The Conception

Throughout the Sixties, Rover had enjoyed success with their P6 model. The P6 had basically created the pattern for the middle management car. Larger and more luxurious than the everyday Austin or Ford, but not as impressive as the director's car. Rover had been quietly working on some interesting projects, such as the P6BS supercar and the P8 super saloon, intended to replace the P5 saloon. Regularly used as ministerial transport, BMC's executive car was a Rover.

Work had already begun on the replacement for the P6 with the new P8 project. The new P8 was given greater importance when the Leyland Company teamed up with the BMC and became British Leyland. The team concentrated on this replacement, but the model was soon deemed to be too close in competition for the new Jaguar XJ saloon and the concept was quietly dropped, but not before it was almost ready for production.

A new Rover project called P10 was born in 1969, which was another project to replace the P6. There was a competition between the Rover and Triumph engineers to produce ideas for the replacement of both the large Triumph and Rover models. Triumph came up with the Puma project, and Rover with the P10. Rover won the competition.

In 1971 the P10 became a Rover-Triumph project to replace the P6 and Triumph 2000/2500 models. The thinking at the time was that if one new model were to replace these 2 cars, it was cheaper to produce, easier to build and appealed to the same buyers then at last at least one model in the BL range. Management realised that it did not make any sense for there to be any direct internal competition between models in the vast range of cars they produced and for there to be as much major component sharing as possible.

The Rover project P10 was renamed RT1. This was Rover and Triumph’s first joint project (hence RT1), but within 2 months the project was renamed SD1 as Jaguar, Rover and Triumph were now grouped together as the Specialist Division.

The Specialist Division 1 project team consisted of:
From left to right
Mike Lewis (chief engineer)
David Bache (Head of styling)
Spen King (Director of engineering)
Gordon Bashford (SD1 Design).

Development began and the new car rapidly took shape. As with the P6, David Bache the stylist did not want a contemporary design. He wanted something that was ahead of the game, and with the P10, he decided very early in the development phase that he wanted a five door hatchback configuration, and that he wanted the Rover to look exclusive.

P10 designs

Michelotti also provided a proposal for the P10 project, somewhat more conservative than the Bache proposals, being a three-box saloon. Being a Michelotti-penned design, it had clear links with previous Triumphs and this was perhaps used as a back-up plan by Solihull in the event that BLMC management found the British designs too radical.