If you didn't have a Citroen?

[CitroJim]

I bought my first Xantia totally by accident because I urgently needed a towcar..

Look where it took me

[White Exec]

Our two (RAV4, XM) both have sunroofs (and both Webastos), but even here on the sunny Costa, they rarely get used! Spend most of the summer months shut (to prevent glare, sunburnt heads...), and the same in the winter, for extra quietness. Occasionally opened up when visiting somewhere interesting by night, which adds a bit of fun.

My 1935 Rover 10 had an opaque (solid) sunroof which always leaked, and it was later sealed up, with a sheet-aluminium roof panel. A company 1998 Xantia had no sunroof: perfect!

Triplex2.jpg

Someone mentioned fancying a Rover P6 3500 (I had one of these, a 1975 3500S). Did you know that fifty P6s were produced with a full-length, full-width, tinted glass roof, manufactured by Triplex? The glass panel occupied all of the roof area, except about 10cm at the gutters, and was equipped with a full-size zip-in (and removable) section of headliner. I have a sales leaflet for it, somewhere... I think... Several of these "Triplex" Rovers ended up in Belgium, fully restored.

Chris

[russ92xmsed]

There was an interesting Triplex Austin Princess estate concept, which looked quite good.
That is the ironic thing with sunroofs, sunny day you want it open, but usually equates to mild sunstroke!

[CitroJim]

I would just love a 'Triplex' P6

Now that roof would really be perfect for me...

[White Exec]

I would just love a 'Triplex' P6
Now that roof would really be perfect for me...

...And the Rover P6, 1963-1977, styled by David Bache, has a good deal of Citroen squirrelled away in its body design. Take a close look at the P6's front roof corners, its roof-line, the panel under the windscreen, the front wings . . . and all the detachable body panels (hung, unstressed, on an impressively rigid one-piece central base unit) . . . and you'll find the DS influence.

IIRC, an old photograph (from the early '60s) of the Rover factory at Solihull shows an early P6 in the factory yard. In the background is a line of partly dismantled vehicles - and these include a couple of production DS's.

There are plenty of P6s about (we used to have around 4500 UK and overseas members in the P6 Rover Owners Club, which I chaired for a good few years), and the cars are reasonably well supported by remanufactured spares and several Clubs. Through one of these, you'll be able to track down the surviving Triplex P6s!

For a good read, with lots of photos, including Rovers never put into production, eg a very tasty SD1 Estate (especially for Peter!), try Graham Robson's 'The Rover Story', and James Taylor's 'The Classic Rovers 1934-1977'.

Chris

My first Rover, a 1935 '10'.jpg

...and my last, a 1975 3500S.jpg

[citroenxm]

I like the P6 very much.. but for some reason I prefer the triumph 2000 perhaps because it has a straight six... I know you will fight back with ah the rover has a v8 but that's a lot of cylinders to fuel but then you could have the jet turbine P6 i suppose if fueling is no object...

they are both very nice UK proper cars indeed...

[CitroJim]

Great stuff Chris Didn't they call the P6 the 'British DS' in some quarters?

Don't know how true it is but I've heard rumours they even considered making it hydropneumatic?

Definitely my favourite Brit by a long way..

Paul, I often see a Triumph 2500PI at work. In fantastic condition too. A very desirable car although maybe not the PI bit so much...

[citroenxm]

No the PI was not the best bit - first issue was over heating fuel pumps, partley solved by wrapping the fuel line around it so the fuel pipe cooled the pump down.. Not so sure about that bit.. Rather fit a modern pump on them now I think..

Carbs obviously more reliable, but Im not very familliar with SU's, they seem a bit more complex then newer DownDraught carbs on later cars..

[casalingua]

The Triumph 2500 is such an under-rated car when you consider all the airtime BMWs and Alfa Romeos from the same period are treated to. I admire the series 2 car and the straight six is part of the attraction. But I would not really want to own one. A Peugeot 607 or Renault Vel Satis are my preferred real world alternatives. Renault 25s are lovely if they have been garaged and pampered. But most have bits of irrepareable plastic trim hanging off them. This is a pity as in many ways it's as good a car as the XM.

[casalingua]

When I posed my initial question about an alternative to the XM, I was interested to see how many people would pick the cars that Citreon itself had in mind as competitors. CAR magazine ran a giant test (discussed elsewhere here) with cars like the Volvo 960, BMW 5-series, Alfa 164, Peugeot 605, Ford Scorpio, Mercedes 300, Saab 9000, Jaguar XJ-S and Vauxhall Carlton. All of them were in some ways designed to satisfy the same objective as the XM and have similar dimensions and capabilities. Isn´t it odd then that of this list only the Mercedes has been cited by name as an alternative car? The one car CAR didn´t test was the Renault 25 which, I think, many feel here is the only really close alternative to the XM. So it seems in some ways that many of us here are running XMs slightly by accident, if when faced with an alternative we´d choose quite a broad range of other quite different cars. Or else, alternative hypothesis, that the used car market and classic car market is wildly different to the new one, or that when people buy a car, they don´t consider the intended competitors a maker has in mind when planning their product.