The Morris Marina - the MILLION seller that was hung out to dry
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- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2020
- My very first car was a Morris Marina. A £40 1972 white rusting 1.8L TC saloon that my dad bought me so I could learn how to repair cars. I never learnt, and the Marina continued to rust, until in a fit of madness I tried to drive it before I’d even had a driving lesson! It didn’t end well, for the Marina or the wall. Another story that didn’t end well was that of the Marina itself. What started with hope as a popular Cortina-killer, ended in the early 80’s after the car really overstayed its welcome!
Music: "Feel the Funk" from the RUclips audio library.
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"My heart is sore, my Marina is no more
It was the 1.8 with the optional rear armrest
And now those Top Gear wazzocks have dropped a piano on its roof
I hate James May, and the other two
But mainly James May
I want my Morris back"
-Carla Bruni
They were crocks best place for them was the scrapyard crusher .
🤣
Somebody is butthurt.
Such a beautiful song 😭
But the question still remains. Is it the Wife of the President... of the Morris Marina Owners Club, or was it France?
No piano was harmed in the making of this video.
Top Gear also set a few on fire too!
Oh good i was concerned about the well being of the Pianos. Glad they still not harmed
Hahahaha hahahaha excellent!
Good one!
@@amdvideos3610
Oh yes, very original 😏
Watching the marinas driving in the sea, all I could think about rust!
Especially the one furthest out, bet the driver was expecting the ignition to fail imminently.
Sand in the axle bearings - ouch!
Rust came as standard , the OP's white one was fully equipped , and his dad was ripped off at £40 , although as an exercise in fixing cars it was a good choice , because EVERYTHING would have needed fixed on that !
Well ours didn't rust too soon. Neither did the Ital version we had subsequently.
The speed at which they rusted is obviously down to the probability that all new cars were tested in salt water.
I always remember seeing The Spy Who Loved Me in the cinema with my parents and brother in the late 1970’s and the classic scene when the Lotus comes out the water…and my father saying; a British car and the sea were never a good combination. Especially when it has Morris Marina parts (including the door handles)
Such a shame that Britain's space program ended with the Black Arrow launch of the Prospero satellite - if Britain had launched a manned space vehicle, I feel sure it would have had Marina door handles...
😂
The only car I got travel sick in,what a dog.lol
The only thing Britain can manage *_is_* a piss-up in a brewery. No, wait . . .
@@paulsydenham1883 There's lots of cars I got sick in travelling in the back as a kid.
Yes. Like odd socks, I bet there's somewhere in the universe where Marina door handles go.
It was a safety feature: It can be quite lethal jumping out of a car door at 90 mph!
Morris could never get to 90 so if you drove it to 100 it would turn inside out
Tried to reach the magical 100mph/160kph in an Australian one, was too scared toto go beyond 130 or so, the front was floaty in a strainght line, and swung like a heavy pendulum with any steering input at speed. Okay, it wasn't new when I did this, but it was well-maintained example, a well serviced turd, if you will.
Delta Fox Had an indicated 145MPH on my XJ8 on the autobahn in Germany in 2010 I was trying to see if would really do 150MPH sadly I ran into an area limited to 90MPH (140KPH) and didn't get another opportunity.
Delta Fox I consider myself an experienced driver having done a bit of circuit racing in my teens and early twenties and having been an HGV driver for sixteen years prior to 2014 and I can tell you it took a huge amount of concentration. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was on a public road and if someone did something silly around me it was going to be a huge accident. All that said I have driven quite a few times in Germany and they are incredibly disciplined on the motorway because sometimes at 140Kms you are the slowest thing on the road. I was surprised at how completely stable the car was at that speed.
@Daniel Johnson maybe the door should be studied ,being so much better than the car, 90 miles an hour maybe the GT turbo version of it with it´s 4 barrel carburator
You forgot the 1.5 diesel versions produced in Portugal. They was made in Setubal, a town south of Lisbon. Those cars was very popular as taxis. They was small enought for the Lisbon narrow old streets and delivery a good diesel economy. A friend of mine had a Marina diesel in 1994. It was is everyday car and i remember that it was reliable. I believe that Setubal plant did reenforce the car for the heavier engine and made some other improvements. Even today is possible to find saloons, vans and pickups in portuguese second hand market.
