The Rover Light Six was a narrower lightweight short wheelbase variant of their Two-litre sports saloon produced from 1929 to 1930 by the

Rover Company The Rover Company Limited was a British car manufacturing company originally founded in 1878, beginning car manufacturing in 1904. It primarily operated from its base in Solihull, Warwickshire. Rover also manufactured the Land Rover series from ...

Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...

. The following season it was sold with a 2½-litre 20 hp engine under the name Rover Light Twenty.

Overview

Announced in October 1929 the Rover Light Six was one of the Rover cars manufactured when Spencer and

Maurice Wilks Maurice Fernand Cary Wilks (19 August 19048 September 1963) was an English automotive and aeronautical engineer, and by the time of his death in 1963, was the chairman of the Rover Company. He was the founder of the Land Rover marque and respo ...

, who joined Rover's team in 1929 and 1930, introduced new management practices and engineering techniques to Rover.

Engine

The Light Six was powered by a watercooled 2 L

straight-6 A straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine balanc ...

OHV engine with an output of 45 bhp at 3600 rpm designed by Peter Poppe, which provided the Two-litre saloon a maximum speed of 60 mph (97 km/h). The bore of 65 mm put the engine into the 16 hp taxation class. The car was supplied with a three-speed gearbox controlled by a lever in the centre of the car. The lever was flexible, operated in a gate and had a stop to avoid engaging reverse. The engine clutch and gearbox assembly was mounted and supported at three points, the single one in front, the rear pair by horizontally U-shaped leaf spring attachments.The Motor Show. The Times, Tuesday, 18 Oct 1927; pg. 10; Issue 44715

Brakes suspension steering

The suspension was conventional for the time with half elliptic leaf springs all round mounted above the axles. The pedal brakes worked shoes in enclosed drums on all four wheels by rods but the handbrake used those on the back wheels and operated them by chain. There are shock absorbers fore and aft.

Body

The body was very light weight rattle free fabric bodywork built by Rover under licence from Weymann. For the driver's comfort the clutch pedal is adjustable for travel and the front seat can be adjusted over a range of six inches using wing nuts in the cushion.

Publicity

The Rover Light Six won attention when it was the first successful participant in the Blue Train Races, a series of record-breaking attempts between

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

s and

train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

s in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It saw a number of motorists and their own or sponsored automobiles race against the '' Le Train Bleu'', a train that ran between

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

and the

French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...

. Please note that TM6124, car/chassis number 430 pictured above is not the actual race car. The car used was an early press demonstrator that Rover retained for development purposes. On the 27 January 1930 the Rover's third and successful attempt started from St Raphael on the Riviera and ended at Calais 20 hours later, averaging 38 mph over 750 miles. The little Rover beat the Blue Train by 20 minutes.

Road test

Tested by ''Autocar'' in late 1929 the car seemed capable of a 70 mph top speed though weather conditions prohibited a formal measurement. The engine's smoothness was fine except under load at speeds below 20 mph in top gear. The car seemed geared for speed and not fuel economy. The single wiper was mounted at the foot of the windscreen to provide the widest possible view. The steering column was nearer horizontal than usual. Roadholding was fair but springing when with two persons aboard needs further adjustment of the shock absorbers. The style of the body is original and to many people attractive.Light Six Rover sportsman's saloon, ''Autocar'', 27 December 1929

External links

Light Six on the road

Light Six 21st centuryinterior of Gaydon's car

References

{{Commons category Light Six Cars introduced in 1927