at the insurance cartels. Saves a lot of paperwork too.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by BicycleBoy

Interesting fact: HM Government self-insures all its vehicles & drivers (civil and military) rather than bunging your taxes at the insurance cartels. Saves a lot of paperwork too.

Yes, the Crown Estates (as it used to be called, probably still is) is a good way of insuring the countrys and royaltys vehicles. I first heard about it about 40 years ago from a friend who lived in a Crown Estates owned house which apparently was the parent company for the Forestry Commission i think he said. Long time ago now, might have muddled something up but that was the gist of it.