Yes they should have released it in uk, imagine how many of the diesel van version they could have sold and taxis too, missed opportunity, the BMC 1.5 was a superb engine, very reliable and economical
@@MrUmpleby And all of 34 BHP
Ahh yes...as you say...all good delivery van diesels should produce 150BHP minimum.
That would certainly improve the mpg. Because as you point out getting LESS MPG is the prime requirement for boosting profitability in a delivery van.
And as you miss the other ladies good points about reliability, it really isn't important as you say to have reliability and reach your objective when you could have 150 bhp..maybe 180 bhp..why not!!..let's build an over stressed vehicle that can tear the tyres off..non of this miserly 34 bhp crap....let's put really wide tyres on it and make it wider than the roads..difficult to park...heavy on the steering...get rid of that 34 bhp and make it faster than a santa pod quarter miler.......because then chumps will buy it...when it can do nothing good other than a fast 1/4 mile on top gear...the program watched by infants and Brian Cox fans the world over.
It just shows you that when PROPAGANDA is removed from the situation an honest appraisal shows that a car...not just the marina....Will have many good points.
So all it takes is a group of motoring journalists...like Clarkson, who couldn't change his own underwear let alone find a spark plug...can destroy a cars image from inception to grave and the car never recovers....never.
Clarkson did the same to the Vectra...after massive sales gains by vauxhall over Ford with the cavalier.
His stupid comments lost Luton the car plant and 20,000 jobs..5000 families lost their income...the town descended to mass unemployment...while wolfsburg blossomed.
Clarkson and his cronies know nothing about manufacturing and should be banned from talking about something they know nothing about.
To this day engineers in Britain use the marina as an example of bad practice......and yet.....its all based on words and innuendo..not facts.
Give the car to a new audience ....like Spain...Korea...suddenly its okay????? Strange isn't it!!!!
"BMC didn't see the benefit of sharing platforms between it's marques"... pretty much sums up their success really 🤣🤣
indeed, I also like the other line of reasoning: It's reliable and dependable......why change?
Back then BMC's management really did just about everything wrong in the worst possible way, unlike Japanese, German and French companies. It also says a lot that they were't able to make money with the Mini, despite the fact that it sold in huge numbers.
On the other hand, they had a great number of makes, who didn't naturally have any affinity
@@torstenscholz6243 Ford never made any money with the Fiesta either, but it covered much of the fixed costs of the plant thereby enabling the higher priced vehicles to turn in the profits.
To Comfortably Numb: if they DIDN'T share platforms, on THEIR reasonably priced cars, that's actually good for the money. I saw a Skoda parked next to a Volkswagen, and, sharing platforms, the proportions were identical. So there's not so much scope for individual styling between makes!
Thank you for this trip down memory lane. My dad bought an ealy L-reg orange Marina brand new. It was his pride and joy and he kept it going until the mid-00's when failing eyesight forced him to sell it. Although us kids (& later grand kids) constantly took the micky out of it & him, for his love of it, that poor old much maligned Marina out lived so many of our cars. Testiment, perhaps, to the benefits of simple, cheep & readily available spare parts. For all its failings that old Marina was spacious, robust and easily serviceable. A good, if not brilliant, affordable, British family car. Not many of those around these days!
I quite like the Morris Ital, it's quite a clean design. Also, the black Morris Marina that Clarkson dropped the piano on was saved by a friend of mine. Completely rebuilt it and saved it. Take that Clarkson! And Steinway & sons!
Photos please
alright, lemme have a little talk to the car *drops the maus on it*
@@yanuchiuchihaanimegamesand3907 is this a yugo logo or it's just my imagination?? 🤔
@Mark Morrissey 100% true. If I didn't buy the Lada I'd have bought it from him. They found a donor Marina in a scrap yard and cut the roof, A B and C Pillars from that and welded it on to the Grand Tour Marina.
The piano isn't a Steinway. It's a pre WW1 knacker. the shape of the leg gives it away. It does appear to be a bit German.
My mates dad bought him an ex-water board Ital van when he passed his test. It was utterly reliable and only let him down when he drove it through some flood water. We went everywhere in that van.
There, you see! Someone who has actually pointed out WHY people bought all British Leyland's "HITS", i.e. the products everyone knew!
Why torture a van?
wow god know why that one ended up being ok , most were fuckd while they were still being built
Most splendid correct! A true testament to the reliability of these Marinas! Bravo!
