Meet The Duchess; only 55,600 miles indicated, believed to be correct; wonderfully original; stainless steel exhaust; few owners, the current since 2020; a proper time capsule with bags of character; just how we like themAs you might imagine, here at Brightwells we get to drive a huge variety of cars from every decade of the motoring age, but it is always a pleasure to slip behind the wheel of a Rover P4.

Built with pride by men in overalls, they are astonishingly smooth and refined machines and it baffles us that they are so humbly valued today.  Launched in 1949 as the Rover 75, the 100 joined the range in October 1959 powered by a 2.6 six-cylinder engine derived from the larger Rover P5.

With an inlet-over-exhaust valve configuration and a seven-bearing crankshaft, the engine produced 104bhp.

Mated to a four-speed manual gearbox with overdrive on top gear, it was capable of 100mph, hence the name.

To handle this performance, Girling servo-assisted front disc brakes were also fit...