Lot Ended
Description
Just five
owners from new; the first for 55 years; in regular use and well-maintained;
featured on Channel 4 in 1999; pleasingly original with a nice 'shabby chic'
patina
Incredibly strong, smooth and
comfortable, the Rover P4 is one of the best-made cars ever to be mass produced
on these shores. In production from 1949 until 1964, it came in a bewildering
number of versions but all were excellent cars, furnished to a very high
standard with plenty of wood and leather, and proved enormously popular with the
middle class motorist they were aimed at.
Introduced alongside the four-cylinder Rover 60 in 1953, the P4 90
had a more-powerful 2.6-litre six-cylinder engine that produced a respectable
90bhp and drove through a four-speed manual gearbox with synchromesh on the top
three gears, giving it a top speed of 90mph. The doors, boot and bonnet were in
aluminium with the rest of the body in steel.
The
cars had a separate chassis with independent suspension by coil springs at the
front and a live axle with half-elliptic leaf springs at the rear. Brakes were
fully hydraulic drums all round. It was replaced by the P4 100 in 1959, by which
time 35,903 had been sold.
Supplied new by
Frederick Restall of Birmingham in March 1955 (their plaque is still on the
dash), this Rover 90 was built specifically as a RHD export model (as denoted by
the the 5436 chassis number prefix) and was perhaps a demonstrator before it got
exported because it originally had the registration number RWD
75.
Very early in its life it was sent to Kenya
where it was acquired by a Colonial official, Mr George Rattray, who brought the
car back to the UK when he left Africa in 1959 and was to keep it right up until
2010.
In 1999 this very car was featured in
Episode One of Channel 4’s ‘Classic British Cars’ series, narrated by John Peel,
when Mr Rattray explains just why he loved his Rover 90 so much and kept it so
long. You can view him talking about the car if you copy this link into your
browser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZEWKhA124
It then had three further owners, the first keeping it for 8
years and the second for 5 years before the previous vendor acquired it in
September 2023 by which time it had been re-registered as 582 XWG and has kept a
log of all the work done to the car during his ownership, then in around
November last year the car came to auction through ourselves and sold to the
current vendor who now needs the room for his next project.
A recent full service with new plugs; points; condenser; HT leads;
fan belt; fresh engine and diff oil; tappets adjusted; fresh coolant etc. He has
also fitted a new brake master cylinder and rear brake slave cylinders; new ARB
bushes and a modern electric fuel pump.
Although
it no longer needs one, it passed an MOT in March 2024 with no advisories
recorded and then again in August 2025 with just a couple of advisories for
slightly perished rear tyres and a slight oil leak.
The MOT history online shows that it has only covered just over 4,500 miles in the last 20 years, the
odometer now showing 83,614 miles.
We are told
that it drives very well and it has certainly been starting promptly and running
sweetly as we have moved it around on site, just like a good P4
should.
As you can see in the photos, it looks
pleasingly solid and original with a nice ‘shabby chic’ patina, and is on offer
here at no reserve so the best bid takes it home.
Contact james.booth@brightwells