01
Origins
The 6/90 of 1954 was Wolseley's big saloon, sharing Gerald Palmer's styling themes with the Riley Pathfinder and carrying BMC's new 2.6-litre C-series six. For the public it was a dignified carriage; for the Metropolitan Police it was the car — black 6/90s with chrome bells swept through a decade of British films and newsreels, chasing villains at a stately 95 mph, and fixed the image of the illuminated Wolseley grille in the national memory. Beneath the ceremony sat a competent chassis, improved through Series II and III revisions with a conventional rear axle replacing the original cam-and-lever arrangement. Around 11,000 were built to 1959. No car better captures what Wolseley meant by then: authority, wood, leather, and the strong suggestion that you should pull over.
Wolseley Six-Ninety 1959 rear · Draco2008 · CC BY 2.0
