This mid-engined, V8-powered three-seater could have been Rover’s first sports car, but a wary rival within the British Leyland empire ensured it would never see the light of day -
In the post-war years Rover had a reputation for making dependable but starchy cars, like redoubtable maiden aunts made metal. By the 1960s, though, changes were afoot. The Rover-BRM racer burnt the company’s trad image in the white heat of its gas turbine engine, especially when it lasted the distance in the experimental class at Le Mans in ’63. Two years later the same car ran as an official entry with Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart driving, bagging 10th place.
In 1966 Rover management made a non-committal attempt to address this by asking chief engineer Spen King to draw up a cost-effective design with the new V8 at its core. It was quickly agreed that the car would be mid-engined with an ingenious powertrain arrangement in which the engine sat slightly to one side with the gearbox in parallel, connected by a chain drive.
Rover was already in development hell with the ultimately doomed P8 saloon. Fighting a rear-guard action to save a sports car it hadn’t the resources to complete was a battle too far, and the P9 died around the dawn of the ’70s. The sole P6BS prototype survives in the British Motor Museum as a sad reminder of what might have been.
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