It always irritates me when people slam the P76, but add the rider that
'the engine was OK though'. If you compared it to the direct
competition, Valiant, Falcon and Kingswood - the P76 is ahead in every
category from engineering to handling etc. Dont just rely on 'hearsay'
and vague memories, go and DRIVE the others. The Valiant was a PIG, the
Kingswood was OK, the Falcon was OK. The P76 was a brand new design, and
did experience some early teething problems - yet it managed to win
'Wheels' magazine Car Of The Year. Because it was simply THAT GOOD. Im
not going to drone on about this - I hear P76 slams all the time - as
you do when you drive a classic car every day instead of polishing yr
collection on the weekends and driving a Nissan 6.5 days a week.
Damien Haas
Gregory72@aol.com wrote:
>
> Kurt Schley of the MGB V8 Newsletter was kind enough to put me in
>contact
> with a couple from Australia with a vast knowledge of the P76\Buick\Rover V8.
> Like it or not, this is what they have to say. It's long, but interesting.
> I'll keep them annonymous for now.
>
> Greg
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Greg
> (We) are long standing car enthusiasts. We were in fact in our late
>twenties
> when the P38 (Oops, I mean P76, well it was only half a car) was launched.
> I am English and as a young man I had the pleasure of seeing better
>times for
> BMC when they still made cars of quality. By trade, I am a motor mechanic and
> I had the good fortune to do my time on Jaguars. Once again when Jaguar was
> Jaguar and plastic was a new word. (My wife) is Hungarian and as cars were
> only for "Party" members in post war communist Hungary, (her) car involvement
> did not start until her family jumped the border and made it to Australia.
> Now before we condemn Leyland, it might be best if we tell you two
>things.
> Firstly, I have an evil sense of humor, so please do not be offended at some
> of my remarks. Secondly, I am very old fashioned and very much against
> change. I seriously believe we have come too far too quick and we will pay
> the price. Computers are of course on my pet hate list. As for the Net, well
> I believe the world governments should band together and ban it.
> We were, therefore horrified when we saw that you had been
>communicating with
> Kurt by e-mail instead of the correct "snail mail" as followers of the web
> call it. We knew if we wrote to Kurt and asked for your address then he would
> have to e-mail you. Not wishing to be a bad influence and encourage him, we
> decided to accept a friends offer and e-mailed you. You will realize that
> this is "against the grain" for us and therefore this is twice we have e-
> mailed you. Being the first and last time. From now on, it's strictly snail
> mail.
> Now to business. Kurt has exchanged letters and information with us
>for
> several years. We have learnt an immense amount from both Kurt and his MG V8
> Newsletter. In turn, we have relayed onto Kurt our limited knowledge of the
> P76 and performance engineering. All of which he has no doubt relayed to you
> as it would fit on a postage stamp.
> Basically, we have taken a serous look at the P76-Buick 350 combo.
>However,
> it would, in our opinion, be a torque engine and this does not suit our
> application. Plus we had very serious concerns with regards to reliability.
> With regards to ourselves, we are not "one eyed" and an assortment of
>cars
> fill our motor shed. However, Rovers and in particular the little P6B are our
> principle love. The P6B started life as the P6 or Rover 2000 in 1963. In
> early 1965, Rover obtained the rights from Buick to build the all alloy 215
> and it became the Rover 3500. Then in 1968 a reworked Rover 2000 now fitted
> with the alloy V8 was released as the 3500 or P6B. A year earlier Rover also
> reworked their big three liter saloon, known as the P5, to become the three
> and a half liter or P5B. The "B" as you may have guessed is for "Buick".
> Also in 1967, Rover Cars, England's finest independent, had the
>misfortune to
> be forced into being swallowed up by "Leyland", a British disaster second to
> none.
> Now turning to the P76. At the time of the Leyland take over, Rover
>had a
> new big car (midsize in the USA) on the drawing board. Leyland had also
> rolled Jaguar and it was felt that the new Rover would be strong competition
> for the XJ6 Series One, so Rover was forced to shelve it.
> Rover also built a very snappy V8 mid-engined sports car, which had
>huge
> possibilities. Likewise, Leyland forced its abandonment to protect the Jaguar
> E-Type. Meanwhile down under, Australia was moving to midsize cars. The
> General had introduced an all-new big-bodied Holden to challenge Ford's new
> big Falcon, while Chrysler fought back with an all new big bulbous Valiant.
> The Leyland line up was typical of everything Leyland did, it was pathetic. A
> new car was needed quickly, before the big three put Leyland completely out of
> business.
> It is said that Leyland, in England, sent over the plans for the
>proposed new
> big Rover to Leyland Australia to form the basis for a new big car for
> Australia. There are however many different stories about the birth of the
> P76 and interestingly no one person seems to want to own up and admit
> responsibility.
> If the original plans were the P8 Rover then in true Leyland
>tradition the
> Australian division drained every bit of goodness out of the design to make it
> "suitable" for Australian conditions and production. It should be said,
> however, that the P76 had possibilities and a lot of interesting features.
> Unfortunately, Leyland Australia got it wrong. Personally, because Leyland
> had such a bad track record, I believe that if Ford, Chrysler or the General
> had built the P76 and developed it properly, it could have been a good car.
> Unfortunately, it was an absolute disaster.
> Our concern in this letter is the P76 motor and not the car.
>However, to
> understand the motor you need to have a basic understanding of the chaotic
> Leyland Company and the unfortunate P76. The formation the British Leyland is
> also not a concern. What is a concern is the fact that they had the world at
> their feet initially. A mixed blend of misfortune and stupidity saw the whole
> thing turn into a massive disaster. Many fine car manufacturers were either
> lost or badly crippled by it.
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