The Cartier Style et Luxe concours de élégance at the Goodwin Speed Festival may bring out the world’s most cherished and refined gems, but what about the unloved ordinary cars that have almost disappeared form Britain’s roads, like the Austin Allegro? There are fewer Allegros registered in the UK (166) than Ferrari 308GTBs, so the organizers of The Festival of the Unexceptional have targeted it and other cars of the 70s and 80s as the prime candidates for their car show. Sounds like our Brit CC agent Roger Carr needs to put this one on his agenda (July 26, Whittlebury). What other unexceptional cars are expected?
The Morris Marina, of course. Only 22(!) remain registered in the UK. Along with the Hillman Hunter/Avenger, Vauxhall Viva, Ford Granada, Austin 1100 and Metro and Opel Manta. Ok; these are just some examples being held out to entice potential comers. There will (hopefully) be plenty of more mundane cars that will undoubtedly instill waves of nostalgia in attendees. Registration is already closed, due to the strong response. The idea is excellent; maybe it’s time to start a Curbside Classic Concours? I could invite half of Eugene.
The Hydragas cars like the Allegro and Princess have always fascinated me; if I were there, I could actually see them up close. Maybe a nice MG Maestro Turbo, too!
Looks like someone at Hagerty whispered in the organizers’ ear about the Concours d’ LeMons. It’s only missing the funny category names (“Rueful Brittania” for British cars, “Carrozzeria Iacocca” for K-cars and derivatives, “Chronic Dick-Teague Syndrome” for AMC)
Full list here: http://www.concoursdlemons.com/participants.html
What? No special class for the Ferrous Oxide Research Division (Fords of the 1970s)?
Paul, you have misspelt ‘Speed’, or was that intentional?!
I intend to go to this, camera at the ready. Re-live my childhood years during the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
I hate the Marina with a passion. It was just so ordinary, bland and dull. A ‘meh’ car. Its main rival, the Cortina, whilst also average, at least had some spark to it – the coke-bottle styling and the mildly-warm 2000E and GXL. Only 22 cars left out of the thousands (millions?) built says it all for the build quality and engineering that went into this lemon.
I doubt there are many Mk4 and Mk 5 Cortinas left at this stage either.
Though I wonder how many were destroyed by Top Gear.
The low quality probably does have a fair amount to do with the low number of remaining cars, thought from what I understand and have read, its hard to keep an older car on the road in the UK, unless you really, really want to, annual MOT inspections, which I understand are pretty comprehensive and mandatory. So I imagine that once a fairly worthless car gets to be a certain age, its just not really worth putting the money into it, unless you are a diehard.
Here in the Florida, all you have to do is prove you have insurance, and not eat any of the forms in front of the clerk and you can have a license plate for practically anything with around 4 or so wheels and a couple of headlights.
If you were to ask my brother-in-law, he’d say, “They destroyed one too few – the one I had.” One of the American Austin-badged versions, it was incredibly bad, even having the passenger front seat and shift lever break off (at different times).
On the other hand, if he gets into one of his “I know what I’m doing regarding cars” attitude (which is from a CR perspective), all I need to do is remind him of the car . . . . . .
Here in the Florida, all you have to do is prove you have insurance, and not eat any of the forms in front of the clerk and you can have a license plate for practically anything with around 4 or so wheels and a couple of headlights.
I’m always a little torn by this: on the one hand – growing up here in the UK – other countries’ vehicle regs terrify me because I’m so used to our hyper-regulated car scene meaning anything that’s on the public roads has been thoroughly checked in the last 12 months, and so is (to a given value of safe) “safe”…
… on the other hand, I’m very aware as a car nut how we have far fewer interesting old cars roaming the roads here
During the early 2000’s i negotiated a bright electric blue ’74 Roadrunner 360/727 with big rear rubber and a jacked-up arse …it looked like a million dollars …the seller was a diesel mechanic ..this was in Florida …so i got SGS to run around there and do a road test etc etc
yeah rite
the SGS dudes wouldn’t even drive that car… they said it was a ‘death trap’ and too dangerous to risk their lives in….
the brake master cylinder was not working …there was essentially zero braking availability in that car
underneath, were the biggest rust holes (everywhere) you ever saw on any car…
it was TOTALLY rotted-out underneath
the diesel mechanic said it was quite ‘safe’ and ‘okay in the state of Florida’ to drive it on the roads like that…. no safety inspections …what
that’s right ….don’t need safety inspections in Florida
you just drive your rustpile until it either kills you or someone(s) else ..apparently (wtf) ..true !
Goodwood Festival of Speed.
XD Don that’a a blast from the past..A MK4 estate.
looking well maintained.
