[ROVERNET - UK] P6 Design

[Glen Wilson]

Vern Klukas wrote:
>> Vern Klukas wrote:
>>> But most of your points talk more to problems created by the rarity 
>>> of the car in America, not on it's construction.
>>
>> This is mostly true, but I thought they had plans to sell a lot of 
>> them to Americans when they designed the car. Would that have been a 
>> factor in their design and marketing plans?
>>
>> Most of the British cars I have worked on have been very 
>> straightforward. Mine were also fairly inexpensive cars when they 
>> were new.
>
> Of course we can never really know what Rover's dreams were for the 
> North American market, I personally don't think they planned on 
> selling one to every Yank. We've jousted a bit on the details, but 
> there is no denying that a P6 has some complicated bits that were not 
> designed for ease of service, with the rear brakes leading the way. 
> How much that affected the sales efforts in NA, I don't know. I 
> suspect the market failure was more down to the horrors of BL 
> ownership and the sad mess of the British motor trade tarring Rover's 
> good name.
>
> In general, the more expensive the car the more complicated it's bit's 
> are if only because the customer wants to see more stuff. I've done a 
> little bit of work on Rolls over the years, and there the guiding 
> principle seems to be if one bolt will do, we will have to use nine 
> more for added peace of mind.
>
> By the same token, some of the cheaper cars have the best engineering 
> precisely because they are cheap, and so require tha utmost in economy 
> in materials and labour to keeps costs down. That's what I was 
> referring to about the sophistication of the SD1 rear suspension, it 
> optimized the competing needs of cost and function to deliver a simple 
> design that worked.
>
> Yours
> Vern
>
>

Well, heck!  I agree with all of that!  ;-)

Glen