1968 Rover P5B Coupe

May 2020 - Initial condition

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Below are views of the P5B as found in 2020. The bumper was taken off the 1966 Mark III and has the wrong overriders.

The body had extensive rust repair work already done to it. The previous owner, Kent, had already replaced the door sill rail frames on both sides, a critical structural component of the body, and had replaced portions of the D pillar that is part of the rear wheel wells. The left hand rear door that appears white-pink was a brand new door skin that was installed. Several body panel sections were still in primer and it appears that Kent had been working towards getting the car ready for final paint. I inspected the welds and steel repairs and concluded they were done satisfactorily. Both rear fenders appear to have been taken off an Admiraly Blue parts donor car and still needed body work.

Below is the serial number plate as seen in the left hand front door A pillar. 84500510 indicates it is a 1968 3.5-litre RHD Coupe manufactured for the UK home market. The serial is 510 of 1610 made according to "The Rover P5 and P5B - The Complete Story" by James Taylor. This car was manufactured in November 1967 and the first P5B was released in September that year, so this is one of the earliest P5B models made. The V8 is high compression 10.5:1 and requires 95+ octane premium fuel.

I learned that Kent wanted to convert this P5B from RHD to LHD and started the process by removing the steering column and cutting up the wiring harness in the process without labeling anything. The conversion was incomplete at the time of purchase, but since this was originally an UK car, I decided to revert it back to the original factory RHD configuration. The steering box was still in the original location.

Below is a view of the interior and hacked up wiring harness. Nothing an electrical engineer can't handle?