Over 50 years ago, I had a 1939 Rover 20, that used more oil than petrol, that I diagnosed as worn valve guided. I tried to get the aluminium cylinder head off and I had the whole car hanging from the cylinder head for three days soaking the corroded steel studs in Plusgas. No luck, so I sold it to a garage as a spare parts source. Pity as everything else worked including the freewheel. My parents used to go on holiday with another couple. He was not a good driver, so usually it was in my father's car (a Jaguar Mk.VII in the early 1950's) but Frank had just got a new Rover 75 and wanted to go in that. They were in the west coast of Scotland and about to descend the steep hill to the Strome Ferry. My father said to Frank, better disengage the Freewheel to get engine braking but Frank knew better and said they would be fine. By the time they got to the ferry, the overworked drums had faded to nothing and Frank could not stop when going down the ferry ramp. They ended up in about a foot of water. Frank started shouting but my father was laughing so hard, he struggled to talk. Frank said : It's no laughing matter Roy, I think I am having a heart attack." When my father managed to speak, he was able to explain to Frank that he was not having a heart attack but had bitten through the stem of his pipe and the smouldering bowl had set his trousers on fire.

Nice enough to drag an American in to see this Beauty. Thank you.

Sounds absolutely gorgeous! Would love to see this back on the road. Great job Sheldon!

That is a fantastic job, would love to see it first drive out. I had a 1940 Rover saloon that was given to me when I was 16, many years age now, it had been of the road for (if my memory is good) for ten years it had travelled 114K mile up to that point. My Dad and I clean it up, the engine was free, so just changed the oil, water and petrol linked up a battery and it started almost first time. great car. all the best Bob

Absolutely amazing so thank you for showing the progress on this very rare vehicle. My great Uncle was Edgar de Normanville who invented the overdrive. I look forward to seeing the progress in the future.

My dad had one of these back in the day. Brings back happy memories of engineers blue and wet&dry getting the main and big end bearings into a circle again. New set of white metal shells a gallon of Castrol XL and we ran it for a year before parting with it.

Hi Sheldon, what a great first start. You can see the look of being pleased and yet concerned at the same time. The fella is very knowledgeable and has done a great job. Did it sound like the knock had died down after a while? I hope he gets it up and out to the shows as intended. Mart.

My father had a couple of Rover 10's (not at the same time) he used as daily drivers. He told me the engine design was from H O Bentley. Most of his maintenance time was spent on ox-acetylene welding the rusting body work. Great to see this new owner is not afraid to upgrade where safety and reliability makes that a sensible thing to do. Curious that as late as 1939 the brake and throttle linkage was push pull rod and bellcranks when a bowden cable (first patented in 1896) would have been so much simpler. Subscribed in the hope of seeing more of this vehicle in future videos.

Love old bits of kit being bought back to life! Nice one! Nuff said!. 🙂

Loved watching, especially as I've recently bought my very own Rover Tickford Drop Head Coupe ❤

Thanks Sheldon so interesting to see a pre-war Rover Very interesting, your videos are getting even better enjoyed so much. Thanks for travelling so far from home to cover this Amazing car , the owner is a very talented man.

My grandfather had a Rover 20 drop head in the 50's I believe, he loved it but the bottom end went and they had to re cast and scrape bearing shells for it, but it went again and he got a Rover 75 to replace it I have two images in my head of my grandfather and both were pictures on the mantle place - one with his Rover 20 DH on the driveway at his house and one at his daughters next to her Mk1 E Type in black - which was a really rear / unpopular colour at the time, almost no E-Types were made in black

Wicked video what an absolute gem! It's purring, pure Rover :)

In the 50s my boss sold me an almost working 1935 16hp Rover. It had an ash body frame and aluminium body with wire wheels. It looked very similar to the 20 especially the radiator grill, the windscreen and the suicide doors. Sadly a lot of the ash timber was gone and replaced by iron framework. I learned to drive in it but the engine was very tired and left a vast cloud of blue smoke behind it. I have wonderful memories of my friends and I enjoying trips out and one where we ran out of petrol, it did about 15 mpg, and had to walk home arriving in the early hours much to our parents annoyance. I have a couple of photographs which I treasure. Items to note. It had the Rover free wheel mechanism and the vacuum powered chassis lubrication. The headlights were mechanical solenoid dipped and made a tremendous noise when activated. No heater either. I still had the Jeager clock in my office until about 2000 but it went walkabout in a move. Sadly the car became unroadworthy and was scrapped around 1960. I had no idea it might have been a Tickford. The registration was BXY 946. Was it a Sports model?

