Unique Rover

Sir,
In your issue of May 1970, on page 446, you recorded the somewhat inauspicious debut of the unique racing P6 Rover which BL had launched for Group 2 racing.

Peter Browning of BL Comps enlisted Bill Shaw who created the car and Roy Pierpoint to drive it. The car started life as one of the development vehicles for fitting the ex-General Motors 3500 V8 engine to the “2000”. It should have been registered for road use as JXC 807D, but it was never seen with that number on it. The engine was enlarged to 4.3 litres and given the full “Traco” tuning treatment. It had four Weber twin-choke carbs, lightweight body-panels, modified suspension, Jaguar diff and Muncie gearbox.

The main claim to fame of this car is that it was entered in September 1971 for the 84-hour Marathon de la Route at the Nurburgring. It led from the start and stayed there for 13 hours, until it was forced to retire with severe propshaft vibration. It was leading the rest of the field, headed by works Porsches, by 30 miles at that time!

To get to the point of this letter, the car is now in Australia in the hands of a fellow P6 Club member. It had been converted to a sort of mid-engined dragster when he bought it, but he intends to restore it to its European form and would be most grateful if he could see any colour photos of it during its time over here. He thinks it was blue and white. Any letters or information can be sent to me to forward to him.

Terry Foley, East Didsbury, Manchester