I know the Marina is unloved, but I’ve always thought the 2-door versions (it looks like a hatchback, but I think I’ve heard it’s not?) had a good look. Maybe that’s seeing it through foreign eyes 40 years on rather than having lived through it.
It’s funny you mention a CC Concours. While driving home last night I was amusing myself with the idea of organizing a car show for my neighborhood and the ones adjacent. Just on my street within 3 or 4 blocks, I can think of at least 8 candidates…
Not a hatchback is correct.It was the best looker of the Marina’s but very sad compared to it’s rivals the Ford Capri,Sunbeam Rapier and Vauxhall Cavalier/Opel Manta twins.The 1.8 TC had a decent turn of speed but by then BL was a joke making duff cars between strikes.
I’ll never forget the furious expression on a Plymouth Duster owners face at a car show when a passer by told his friend the Duster looked like a Marina!
Funny the Marina two door should be mentioned as not too too awful…
I have ALWAYS prided myself as a petrolhead from age 3 onwards or earlier, but I had the same feelings about the two door …thought it looked appealing in it’s own way, and the fact the MGB 1.8 was sitting under the hood in the right north south layout also appealed… so I tried one out ..it was pooh orange brown with a dull navy interior …it actually felt powerful underfoot as the big long stroke four had plenty of low down grunt ..the handling was ‘soft’ and ‘wallowy’ i suppose but it was never meant to be a sports car …as an around town occasional cruiser it would have been okay.. .. .. i didn’t buy it ..but i still enjoyed the ‘feel’ of that lusty ‘B’ series engine
Marina TC Coup’e flat out at 95mph a school friends grandfather had one we tried it out along Mangakahia road to Kaikohe airport its all straights, thats all the Marina would do.
Bought one years later for a mates wife 1300 auto she wanted bomb to run around in we got it from a dealer on Parramatta road Sydney for $600 with 12 months rego Dianne drove that thing for years it never went wrong, amazed everyone.
..was that the B series engine, or the later 1750?
B series with twin sidedrafts.
The Marina was probably the worst (laziest, more dismissive of its audience and downright inadequate) car BL ever made.
A classic CC beat up, sorry retrospective analytical review, is in preparation.
I’ve got to admit I dislike them because I associate Marinas with a very unpopular Domestic Science teacher,hers was an awful pea soup colour and my ex BIL who had 2.The last one the tarted up Ital had serious rust problems at 3 years old and was scrapped at 5.
I’d like to see your CC on the Marina
“Domestic Science?” Sounds the same as stateside Home Economics (which in a way, is a tautology since the Greek root word for “economics” (οἰκονομία) means just that). Educators must presume children don’t learn anything practical from their parents, which is probably true in many cases. “Outsourcing” of parenting.
The Marina was marketed as having the “soul” of an MG. Actually, they meant the primitive mechanical bits. which were more fun in the latter than in a family car.
I think Mum taught me more about cooking than i learned in school.Needlework however was beyond me.
Actually had the “soul” of a Morris Minor. I used to call the Marina the Morose Mariner, for all the wallowing from that front end.
I have a vivid memory of a Marina, an organge one, that tried to pull out of a stopped lane of traffic, right in front of my Renault. The LeCar’s binders hauled it down enough, and kept it straight, so that I was able to dodge around his front fender, which was sticking well into the lane I was in, then dodge in the opposite direction around the front of the van that was hanging into the lane from a bank’s driveway on the other side of the road.
Hey! The Cortina’s were ‘grouse’ cars in their day.. .. 🙁 we loved them all here in NZ, ‘cept for the tubby Mk 2… the first of the Mk 3 through to ’76 were the ones!!! They were FANTASTIC on the road compared to just about everything else in the bread and butter range… and they were quick!
This one’s still a driver (barely). The red wagon above is engineless.
..there was a guy in the south island a while back (on Trade Me) who had put a 302 Windsor/5 speed into a bright electric blue Mk 4 ..and had re-built the entire vehicle to better than new ….waytergoooooo :):)
A workmate ditched a new XD Falcon for a MK4 Cortina better car he reckoned mind you the XD was a 3.3 gutless wonder.
This mk III Cortina 2000 GXL is still on the move, it parks near me sometimes at work. It is very far from concours, it is painted in a distinctly odd deep-sea colour, but I still hanker after it – it looks so small, taut and lithe compared to the lumps of metal we all drive today.
Bravo..well said!! 🙂
I actually rather like that “deep-sea” color! Nice to see one still in regular use too.
Any info on the PA Cresta wagon lurking in the Allegro pic?
Hi Gem,
only that it is a blue Friary estate conversion.
Sorry, must and will try harder…
They’re very scarce,I’ve never seen one in the metal.
Unless you live in Great Britain, Japan, Australia, or you work for the USPS, and you drive their mail carriers, you don’t see that many right-hand drive cars (RHD) here in the United States.
