People who like my car.
The Rover never really attracted anything but derision, but Sally the Citroën occasionally attracts compliments. In fact, it happens quite often.
This is quite hard for me to deal with because I think P6s are brilliant cars, and because I'm able to see past the very obvious and major faults of mine to the day, a long time in the future, when it will be a shining, show-worthy example of the breed. I like it, even if nobody else does. I like it because it's got a good history, I think they look great, they're comfortable... look, I don't have to defend it, P6s are classic cars, okay? Lots of people like them. GSs, on the other hand, are largely forgotten in this country. I do love mine because we're as eccentric as each other, but that's rarely a good reason to buy a car.
So why do my family and friends all prefer the GS to the Rover?
I think it's all down to paint.
See, people look at the Rover (which is, admittedly, mechanically buggered but just stay with me on this for a minute) and just because it's mainly Mexico Brown but actually multicoloured with patches of purple primer, rust, and runny green where the paint had gone off in the tin they automatically think that it's a knackered car.
Whereas they look at the GS, which is nice and shiny, having been resprayed less than a year ago, and assume that it's been completely restored underneath as well. Okay, so it has been, but it might not have been! The point is that paint is quite an unimportant component of a fully functioning vehicle.
Does this mean that I could get a cheap respray done on the Rover and stop having telling me it's crap all the time? Sadly I'll never find out - the tax and MoT have just run out and I'm going to restore it. But I might drive it for a little while restored but un-resprayed, just to see what people think of it. Or on second thoughts, I might not.
Once again it's left to my mum, my barometer of other peoples' opinions of my cars, to conclude. Every time I go anywhere in the Rover, the last words she says to me are, "Be careful driving that car - it's ever so old." The GS is only four years younger, but she's suddenly stopped saying it.