Rover P6 Club

 The Rover P6 Club

The Club was born in 1993 under the name of The Rover P6 Drivers Club and in 2010 celebrated it's 17th birthday just as our beloved P6's celebrated the 47th anniversary since the launch and start of production cars. Now just as The Rover Company stayed on the cutting edge of modern developments, so to the Club has moved into the 21st century and in 2005 the Club was re-branded as THE ROVER P6 CLUB because it was felt that we were more than just drivers, we are drivers, owners and enthusiasts, keen to preserve a piece of British Heritage, and we remain the only specialist P6 Club which is run by an enthusiastic committee of volunteers who own and drive Rover P6 cars and who have a wealth of technical no how.

The Club founded by Reg Mason, Taffy Jones and a band of dedicated followers, has changed a great deal over the years and there is no doubt that with the increased worldwide membership, enthusiasm and resources, the Club has developed quite dramatically since the humble beginnings in 1993.

We continue to be the Club that encourages the use, preservation and restoration of Rover P6 cars irrespective of their condition or model. In meeting these aims, we have a very knowledgeable and resourceful technical advice team, a stock of Club spares and a very effective parts sourcing system. We are also involved in promoting the remanufacture of parts, like rear brake pads, light cluster seals and the Committee has put a great deal of energy into sourcing supplies of low cost spares, as well as developing good relationships with P6 parts dealers. This has proved to be a popular and effective system of keeping member's cars on the road! The fundamental aim of keeping the cars on the road at an affordable cost, is still however paramount in driving the club forward. Members are encouraged and helped to maintain there own cars, where ever possible, which in turns helps to keep costs down.

The Committee has changed considerably since the founding of the Club, and the new 2009/10 committee now consists of:

CHAIRMAN ANGIE GRAY 

TREASURER MARK YOULTON

DRIVING FORCE EDITOR MARK GRAY   (also TeamRP6C EVENTS and WEBSITE)

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY JOAN YOULTON

SECRETARY JAMES RUMNEY

EVENTS COORDINATOR (Position open at present)

REGALIA OFFICER JAMES HARRIS

ORDINARY MEMBERS DIXON & JANICE SHEPPARD

ORDINARY MEMBERS CLAIRE HARRIS

ORDINARY MEMBERS TRACY McMahan

ORDINARY MEMBER STEPHEN BENYON

ORDINARY MEMBER MARIA GRAY

EVENTS DIARY NICK DUNNING

TECHNICAL TEAM 

ROBERT PINNER   JOHN WINDWOOD   CLIVE ANNABLE  CHRIS YORK

The Club boasts an excellent magazine called ‘Driving Force’ edited by Mark Gray and a superb website at www.p6club.com maintained by Mark Gray & Robert Pinner. As a member of the club you can also purchase an email address '@p6club.com'. All of these points of contact are backed up by one of the best technical teams to be found anywhere and the Club boasts a wealth of knowledge and experience within the membership. The club has a forum attached to the website, as well as a webmail forum which all members are welcome to contribute to and ask questions. In recent times the Club has taken an active role within the Classic Rover Rover and is also a member club of the 'Joint Rover Clubs' venture.

Through 'TeamRP6C' the club is involved in road runs and restoration shows and in 2002 raised over a £1000 for charity on The Timbo Run for The British Kidney Patients Association and again, another £1000 in 2004 on the Timbo 2 Run. And again in 2008 another £926 for the Katharine House Hospice in Stafford

Over the years the club has been involved in many restoration shows with many award winner club displays. All displays are active and we always aim to use members cars and to try to get the jobs done which the member concerned can’t do themselves. The shows are a way of others learning how to do various jobs, as well as being a place where many hands can make light work of any job. We have replaced windscreens, engines, gearboxes, panels, window to door seals, suspension bushes, brake components and even changed a cars complete braking system from Dunlop to Girling. Some of the most adventurous displays included putting cars on their sides on body turners and it is with this in mind, we have forged an alliance with supplier companies like ‘CJ AUTOS’. This always attracts loads of attention and also gives the owner of the car a unique opportunity to see the underside of their car and also to paint the underseal on without crawling all the way under on their back.