Still
I’d go for a Leyland Princess LHD.
The 2200 High line model, but with the 2 liter ‘O’ series engine.
And the leather steering wheel from the 2 liter model.
Let’em all laugh at me, affordable nice driving classic, with style,something quickly disappearing now in any mondaine car and with the disappearance of manufacturars like Lancia and -sob- a maybe soon to follow Alfa Romeo.
Audi’s the song one hears all over Europe, ow I want an AUWDI !
a lease Auwdi.
But I’ll remain a defender of style and good taste.
I have a thing for geeky unloved cars too, if a clean X-body Skylark Limited coupe were to cross my path for a decent price, I would have a hard time saying no.
My father drove an X-body Skylark for about three years. I don’t recall the exact year, but it had the base four cylinder with throttle body fuel injection.
He put about 60,000 troubles free miles on it, and when it came time to trade it in for a new Chevy, he told the saleman it was defect free. The saleman wrote up the deal without comment, but as Dad headed out to his new car, the salesman asked him, “All right, the paperwork is signed and the deal is done. What’s REALLY wrong with that Buick?”
I wouldn’t laugh – rarely have 5 people travelled in as much comfort and style.
Hi Paul,
I may be able to make it, but an MX-5 doesn’t qualify for a concours d’ordinaire, or in my case for a concours!
You and the organisers are bang on that the unremarkable but fondly remembered cars of the 60/70/80s are being lost. They may not be true classics but a bit of nostalgia is great and a tool for involving all generations and levels of knowledge.
Your chances of seeing an Allegro, Avenger, Marina (around 700 stil registered) or Cortina in daily use is pretty low (like alomost zero) now.
We need to get you as a judge for this thing. Maybe we could petition the organisers for next year somehow.
Marina survival rate is quite high around my area includind at least two utes still in use There are two HC Vauxhall Vivas Ive seen many Hillman Hunters several Cortinas, yeah the ordinary cars people actually drove untill they failed inspect too expensively, There are quite a few Avengers roaming local roads even the rare wagons are about. No Austin Pricesses on the road locally or any 1800s mechanically they were junk and simply didnt last though the smaller ADO16s are still fairly common usually owned by little old ladies and rarely driven that seems to be the secret to longevity, dont drive them.
For anyone panicking about the imminent extinction of the Marina, fear not – that figure of 22 is wrong
http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=morris+marina
The UK’s stringent vehicle regs do have some advantages to the classic car scene (mainly in accurate publicly available records)
Besides there’s a further 45 or so Morris Itals which Top Gear are unlikely to bother dropping pianos on since nobody remembers them as distinct models.
The Ital fooled no one it was a BL Deadly Sin of the highest order.A tarted up Marina,one of their most hated cars in a new suit.By then better cars could be had for less money from the opposition and BL was a dead man walking.My ex BIL’s Ital rotted away faster than his Marina.
The BL Ital tooling was sold to Chinese interest does anyone know if they ever used it for anything other than landfill?
Certainly the estate was built in China.
If you go to http://www.aronline.co.uk and search around the Marina pages you’ll some interesting information
….didn’t something similar happen to the last of the MG/Rover as well? …seem to recall the Chinese obtained those too
(had a soft spot for the little 200, particularly the 220SDi with the totally bulletproof Perkins-derived 1994cc with the very high pressure Bosch pump set-up..not quite a ‘common rail’ diesel but close to it.. and GREAT performance due the light weight of the little Honda-derived 200 body!)
I’ve yet to see a Chinese MG in the metal.
How about the Austin Maxi?
urrgghh…do you mind …what a horrible yuck disgusting turd on wheels ..(lol)
…think it had a five speed gearbox right(?) …about the only acceptable feature
The gear sack came from the Aussie Morris Nomad which was stretched and mangled then inbred with the 1800 to produce the Maxi horrible cars an uncle of mine bought one brought it up to show it off mostly to rub my fathers nose in its features Dad had been trying to sell him an OHC 2L Victor the last laugh was had by my Dad the Maxi broke down returning to Pukekohe and that was only the first time it had many repeats and that car didnt get thrashed it was gently driven by a church minister not a hoon.
The OHC 2 litre Victor was a pretty car ..and they sounded nice ..and had decent steering, front disc brakes, and coil springs at the rear if my memory is correct.. i had a ’69 model in powder blue when it was a few years old and loved it!! i found people would stop and look at it and say what a nice-looking car it was.. mind you i always kept it highly polished and tyres painted black ..spotless and like a french poodle it seemed to love this and sit up pretty soaking up the admiration …those coke bottle hips were pure s*x on wheels.. one of the few british cars i thought was really beautiful and elegant ..and a joy to own
My first car was an 8 year old rusty gold 1600 FD Victor
…good choice! 🙂 ..at the time it was released the reviewers were saying how ‘hi-tech it was for a shopping basket’ at a time when the other big manufacturers were sticking with heavy power-robbing pushrod valve-trains in their four cylinder engines.. and Lotus thought so too!! ..and Jensen-Healey!!
