Rover P5B (1973) – Into the Wild

Last Friday we stopped at a neat Rover 2600 from the SD1 series that is looking for a new owner and a little over a year ago another SD1 turned up in the wild. The Rover P6, the predecessor of the SD1, was also reviewed quite recently. Thanks to colleague Joost Boers, we now have the car in front of us that eventually handed over the baton to the P6, but also shared the showroom with it for a while: the Rover P5B, the ‘late’ P5 that was also known as the 3.5 liters.

The Rover P5B that we see here is three years younger than the P6 that was in the spotlight last year and you can imagine that it was already an outdated appearance in addition to the P6 at the time. In addition, you also had the P6 with the same Buick-derived V8 as the P5B (with the ‘B’ from Buick). With the P5, Rover wanted to continue to offer a classic-lined alternative for the more conservative customer in addition to the P6, but it is not surprising that Rover put an end to it after 1973. This was not only due to internal competition from the P6 3500, but also because the P5, with its ‘birth year’ of 1958, was simply old.

Yet we do understand why someone even in 1973 left the P6 for this P5B. After all, the design of the P6 was rather unconventional, where the P5 enjoyed a timeless elegance. Especially in such a classic color scheme as this one. In 1978, a Dutchman decided to import this then only five-year-old copy and then the car came into the hands of the current owner in 1998. Now that’s true love; in December, the two will have been together for 25 years! It looks like the P5B is still in neat condition and the car probably only comes out in good weather these days. Fortunately, there will be enough nice weather in the near future, because such a Rover P5B will improve the streetscape a lot!