No large, formal car has ever truly filled the shoes of the Ebony Rover 3.5 the Litres that served Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Thatcher governments so faithfully between 1968 and 1981. By then it was perceived to be a vehicle from another age. Based on the 3-litre P5 of the late '50s, the big Rover had been out of production for eight years by the time it was pensioned off by the Government Car Service fleet in favour of the sleek, armoured Series III Daimler XJs of the Thatcher regime. If that car was a sign of government confidence in John Egan's ability to turn around Jaguar in the 1980s, how emblematic of the strife of the '70s that ministry buyers had to mothball late batches of these P5Bs for want of a credible modern alternative from the nationalised car producer it was propping up with public money.
The Rover P5B seemed to be born to play the role of car of state. Dignified without being magisterial, comfortable but not decadent, they fulfilled a surprisingly sensitive job at a time in public life when national events played out in real time on our fuzzy black-and-white television screens. For 13 years they were an almost nightly fixture in our living rooms, sweeping into Downing Street or Parliament Square as the dramas of the day unfolded in a world of strikes and terrorism.
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