The Maxi was a car you hoped your parents wouldn’t buy.It should have been a winner for BL as on paper it was more advanced than the UK competitors.BL made it deadly dull,bland styling,drab colours and shoddy build quality made it another own goal.
The Maxi was a horrible car. It was marketed as having five of everything (ie, doors, seats, gears), but it was shocking to look at, shocking to drive, and a money pit to own. (I had an uncle with one; the general consensus was that he was a bit mad.)
It also – and this is where the Deadly Sin status ramps up – was BL’s hatchback and, until the SD1 appeared seven years later, BL simply didn’t do any other hatchbacks* for fear of them stealing sales from the Maxi.
So, no hatch on the Allegro, or the Marina coupe, or the 18-22/Princess. No hurry to replace the Mini. It was shockingly inept decision-making – reduce the attractiveness/options on the mass-market cars to try and protect the lemon.
*Sorry, the MGB-GT doesn’t count!
There was the Ambassador a warmed over Princess hatchback,only made as a stopgap for 2 years from 1982 til the Maestro turned up.There were few takers,it was another warmed up leftover from BL,they didn’t even bother to make any in LHD yet another Deadly Sin and another nail in the coffin.
If the Ambassador had been made in the 70s when the Princess came out it could have been a different story for BL but it was too late and build quality was a problem.
There was something about the Mostin Aaxi that made me want to retch and throw-up. No other car has ever done that. I would have preferred to have been severely tortured than to have had to have owned one. That, and the puke-inducing gormless cross-eyed early Morris Eight and the sky-scraping narrow-gut E93A Ford Prefect. Cars you would only want featuring in your worst nightmares. What a relief to wake up to see your FD Victor sitting in the driveway.
Here is a Hillman Avenger for you, one of a literal handful in Australia as they weren’t originally sold here. This is a high-spec GLS, one interesting detail is the vinyl roof that covers the flowing C pillar runs down far enough that the top part of the trunk lid is covered with vinyl and has a chrome edge strip to match. I bet the production line workers loved that one!
I thought the post was actually referring to the Goodwood Festival of Speed because in 2009 when I went the Cartier display featured, in addition to the predictable Rolls Royces & Bugattis, 1970s ‘wedge’ concept cars, Mini-based cars including a couple of psychadelic-painted examples and early cycle cars from the 1920-30s. So featuring ‘ordinary’ cars from the 70-80s would not be unexpected!
Of course it would help if I attached the photo!
These weren’t a bad car,nice looks and there were a couple of hot tyreburners made.They were a big step up from BL’s abominations but never sold as many as Ford or Vauxhall opposition in the UK
Wasn’t that the model that made it to the States as the Plymouth Cricket? I’ve never actually seen one but I’ve heard about them. Suprised they all seem to be gone; it is a good-looking car.(But then again so were the 70’s Dodge Colts and they all seem to be gone too, the survival rate for 70’s compacts here is very low…)
Wasn’t that the model that made it to the States as the Plymouth Cricket?
Yup. I saw exactly one, at the Plymouth dealer.
Not a bad looker. Much nicer than an Escort. (ducks for cover)
Aw quite true.. the Mk 2 Escort was a plain boxy looking car, but the Mk 1 was rather nice, particularly the Sport and Mexico variants with their flared front wheel arches..! They also sported nice tuned long pipe headers and progressive dual-throat Webers..! (the DCD32/36 from memory)
…was the Avenger 1600cc engine a Mitsubishi-derived piece of machinery? ..not a bad little car but i remember the (4 speed?) auto gearbox wasn’t that strong in them
A UK Mopar through and through
Nar its pure Hillman but shares nothing with other Hillman motors I reckon an Avenger twin carb setup will fit my Minx same cc.
My father had one of these back brand new in ’75…a GLS 1600 auto ..with black trunk-extended vinyl roofing over dark chocolate metallic brown body ..the interior was similarly finished in dark chocolate brown ‘vinyl’ upholstery. It was a smart looking little car. It had a reasonable bit of power too and cruised nicely enough. The ride over rough surfaces was a bit choppy. The only fault it developed was a gradual loss of power at one stage as a muffler tube fell out of position and eventually blocked-off the flow of the exhaust gases through the muffler ~ lol
Andrew Cowan of London to Sydney Marathon winning fame wiped the floor with BDA Escorts on one Heatway Rally in NZ driving an Avenger with a SouthAfrican model back axle with extra long pinion the L-S winning Hunter had the same setup Avenger went ok unless you had a 1300.