Oh, so you owned one, did you?  You really ARE a fuckwit then, with
*really* shitty taste in cars to boot :-)  Care to elaborate on what
made them so 'advanced'?  Aside from the rack & pinion steering, of course.

Much like every other Australian built car from the 70's, they were
horrible heaps of sh.t.

Andy.

What is advanced about a car that had a shithouse engine, poor design and
horrible build quality?

Nice buildup for such a turd of an engine.

Don't you ever have anything positive to say about any cars

You need to brush up on your automotive history.

THe ROver 3500V* was only in good form once you spent a couple of thousand
dollars at it then it hummed in a lot of Jet boats and speedway cars.  Mates
uncle stuck a warmed up one in a Mitsi GTO, that was a pretty quick car.

Tell me exactly what was "advanced" about it compared to anything else?

ROFL :)

The Rover V8 has 2 main advantages over it's contemporaries. It's small, and
it's light.

On the down side, it made f.ck all power, had oil consumption and
temperature issues in the P-76, wasn't particularly economical despite it's
capacity and power output and suffered with horrendous corosion problems.

In short, being made from alloy was nice, but it did nothing out of the
ordinary that made it stellar, and had enough issues.

You really are a f.cking idiot Davo. I mean really....

--
Regards,
Noddy.

Do you know anyone who owned a P76?
A mate bought a V8 one new and it was a POS from day one.
It was a long time ago now but I remember it was always giving him trouble.
When you open the rear door of you brand new car and find the rear trim
panels thrown on the floor with the fixing screws all ready for you to
finish assembling it yourself your confidence in the car goes down the
toilet.
It did drive better than either of its main rivals in that it handled
and steering ok but its build quality could only be described as
appalling which is no great surprise considering Leyland was a financial
basket case at the time.
I personally didn't mind the styling and I particularly liked the
styling of the coupe that was never released but many others didn't like it.
IMO the car could have been a success if Leyland had the money to
develop it and assemble it properly instead of making a half arsed
effort that was doomed to fail from day one.




Daryl

I nearly pissed my pants reading that. You forgot the smiley at the end.

And for the record, I worked on rovers and range rovers and jags (and
practically every euro shitheap) as an apprentice as it was the only
authorised service centre for some, and the best known for others. They
had trouble keeping blokes there for long periods, as the cars sucked
that badly that the jobs were maddening. What should be a simple job
made difficult by extremely questionable engineering.

I agree.

There was nothing at all wrong with it's design, albeit the thing certainly
looked a little "unique", and especially from the rear. It's problem was
largely that it was woefully built & finished at the factory, and dealer
support was all but non existant.

There's been many an account of cars being sent to dealers unfinished, with
the parts required to complete the assembly often thrown on the back seat or
in the boot. Other stories (from former Leyland executivges themselves) were
that *part* of the quality control issues the car suffered from stemmed from
it being built on an assembly line originally designed to accomodate
smallish cars, and the bulky P-76 often got bashed into the equipment as it
rolled through the plant leaving the cars looking like they'd gone ten
rounds in the shopping centre car park from hell, and new owners mighty
pissed off.

My memory of the thing was that initial press was quite favourable, and
remained so for some time even after sales had started to dwindle and
rumours were all over the place. It was only after rumblings within Leyland
Australia started to be felt that the press jumped on the bandwagon and
started shitcanning the car with tales of woe that most people already knew,
and that was certainly enough to scare off whatever stragglers may have
still been interested enough to look at buying one.

Back in their day I knew a couple of people who were unfortunate enough to
have bought one new, and they both regretted it immensely. One was a poverty
pack 6 while the other a top of the line V8, and they both had massive
electircal problems to the point of the V8 having a minor under bonnet fire
when it's electrical system flambe'd right along the loom from the battery
to the firewall (and underneath). The 6 cylinder was as gutless as buggery,
and the V8, while having reasonable performance (on a par with a 253 powered
Kingswood at the time) was pretty thirsty, and suffered from horrendous over
heating issues. It also had a habit of throwing fan blades from what I
remember, and no amount of replacement blades would prevent it.

Both cars had problems with dash mounted switchgear breaking or falling
apart, door glass falling out of it's tracks, T-bar shiters coming loose,
instuments not working, and other minor issues.

On the plus side, they had comfortable seats and a *very* roomy interior
compared to any Falcon, Valiant or Holden.

It got as fair a go as it deserved in my opinion, and I think it could have
succeeded had Leyland been in a position to build it properly in the first
place. The problem was that they never were, and the car was never anywhere
near ready for public sale when it hit the showrooms. It needed a *lot* of
time & effort put into getting it right, and they just didn't have the
ability to do that.

For what it's worth, I also think they drove okay compared to their
opposition. The steering was far and away better than any of the
recirculating ball systems used on the other cars, and the brakes were very
good (better than Falcon & Valiant, and on a par with the HQ Holden in my
opinion). The 6 cylinder variant was useless, but the V8 could have been a
good comfortable cruiser.

--
Regards,
Noddy.