(first posted 11/23/2011; revised 9/1/2016) Get out the Kleenex, because the Leyland P76 is a woeful tale. Like any turkey (defined as a car that failed in the marketplace), its easy to dismiss it wholesale, and it certainly had its shortcomings. But every car has its story, and the P76’s is a lot more complex and compelling than I might have given it credit for. The whole idea of Leyland designing a large car on an American scale, specifically for Australia, gives one a bit of a woozy feeling from the get-go. So maybe better get some Dramamine along with the Kleenex.
The world of BL is almost a parallel universe, and one a bit challenging to keep track of, especially when it gets to its Austalian and New Zealand operations. Anyway, the P76’s predecessor was the Austin Kimberly/Tasman, a somewhat well disguised BMC 1800 (ADO 17), with a fwd transverse 2.2 L six-cylinder version of the “beloved” E-Series that also powered the Maxi and Allegro back in the UK.
The ADO was a remarkably roomy car, and the Australian version even came with bench seats, to make a six-seater. But the frailties of the E-Series and fwd didn’t really work for the Aussies, who preferred the rugged and simple Big Three’s iron, suitably localized.
So the ambitious program to create a true competitor for the Holdens, Fords and Chryslers was launched in 1970, codenamed P76. I always wondered how Leyland could afford to create a unique platform, and the answer is they couldn’t , and didn’t. We’ll get to the couldn’t afford at the end, but the didn’t part has to do with the fact that the P76 shared certain engineering features with with Rover’s SD1 (Rover 3500 in US). You remember that fiasco, right?
Michelotti, the somewhat uneven Italian designer that Leyland had used for a number of its cars, was commissioned to help design the P76. The result is…well, what do you expect from an Italian trying to design an Australian take on an “American” car? So what does it most remind you of? 1969 Torino? 1971 Satellite? Or?
I find myself literally getting sucked into that grille. Wow; Michelotti meets a Plymouth Sebring.
One of the design objectives was a true American-style trunk. The P76’s ability to swallow a 55 gallon (44 Imp. gals) drum became one of the more enduring parts of its legacy.
On paper , the P76 really was more advanced than the competition in numerous ways. It had a strut front suspension, rack and pinion steering, disc brakes, and most significantly, it had an aluminum V8. Take that! As a result, the P76 weighed some 500 lbs less than the competition. Nothing to sneeze at.
and what looks like the typical Detroit V8 iron is actually a unique 4.4 liter version of Rover’s (ex-Buick) 3.5 liter V8 (also shared with the Leyland Terrier truck). With a taller deck, it swung a longer stroke, and was rated at 200 easy horses. The six cylinder was an enlarged version of the Kimberly’s six, with 2.6 liters. Let’s skip that.
Touted as “Anything but Average”, the P76 won Australia’s Car of the Year in 1973. Expectations, and initial demand was high. You know where this is going. A combination of supplier problems, assembly quality control issues, the first energy crisis, and failure to live up to high expectations all conspired in the P76’s rapid implosion. Within some two years and 18k cars, the lines were shut, and Leyland Australia was mostly bust, except for some local production of the Mini and Mini Moke.
In addition to the sedan, a coupe, the Force 7, was also developed, featuring a genuine hatchback, no less. Rather oddly proportioned for its size and intended mission, the Force 7 was aborted after some sixty or so were built.
Of those all but eight or nine were sent straight to the crusher. The remaining eight were auctioned off, and spend their happy and pampered lives appearing at car shows. Must keep the memory alive! And as the comments below attest, the P76 owners are a very proud and defensive bunch. Why not? They’re keeping the legacy alive; may the Force be with them.
this is really a weird one – I was scratching my head until I finally could put my finger on what exactly this reminds me of. First theres some relation to the audi 100
http://bright-cars.com/uploads/audi/audi-100-coupe-s/audi-100-coupe-s-11.jpg
and then there’s that typical british … oddity which can be found in such cars as the reliant scimitar
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Reliant_Scimitar_GTE_SE5A_2994cc_1972.JPG
but I also have to think of the Saab Sonett III
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4DGu3_M-aDQ/VXHHGhi6ebI/AAAAAAABTHM/PnIzoWDO38s/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-05-19%2Bat%2B1.44.58%2BAM.png
wonderful blender design
Haha, not only have I owned a P76 but more recently was a Scimitar GTE owner for 12 years until my (now) ex crashed it. The Scimi had plenty of design features but a few build flaws (perpetual leaks due to fiberglassing) and a weird-ass Triumph front suspension system (what was wrong with a standard wishbone?) but they were a hybrid of every UK auto manufacturer with bits of all number of UK cars – great for parts sourcing 20 years ago but many of those parts are now rare too. HRH Princess Anne is still the patron of the UK car club for Scimitars, having owned eight of them (her latest is the handbuilt Middlebridge -correct me if I’m wrong). I always joked why she bought the 2nd one (the first one was a 21st gift from Reliant). I once bumped into the daughter of the man who designed the folding bucket seats for the Scimitar at an Auckland Farmers Market. Loved all my quirky cars, despite their foibles.
