Wolseley 6/99 - a wonderfully British 50s classic car

Wolseley 6/99

The Wolseley 6/99 came in to replace the Wolseley 6/90 and was specced to suit the Wolseley customer who liked the bigger cars in the range.

The car, which hit forecourts in 1959, was a slightly different beast for Wolseley because for over 25 the brand had worked with Morris cars - deriving their cars from their current line up - but for the 6/99, they went with the Austin A99 Westminster shape.

I think the Austin was 10% cheaper - the highs and lows of badge engineering in full swing! In 1959, the car is advertised as being priced at £1,325 - 14 shillings and a tuppence.

Although the A99 was cheaper. There was also the VDP Princess which shared this body shape and that was more costly, which puts this delightful Wolseley we’re testing today squarely in the middle of the price bracket; well, if you’re going for civilian spec of course!

It was specced with the 2.9 litre C-Series six cylinder engine which gave 103bhp and was advertised with a top speed of 98 miles per hour, however, when Autocar put one through its paces in 1959, they managed to get 101 miles per hour.

Gearbox on this one is the Borg-warner auto which would’ve cost extra on a civilian car. On a standard car, you’d get 3 speed Borg-warner column change with overdrive.

You’ll see when we go out driving that this is no speed queen and the 0 to 60 is advertised at 14.4 seconds but Autocar reckoned they got 17.2 seconds with an overall MPG of 17 miles per gallon. Advertised I believe was 19 miles per gallon.

The car also offered Wolseley customers something different with the styling and design because this was the first top Wolseley with a unit-construction Monocoque body chassis coupled with Farina styling.

The car was also fitted with the independent front suspension/live rear axle combo which was expected by Wolseley customers - this was something they’d become accustomed to on the cars and worked well.

I comment on this on test later on, but it pulls up smartly because it’s been designed with discs to front and drums to rear - for those unfamiliar with this era of car - it was commonplace to have drums all round. Heck, there are cars in the 70s still sporting drums all round - so to have discs to front is quite the boon for the driver.

I also bemoan the vague steering later, which although is no worse than a lot of other 60s cars, was something people commented on at the time. It’s a cam and lever system on this.

Being only available for three years on paper, but not quite 36 months, it’s not surprising the production run is low - with just over 13,000 made in the three year life cycle.

The 4 door saloon body shape we’re testing today is the only shape available - being one of the large cars in the range the car was never sold as a two door variant.

The car was replaced by the Wolseley 6/110