www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7859211/Range-Rover-creator-Charles-Spencer-Spen-King-1925-2010.html
Sadly today the "father" of the luxury 4x4 died - most of us will have driven something that owed an element of design ti Spen. I personally thought the TR7 could have been a good car - if the fools at Leyland could have built them consistently.
|
RIP. From a former P6B owner who always wanted a Rangie really.
Years ago in France I met a guy (English) who owned the special edition Rangie with Spen King's initials on it. I asked him if he knew what the letters stood for - and he didn't.
|
The TR7 was, and still is, a sharp looking motor, inside and out, specially the softtop.
Pity he was forced to use a cart as the underpinnings.
|
|
A few years ago I had the privilege of driving a TR7 which was well looked after, the dolly engine pulled it along quite eagerly, the interior always impressed me. It deserved to be a lot better - saw a couple of them in the States recently, they still looked sharp...The factory TR8 could have been a good car as well.
|
There was always something wrong with the TR7 I thought. It was a technical advance on the TR6 but far less winsome. And was a nuisance to owners. Where are they now?
The original Range Rover was another matter though. In its day you could turn it into a quite successful desert racer with relatively little modification. I don't think much of these over-luxurious roly-poly modern ones though. Even the Disco seems a bit much. No one would dream of stripping one out and going in for the Argungu Rally as a privateer. Or would they? Some people are barmy and will try anything.
|
|
A chap I did some work with in the West Mids had a TR6 - it was a very complete car and of course with an open roof and a decent sounding straight six - the PI was troublesome though.
|
tr7 was a joke of a car
i speke badly of them having worked on the horrible things
most overiding thing i remember apart from interiors falling to bits when they saw sunlight and rot like it was the new king was the fact you couldnt get in or out of them without nearly getting a hernia
thankfully most of the hairdressers that hank or is that honk after ones of these dreads-full wedge shaped monstrosities are now too old to father further offspring on our gene pool.........................
|
It's wrong to go on about the unsuccessful, flawed TR7, a late King effort. His real work was as chief Rover design honcho from the fifties to the seventies: until the mid-sixties Rovers were cars of palpably superior quality to the general run, they looked it, felt it and lasted well. You can be absolutely certain that the deterioration in Rover and later BL quality from the mid sixties onward was nothing to do with King any more than Alec Issigonis, but ghastly bean-counting suits and moronic hustling unions between them. I can feel my blood pressure rising as I write this.
King also supervised the Rover gas turbine Le Mans cars. They didn't win the race but usually finished it, and had a class more or less to themselves which they tended to win. Interesting and eccentric.
Yes, RIP.
|
>i speke badly of them having worked on the horrible things<
Nice one Bellboy! But they did move production to Canley (Coventry) eventually, didn't they?
|
|
The Range Rover was a defining moment as well.
|
they did move production to Canley (Coventry) eventually, didn't they?
>
>>> probably i dont know,i just remember that it was a hodge podge of bits nailed together and they sold them as something modern as it was cheese shaped
even the adverts were bard,i think Shakespeare did one
|
i bow to your knowledge AC :-)
rangies were horrible things that lost oil like the torrie canyon and went round corners like Quasimodo on speed
dreadful things
best thing about them was when you removed the drivetrain and put them into something sensible like a capri
|
|
Without the Range Rover there wouldn't have been an X5 - er okay bad idea !
|
>>went round corners like Quasimodo on speed
>>dreadful things
Yes, they rolled. But it didn't take much to stiffen them up a bit. And they were quite simple and strong.
Was the Rover/Buick V8 an oil burner? Quite often perhaps, but that would have been as nothing alongside the fuel consumption, especially with a small four-barrel Holley carb and high compression heads...
I knew someone who drove one across the Sahara to Nigeria, where he lived, and there a bit later entered the Argungu rally. Led it for three days too, until he took off once too often and broke the front axle.
|
back then AC you could only buy parts from the dealer and boy did they know how to spank you
the only people who ran them were rich farmers and peasants who fancied looking like rich farmers ,the person i knew was the latter and the only way to keep it on the road was by self mutilation and getting down and under
he had visions of using it to pull his caravan in style till he did a trial run to Ingoldmells, and blew a weeks pay in fuel (nearly)
|
|
Very sad news :( He was one of the geniuses in the BL group.
|
>> Very sad news :( He was one of the geniuses in the BL group.
>>
>>>>>>>>>>
he was 85 and went out on a triang
hardly sad news
news yes sad yes
but not sad news
good innings and all that
stiff upperl lip
|
Yeah, well, my guy wasn't short of a few bob of course, and was quite a nutter (the first time he tried to cross the Sahara was in a Jensen FF. It got as far as Tamanrasset, a town about as far from any other town as anywhere on earth, right spang in the middle of the Sahara. Cost him a bomb to get it back too).
I'm not saying anyone would have done it even if they had the bread. But he did, and I must say I rather liked him for it.
|
S'funny how time plays tricks n' all that because I was going to say the TR7 wasn't a bad looker,
then I looked at some foto's of a few on wikipedia and ...
:D
|
>the only people who ran them were rich farmers and peasants who fancied looking like rich farmers<
There's no such thing as a rich farmer - they live poor and only die rich.
Having said that, my uncle is a long-retired farmer and he's still driving his 4.6 V8 Rangie.
|
"Spen" King has passed away. - Mike Hannon