I don’t find it bad looking, especially for its day. Sizing the trunk/boot to fit a 55 gal drum is a neat feature.
A 44/55 gallon drum will also fit in a 55 series 2 morris Oxford/Isis boot with the lid shut I know this from personal experience I fitted one as an auxillary fuel tank during the petrol rationing stupidity in the 70s, we had carless days and no private vehicle fuel sales on weekends in a futile effort to cut petrol consumption, however the weight full was too much in the Isis even with a 7cwt six cylinder engine up front to balance itout it was too unwieldy to drive so I went back to three smaller tanks and a tap and pipe system of 29 gallons.
The Isis was sold in Australia so far from being a new idea it was just a retread of an old one of boot/trunk sizing.
Good point, the average pass car will weight out before it volumes out with that type of load.
Agreed on the size of that boot – I remember going away on holidays in Dad’s Oxford (same body/short nose/less cylinders) and there was much more room than in the Falcon that replaced it. I’m not surprised you got a 44 in there.
Wonder if they ever tried putting a full 44 in a P76, with less weight on the nose?
I always wondered how you got it out, full. When I lived at my mates property in the Pilliga scrub we had a P76 paddock car and we bought at least one 44 of power kero every month lamps fridges and the 39 David Brown tractor all ran on kero we used the old 120 International truck to get our fuel the deck was the same height as the Ampol drum stand at the depot in town that system worked well, just how you were meant to get a 44 of anything in and out of a P76 is a mystery Leyland didnt give answers to. Very soft springing on P76s too I doubt one could have carried a full drum without bottoming out on every bump.
Forklift, I guess. With a VERY careful operator…
The vibe I get from the P76 story is that had BL in the UK been in better shape then it would have continued in production. I am not certain that the volumes it was sold in were so low that they were the deal breaker. That said, the front grille does look like some teenager’s art class effort whilst the rest of the car imho looks pretty good.
The Force seven was nearly in production when the rug was pulled from under Leyland AU, those may have made the difference most were scrapped but one was sent to the UK for evaluation by the mothership most likely as part of the Rover 3500 ramp up it became the managing directors ride it has since been sold and now resides in New Zealand fully restored and was at a British car show I went to recently but I cant find the photo.
Wow. 5 years on, it’s compelling to see how this story develops. Paul certainly did his best to remain cheerful under the hail of defensive fire. Many of us have a pet car in our psyche that we feel got a raw deal from pop history, and the apologists for the P76 seemed to be fused for an explosion. What we need to remember is that escaping the zeitgeist of one’s time, or past time, is a fruitless endeavor. An angry, knee-jerk reaction to a perceived “ignorant and ill-informed” blog piece says more about the emotional state of its scribe than it does about the subject of his/her vitriol. They’d have caught more acolytes with sugar than salt.
It’s also interesting that this piece was resurrected during a parallel moment in commentary on the US election process, where differences in political leanings quickly devolve into attacks on a candidate’s intelligence and physical being, and then are expanded to include their supporters.
For some reason, British automotive writers tend to rely heavily on snideness and attitude. And many of these writers inevitably write those lazy books about “the worst cars ever”, summarizing in a page why a car is awful. Once I even saw the 1977 Chevrolet Caprice listed in one of those books and I was gobsmacked. Absolute hack writing.
Why do I go off on this tangent? Because P76 owners have had to deal with both that targeted hatred – the P76 has featured in such books – and, to top it off, have to deal with that kind of residual dislike or mistrust of their cars. As someone said earlier, the P76 was joked about and eventually Aussies developed this perception of it as being an awful car. Flawed? Yes. Awful? No. So while I don’t appreciate the tone the comments took, I can understand why these fans would come in here defensive. It’s a credit to Paul that he was able to assuage their concerns about his piece and that the discussion became more civil. Paul’s piece was hardly a “World’s Worst Cars” page and it seems much of the defensiveness came from the title and a cultural misunderstanding.
I know what books you mean, one I saw listed an early 60s Dodge Dart with a Slant Six. I didn’t buy it of course.
I also remember that same book, it had the gall to say that the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado was one of the worst cars ever. Talk about ignorance at its absolute finest, I thought that was hack writing at it’s best. I didn’t read it fully, but I assumed the author just stated his reasoning as “Oh the brakes were terrible and for that alone, the car is terrible.” (Not defending the drum brakes on the Toro, those were absolutely inexcusable. But to condemn a whole car for one design flaw is pretty over reactionary.)