What a motor, I am so so envious. Astounding that it started so easily after all that tim, but as you said, "It's a Rover*

What a beauty! ..my first job as an apprentice was changing the rear spring on a Rover 75 not p6 but an older high roof model ..I remember the new spring being in a leather bag all pre greased ...it all went so well ...I have liked old Rovers ever since

Lovely car in superb condition 👌

A feller in Arizona back here in the disillusioned US of A, was waiting for one of you to exclaim that you were 'gobsmacked' on the ease of its first start up in decades.

Quality old engineering. Rovers really were special back in the day

Hiya Sheldon wow what a stunning car absolutely gorgeous sound's wonderful fine cars like that are what made rover and to carry the tickford name too a bonus can't wait to see more progress on her great video well done guys ♥️

Incredible it ran so well! What a lovely old piece of proper engineering. P.S. I like Darren's hat 👍

as a retired collector of classics i had the opportunity to own a 41 dodge luxury liner all original with straw filled seats loved that car seeing this brings back some great memories

What a car love listening to the history behind it from Darren real nice guy and he’s done a amazing lovely job on her , was lovely to see her fire up. I hope Darren gets it to the 2 rally’s 😃👍🏻

My 49 Morris 10 series M had the same high/low beam mechanics. An electromagnet moved a rod to move the whole reflector inside the headlamp to perform the high/low lamp position, much to the consternation of a young policeman conducting an on-road inspection in about 1964. He exclaimed "Your headlights moved" to which I replied "Yes, they were made that way"

What a gorgeous old machine you fellows have there! Hopefully she will see a proper restoration some day.

Just found,just joined, just love the old cars.

Brilliant find!

I've a rover 16 6 light saloon in my possession since 1987, two P6 3500S,s and a 71 26k P5 Coupe I bought from my retired bank manager in 86 which I borrowed £3000 to purchase

One thing I have noticed with English cars with carburetors is irrespective of brand,number of cylinders, or size ,nearly all of them fire right up first turn of the key and generally on the very first revolution.Very well done engineering.

Dad had a SS jaguar which was a similar design, push button start. Don’t know what year it was now but it had green leather seats,wire wheels with a big nut that you hit with a brass hammer to undo them. He sold it to a friend for ten pounds because he promised to do it up, something to do with the suspension bushes which Were wood if my memory serves me right but could be wrong. Anyway he didn’t mend it, probably lost interest and then scrapped it. I recall dad being very upset about this. This was early sixties I think. If only we could see into the future.

Yeah a relatives tax return showed they earned £500 in 1945 and £250 in 1946 and £180 in tax those two years riveting the wings of the Lancaster bomber

Loving this video mate !!

Fascinating content Sheldon , I'm always interested in these rare' top-of-the-range models that survive in tiny numbers but their inherant quality ensures their longivity .Salmons of Newport Pagnell, produced the ingenious and elegant ' Tickford ' opening coachwork on many marques including Rolls-Royce & MG and the this Rover is no exception.Centralised lubrication systems were also common by Luvax or Tecalemit and Smiths produced ' Jackall ' built in hydraulically lifting jacks on all 4 wheels.The smoothness of this lazy 6-cylinder after such a long time of inactivity is a joy to watch and listen to !.I see the car was registered in Surrey and would be interesting to know if it has any early history ?.Certainly looks as thought she will be back on the road before very long !.

Quality car and a great survivor .

I hear 1939 and I keep expecting to see a flathead. very advanced for the time.

Impressive as this is, the fact remains that most British were backwards when compared with American cars. Having a 4 cylinder engine in 1939 was unknown in America. All their cars were a minimum of 6 cylinders with many being 8 or even 12 cylinders by that time.

In the early 80ts I bought a 1948 super light six rover for the princely price of £200 all running mot and taxed , I dabbled with a few cars just buy and sell in my spare time, then making the odd £50 , but this rover everything worked as it should suicide front doors pull down blinds on back window ,free wheel drive lovely leather seats original carpets ,, so the only way to sell this type of car was exchange and mart ,so got hold of one and to my surprise looking in the collectors section the said cars where fetching between £900 x 1500 , so quick ad unindated with enquiries and duly sold for £1200 thanks very much job done

GREAT CONTENT THANKS I WILL LOOK FORWARD TO WATCHING ONGOING WORK THANKS

How smoothly does that run!! Amazing.

Since it’s got the overdrive and other different parts , with that awesome body and looks would it be such a sin to put in a total modern drive train, it would be fabulous!!?

£428 in 1939 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £35,792.47 today, an increase of £35,364.47 over 84 years. The pound had an average inflation rate of 5.41% per year between 1939 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 8,262.73%.

