Is it possible somebody died in your car? Peter Grove replies, “possible? Possible.”

The north Brisbane retiree is the owner of a 1969 Rover 2000 TC, which left the factory the year after the Steve McQueen movie “Bullitt” gave us one of the most exciting car chases in film history, with a Ford Mustang and Dodge Charger slamming the streets of San Francisco.

However, Peter’s British car – with a clever bolt-on body design and a 2-litre twin carb engine – could arguably suit the “bullet” nickname more than Steve McQueen’s ride: because it has 2 bullet holes, which begin at the front driver’s side and finish at the rear passenger wheel arch.

Peter bought the car on the internet in 2011 and decided to have some rust looked after, around 3 years later. The lifetime engineer stripped the car of body panels and interior in his own homemade “rotisserie” before sending off the skeleton to the body shop. And that’s when his classic car turned into a conundrum.

“I got a phone call from the people doing this and they said ‘umm, got a slight problem. I think you’d better come down and have a look’,” he said.

“When I got down there, somewhere they had got hold of some police tape, taped it off. All part of a bit of a gag on their behalf. They put this dowel rod in (to the bullet holes in the rear wheel arch).”

“It came back, straight through about where the driver’s head would be,” he said. “The trim on the two seats was different to the back seat, so I think it’s been redone.”

I put it to Peter: “It is possible somebody died in the car.”

He replied: “Possible? Possible. But there is no other damage – superficial damage – around the car. If that had happened I’d expect it may have gone off the road, rolled over, you would have found major structural damage. There wasn’t any.”

I asked, “so that doesn’t worry you?”

“No, you can’t confirm it, it is just one of those things.”

There were two holes in the rear wheel arch, and the dowels provided evidence that their journey had begun through the front windscreen, fired from some height. The body shop also found lots of glass fragments in the heater core area under the windscreen.

The exit point was under the rear passenger wheel arch, so the bullets missed the wheel rim and tyre.

With the trajectory solved, the bigger question was how a Rover gets a couple of bullets, obviously aimed at the driver?

Peter already knew from the car’s books that the Rover’s first owner was in Belgrade (Beograd), Yugoslavia, with a notation that the person’s address is “Austral. Embassy”. The first ‘free’ service record makes reference to “authorised services in Yugoslavia”.

“I know the car was sold direct to a person. Right hand drive (in Belgrade) is not the norm,” he explained. “This would be ideal for driving over there. The driver could get out very quick and open the back door, straight on the side the passenger would get out onto the pavement.”

At the time, Yugoslavia was known as the “Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”. But just when you think perhaps some European Cold War spy games could be behind the bullets, the action moves to Africa.

Peter explained: “Then somebody said ‘well this car was in Sudan at one time’. How do you know that? I haven’t been able to verify it. The only thing I’ve had the verification of, is when I was doing the rotisserie and turned it, and took the back axle housing out, I got showered in sand – a hell of a lot of sand. Which I don’t think is normal (for Belgrade).”

Obviously the car was imported to Australia as a used vehicle at some stage, and then spent time with various owners (at one point, forgotten in a shed), before Peter had it restored and available for daily use whenever his more modern vehicle failed him. He says the Lucas electrics and the Rover engine haven’t failed – touch wood.

It’s this somewhat frequent use which brought the Rover to my attention. Peter parked it in a commuter car park and someone scraped the side of it – the rear passenger corner, in fact, where the car had already seen those battles with bullets.

He took it to the same rust and body wizard I use, and I first heard the story about the “spy car” from the body shop owner. It’s a fitting car for Peter. He’s worked as an engineer for everyone from VW to Ford to Massey Ferguson to the railways. And he also helped with the dish installation at the Pine Gap US satellite surveillance base near Alice Springs. He knows where the dishes are, under those spherical screens, but he has to keep it a secret – just like his car’s past.

Watch my video on the bullethole Rover here

Standard car, non-standard history!