Rover P6 classic car review In 1963 Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's entry to the EEC. It was also the year that Rover launched its all-new saloon, the P6. You can keep your economic community, Monsieur de Gaulle, we have other things to make us proud. First marketed as the 2000, the 2.0-litre, four-door saloon was relatively compact yet spacious inside. Innovative suspension and clever glass-topped lights - making all four corners of the car visible to the driver in the dark - helped earn it the inaugural European Car of the Year award in 1974. It had decent, if not exciting, performance and in 1966 a twin-carb option was introduced, giving a welcome boost in performance. But the big change came in April 1968, when a US-sourced 3.5-litre V8 was dropped in. The Rover 3500 was, by the standards of the day, a bit of a beast. At first drive, the gleaming V8 pictured here felt a bit, well, lazy. I wasn't expecting it to feel quick compared to fast modern cars. But it had a claimed 0-60mph time of less than 10 seconds and I was getting left behind by van drivers. Then I realised the problem: the three-speed auto was changing up far too early, at just under 3,000rpm. This isn't The Sweeney, it seemed to be telling me, keep a lid on it son. Ignoring the old motor's pleas for leniency by changing gear manually, it showed what it could really do. It surprised many younger cars by powering away with a dignified, unhurried roar. The acceleration at motorway speeds is really impressive. If you want it as a high-speed cruiser, however, the optional full-length sunroof is not a wise move. The wind noise starts at about 30mph and by 70mph you can neither talk nor think. One interesting feature on the car I drove was the spare wheel on top of the boot lid to free up space for luggage. I also think it looks good, although it has a negative impact on rearward visibility. The rear-view mirror is small, and appears to have been designed specifically to show you the spare wheel in its entirety, and nothing more. The wing mirrors are also tiny, and positioned alongside you such that a strange contortion of the head is needed to see anything. After a triumphant birth, by the 1970s things were not going so well for the P6. Rover had been nationalised under the fantastically ropey British Leyland, and its cars gained a reputation for lack of quality. My dad inherited a 10-year-old 3500 in the early 1980s and the body had rotted so much that it let in more air from the bottom than it did from the open sunroof. But now everyone seems to have forgotten the bad side. This amazingly well-preserved 1974 example got a great deal of love from its public: one man approached me in a car park and tried to buy it; cabbies drew alongside to give it the thumb of approval; a wino even broke off from his begging to tell me how beautiful it was. This was far more attention than I expected for a car which is handsome but hardly exotic. Maybe the reaction is partly out of affection for a once-great British marque that was let down by the British, cast aside by the Germans, and then mothballed by the Chinese. Things have moved on since 1963. We are now members of the EEC, or whatever they choose to call it now, but Rover is no more. And for a lot of misty-eyed men of a certain age, some things were better off as they were. See this Rover, and many other classics, on the Classic Car Club website.