Well done that Man

just needs valves adjusted spot on lovely 😍

Induction vacuum Luvax Bijjur lubrication system is designed as a total loss system: you'd expect drips from the nipples to spot in a garage - or coat the chassis running. Pity the first rear view of the car at indicator level - it's not clear until that point it's the Drop Head Coupe Chassis (engine gearbox & transmission) is similar to 16 h.p. and P2 more generally. Bodywork bespoke to Salmons. P3 has more mechanically in common with 1949-1952 P4 (Cyclops) Overdrive: Don't forget to adjust Speedo gearing: but high ratio back axle : 4.3:1 or 3.9:1- or 3.35:1 P5B would also work well. [Restomod: 'Speed' branched exhaust; inlet manifold + triple carbs(+ raised compression would go rather better on high octane modern fuels)

I am so glad you replaced the wiring harness I tell people on my You Tube channel (jagvette1) they must do this and they keep bashing on about "oh but it's original" and I say well soon you will have a 'original' pile of ash.

Never understood how one keeps the damping oil in an SU with the dashpot mounted horizontal as on this downdraft SU.

Felistasiones a los grandes maestros mecánicos favulosos estraordinario maravilloso son lo mejor del mundo saludos cordiales dé la república de Chile por la razón o la fuerza

Something once complete just might be worth taking to Pebble Beach, it would draw a lot of serious attention.

Cool car. The knock might be something simple like an exhaust leak or loose spark plug. Before blowing it apart check everything.

I had a. 1939 Rover 12 brilliant car had a free wheel as standard but with Girling Rod brakes I never used the free wheel

Beautiful car

Nice motor. Great that it started. But they had to of had it started previously I’ve never known an engine to start like that. There is always some stumbling block somewhere. Points need setting. Engine needs overhauling. And then it eventually starts.

Magic happens in sheds

Fantastic

Very good , fantastic ,,,,,

Wow that was really cool! Wondering what that knock is, didn't sound good. Bummer.

I really want to find out more about the pre war rover engine, from what I can find online it appears to be a SOHC hemi head? but in this video it has both manifolds on the same side? And the thermostat housing looks the same as a post war IOE engine? Are the two related? I really wish I could find more info.

Yep don't make em like they used to 😅🤸😄🤸😄🤸😄

Handy video ,every day a schoolday

This guys wasted could be working miracles for the AA

Who knew Tickford has been in the game almost 100 years!

AHH that fine smell of old car's can smell !

Forgive me for focusing on the trivial. What kind of shed is that? Could use one of those.

I cant believe you are surprised at this engine starting? Why wouldn't it start after the fuel system ignition system and oil had all been checked, this is not a modern electronic controlled engine, so it just works properly, unlike it's modern equivalent!

what a car

You have to admit, your'e a lucky B. Of course they were street's ahead, that's why BMW needed them out of the way. Still got my P5 .

It's normally the other way round 10 minutes to get there six hours to start it ! 😅😊😮😅

It is a DOWNDRAFT SU CARB NOT SIDE DRAFT .16:56

Top marks to the owner, wish the presenter would calm down a bit.

You might check out "Vice Grip Garage" for an amazing and quite charming approach tho similar projects except that he would have got it on the road and driven it hundreds of mil0es back home.

granted, they not cheap, but today, contemporary times, with 5 axis CNC milling set ups, Plasm Cutters, Water jets and computers, Getting parts custom made, not really as complicated as it once was....just not cheap

From an era when Rover built quality car`s, before BL got it`s grubby hands on it.

Wow, there it is again! The one time I went to Beaulieu and I got some footage of this with cars from the same collection. Looks like it's in great hands! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pJydh9eXu9mZm3U.html

Where's the microcontrollers and sensors? :) :)

Ye

Isn't that a down draft SU? You said down side draft. I'm not sure how you put oil in the carb as it is sideways. So you call the muffler a silencer? That makes more sense than calling it a muffler like we yanks. If we say silencer, we are talking about guns. I don't know why we call them muffler. I assume it is from the word muffle. Amazing car. It started better than my cars do when they sit for a week without running.

I do not know.

Of course it started - made in England😁

Now you can park it for another 60yrs.

That ain't a sidedraft SU, there's a clue in the direction it's pointing.

A few less wows would be nice

call me a heathen but i would of dropped in a 3.5 with jag IRS and turned it into a hot rod, but it good to see these old rovers being restored and saved from people that would modify them

I hope you put some oil in the bores at least

This old girl needs a bit of tarting up get it running and driving and go for a drive!!!!!

Rather too many irritating , "cool's" and "wow's" - nonetheless, fascinating. 13:38

Mmm hasn't run in over fifty-fifty years suspect

Nothings to rare for the banger track!

Tell your cameraman to get more shots from the car, that is the subject isn't. I now know you are important but not as much as the car.

I'm wondering was there an exhaust hose vented to the outside . Or does carbon monoxide not have any effect on Brits ?. Would love to see that sweet old ride professionally restored in a real shop .

Downdraft su

Tell your cameraman to get more shots from the car, that is the subject isn't. I now know you are important but not as much as the car.