The Club has accumulated quite a selection of silverware over the years from these award winning club displays and the 2007 show season opened with a winning display at Donington in January, and drew to a close with a display award at Alexandra Palace in October.The last show of 2009 was the Classic Motor Show held at the NEC in November. Our NEC display included 10 P6’s on the club stand, 2 P6's on trade stands, 1 P6 on the PVEC stand and 1 more P6 on the RSR Club display. This was a couple more P6's than in 2008, when we boasted to having 'Daisy The Brown Laser' which belongs to Practical Classics's Sam Glover on the display, a car which had just completed a 10,600mile round trip to Iran. Vistors to our club stands included televisions Wheeler Dealers Mike Brewer and Ed China, along with international vistors from Barbados, Sweden, Norway, Ireland and many more countries. Our NEC presence gets bigger every year andl follows on from the 9 car club display in 2007 and the 6 car club display in 2006 where the Club was also pleased to have a full page club profile in the NEC Show Guide. These type of displays have attracted quite a large amount of press interest in the club and we can be seen quite regularly in Classic Car Mart, Classic Cars For Sale, Classics Monthly, Classicscars magazine, Practical Classics, Classic Car Buyer and Classic Motor Monthly. We have also have been pictured in other clubs publications, particularly because we have encouraged our member's children to get involved. The club's philosophy is to get juniors involved both with the cars and the restoration works because the juniors are the future of both the classic car movement as a whole and the individual cars, therefore we are child friendly and actively encourage the whole family to get involved in the Club.

2004 marked the 100th anniversary of Rover as a car producer and the 100th year celebrations were headed up by the Rover Sports Register (RSR). The long weekend event culminated in a massive display of Rovers of all ages at Ragley Hall, in Warwickshire. We at the RP6C are proud to say we were part of the event and it was a glorious day especially as the display included over 65 P6’s and our very own Denis Chick won the prize for the Best P6 at the event. The RSR’s magazine following the event also had a front cover which featured one of our member’s P6’s and the DVD/Video of the event on sale from the RSR, also features several of the more unusual P6’s which belong to RP6C members including an Estate and a NADA left hand drive car. Our own National rallies are also a great draw and 2009 saw the club at Cosford Air Museum, what a superb venue. What a day, see the pictures in the gallery of our biggest ever National Rally turnout.

2006 also saw the launch of the RP6C Film/Picture Car Data Base. The data base has been created following the successful works that members have been involved in the Film, Television and Publishing industries over the last few years. More and more the Club is being approached by film and TV production companies, and publishers to supply cars for various productions and publications therefore to keep up with the demand and to manage the clubs resources better, we set up the data base which is free to members, so that we have vehicles ready and willing to go at a moments notice to fulfil any requests that may come in. We have recently supplied cars to the production companies behind ‘Life on Mars’, also the BBC drama ‘Supergrass’ and in late 2006 MTV’s Pixelloft for the making of the pop music video ‘Would you wake up the sun’ the second single of Ben Lee Tyler. In December2007 we were also involved with a photo shoot for Stephen Bayley's new book 'Cars' which was published in the Autumn of 2008. In February 2009 the car represented the classic car club movement as a whole when a P6 appeared in 'The Joys of Motoring' on BBC4 and BBC2 with host Tristrum Hunt.

During 2006 the Club has also supplied cars for the Rover P6 ‘Buyers Guides’ in ‘Practical Classics’ and ‘Classic Car Mart’ as well as for a feature in ‘Classiccars’ magazine. Thanks to a co-operation with the motoring journalist Richard Dredge, you will find a buyers guide within our website, just follow the link in the navigation bar. In 2008 the club supplied cars to various press pubications including a CD Album cover and also 4 film shoots for TV and the big screen. As previously stated the Cars the Star data base is Free to Members cars and £10.00 per car (one off payment) for non RP6C Members. In 2010 the club has a car in a short film based around an author and rock climber which is due to hit the festivals later in the year and also has been aiding a member who is entering the club rallying scene with a rallying P6, a car which hadn't turned a wheel since 1993, the year the club was fiounded.

The Club is aiming to be involved in similar events in the future as well as historic rallying, and all of course following the clubs aim to preserve and use the Rover P6 Car.

MARK GRAY - Editor

Driving Force, the magazine of The Rover P6 Club.