British automotive writers seem particularly prone to nationalist snark. If anything isn’t English or from one of the two and a half approved European powers (Germany, Italy, or France, the latter only on even-numbered days), there’s a two in three chance it will be deluged with hyperbolic vitriol. Even if it’s competent enough to draw some grudging respect, the writer will expend most of the word count either rationalizing the good aspects as the product of beneficent influence (direct or indirect) of British or Approved European betters or else muttering about “breeding.” It’s predictable, occasionally amusing, and seldom worth taking seriously.
I’d like to see someone bring over a surviving P76 to the United States and watch people’s various reactions trying to figure out what it is.(I personally think it looks like the offspring of a 1977 Impala and a base model 1973 Torino), The P76 looks like another case of good intentions gone horribly wrong. Just as some of in the States will think “Cool! A survivor Maverick/Pinto/Pacer!”, somebody in Australia has got to be thinking the same thing about the P76. Automotibe history is full of the miscues/marketing misfires/goofs–ya gotta love ’em!
My two cents- I suspect part of the problem for the P76 was that very few people who bought Falcons cross shopped Holdens and Valiants and vice versa. If you don’t cross shop the existing product, why look at a new competitor, especially if the company already has a well founded reputation for poor quality?
And the people who would be inclined to cross shop would also be looking at cars like the Toyota Crown, and six cylinder Datsuns- cars that already had good reputations for quality.
You would really,really need to want a Leyland with the broad competition.
Regarding David Oxton racing the P-76 @ the B&H, he’s dreamin’..
I was there to watch it, & while he had several goes at it, yet he couldn’t
even out-qualify the 265 Chargers, let alone win against them.
The Charger held too many advantages, being lighter, & more nimble
handling, so it was better on fuel – while lapping just as quick,
& it was easier on tyres & brakes too, plus there were too many in the field,
..if one had a problem, another would take its place, & hold the Leyland out..
Not that the other showroom stock New Zealand assembled Aussie V8s
from Ford Holden, or even Chrysler could beat the Chargers there either..
I enjoyed? reading your article as I was once the proud owner of a rusty P76 Super in the early 1990s in NZ. Mine was the only one in the club (which boasted over 100 cars) that had blue upholstery – everyone else’s had black, brown, or tan. The Super built in NZ was a hybrid of an Aussie Super and an Executive, with the twin headlights and the alloy wheels. Aussie Supers had steel wheels with hubcaps incorporating the “beauty ring” as was the fashion. They had many unique features, such as the bonnet hinged at the front, hideaway wipers, that cavernous boot, Macpherson struts x4, to name a few. Mine was a standard V8 with Borg Warner 3spd trans, twin buckets in the front and bench in the back. The ride was very American, more so than the Valiants of the 70s. Way more leg room than a Holden or Falcon. They rusted at the same speed as all Aussie cars of the day, none were dipped, that was an extra that you did yourself with fisholene. Some readers are right: BL UK pulled the plug to try and cover their losses in the UK but blame was put on the fuel crisis and BL Australia building a V8 for God’s sake (nothing wrong with Ford/Holden/Valiant V8s) and some initial build problems. Back in 1991 there was an Executive totally rebuilt (bolts and all) in NZ that was then up for sale for the exorbitant sum of $15000 which was actually a bargain considering it was better than new. Hark back to the 70s and NZ still had import tariffs on new cars but we did build the big 3 and the Leyland in NZ – and all those manufacturing plants have now gone. Unions killed the UK auto industry just as our Western wages have killed the auto industry nowadays. I loved my Leyland (never did stop the windscreen leak) loved its style and roominess and reliability.
I, having never been fortunate enough to spend time in Australia, have never seen one in person. I have no way of relating to it except through Paul’s presentation. Yet, I know enough of Paul’s work to know that it is about as fair as it could be, and then some. (He finds the silver lining in every dark cloud.)
That said, the photos must not do this vehicle justice because the car doesn’t look good in them. It appears to have been styled by a committee. Not seeing a lot of wholeness to the design. I do have experience growing up in the 1970s and experiencing that nightmare auto-wise. This car fits that era. Sad to say, the 1970s was not a highlight of new auto design in this particular market. We experienced a series of confusing auto selections and it seemed that Detroit wasn’t certain if their intermediate sized offerings were to be sporty, or luxurious. Worse, they ended up looking similar to this car.
Finally, the name. It is flat-out awful. For a car that looks like this, built like that, it needed at least a name that gave it some kind of hope. P76 is a terrible name. It sounds like the entire vehicle is some kind of experiment, and not ready to use as a real Leyland.
Sad story. Hope you love these cars, you P76 fans, because the rest of us wouldn’t want to see them survive if it meant looking at them as they drove down our streets.
Kudos for running this one again, Paul.
Funny how a piece of machinery can be so polarizing.
Rover SDI served in UK as a potent police patrol and pursuit platform. It performed well at Bathurst, without the massive factory and dealer support teams of Holden and Ford. A few times, I drove and delighted in the posh Vanden Plas version. P76 was adored by the few owners I’ve known.
They looked better in real life than in photos. But the interiors were very boring.