Buying a BLMC car in the seventies was like a wife staying with a husband that regularly beat her up. At least she knew what to expect.
I worked at the rover SD1 plant in Solihull in 1979, I stayed for 6 months and during that time I never worked a full week. We had a 1 day strike every week in support of marine workers, and then we had lightning strikes with walk outs at the show of hands. It was a shame poor cars , poor management , poor worker relationships, just a disaster!
Apart from that it wasn't to bad ;-)
The Soviets had infiltrated the Unions very successfully (as they had in Europe too) waging economic warfare against the West, plus of course, the unseen threat from reliable, Japanese cars....it's amazing Leyland lasted as long as it did. But I do put a huge amount of blame on the Union and its members: that extreme attitude ended up destroying us all - thanks to the unions, we were saddled with Maggie and the frigging Tories for generations. Look what happened to the British Car Industry...and the Ship-building, and Steel, and Fish....etc, etc etc... Very amusing to see that Daily Fail Headline from 75 though "Our future in Europe"!!
@@swannvictor1388 The late firebrand 'Red Robbo' is said to have accrued a property empire a la Blair: this may be Daily Mail 'disinformation' but who knows?
@@None-zc5vg more than possible, indeed, probable. Remember a lot of these 'firebrands' enjoyed their power and when the Soviet Union collapsed, they were cut adrift and utterly bereft of power. Like true sociopaths, it's no surprise they went the opposite way and embraced capitalism, after all Money = Power.
Yep the phrase "Turkeys voting for Christmas" was NEVER more clearly demonstrated than by the militant BL workers and their incompetent Senior Management.
I've had 3 Marina's, one being an 1800 TC coupe, never had a single problem with them, I really liked them, not quite as good as the Escort but not awful.
I miss basic cars!
Yes. I had two (not at the same time!) and I too miss the simplicity. My old Maestro is simple, too.
I have had Allegros. Fiestas. Minis and all sorts of budget cars. My 77 Marina Coupe is the only one I have no fondness for. Utter crap. Maybe I had a lemon but to me, it seemed dated and dangerous to drive and was not well build. Even the paintwork was faded and the car was less than ten years old when I bought it..
@@presterjohn71
Faded paint on a ten year old car? Heresy.
You see modern younger cars with paint issues these days.
I think either you did have a lemon or you were expecting a Rolls Royce for Fiat 125p money.
@@presterjohn71 Same. I had an Allegro 1300, which caused me no problems, and was actually quite nice inside.
Someone wrote the allegro off, and I used my dad's unused Marina. It seemed dangerous to me. I then changed to a massive Cortina estate, which felt far more sturdy.
Strangely enough, a lot more people say they're missing basic cars than buy Dacias or other actual simple cars.
My first car was a used Citroën Visa which I loved and handed on to my sister as I went to study abroad.
Sometimes I peek at the classifieds and am glad when I see a good surviving one.
But life goes on and I'm happy to have something much safer now.
And thanks to RUclips tutorial videos, I've done a lot more work on my modern car myself than I ever did on the Visa...
Marina door handles still live on today, on the outside of rear emergency doors of Optare town buses.
AMC used almost identical handles in those years and they always made me cringe; they looked wrong and seemed as if they would have been very awkward, especially on a cold morning with the car iced up. The recessed, pull-up handles that became ubiquitous in the 1970s and '80s were no bargain either, but at least you could get 4 fingertips into on at once.
@@pcno2832
They actually worked very well and I can't recall one instance of a Marina door handle icing up.
Oh those bloody handles.!
Marina 1.7HLS was my first car.....the word "trunnions" immediately comes to mind along with keeping a couple of paving slabs in the boot to rectify the wayward handling. Everyone should hone their driving skills in a rear wheel drive car.
Ah! Trunions. The things that jacked the front of the car upwards when you turned right, and down when you turned left. God, nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Yes,my Dad's friend bought a new one and the first accessory he added was a bag of cement in the boot.
Trunions and swivel joints, borrowed from the Morris Minor. I have change a few in the past. Nobody bother getting the grease-gun out so they dried up.
1.7 HLS.....the pinnacle of Marina luxury! 😉
@@geoffgreenhalgh3553 I used to grease mine every bank holiday without fail.
I have had 3 Marinas and 1 Ital. Loved them all.
I had two Marinas a white 1.8saloon and a dark purple know as black tulip 1.8 saloon, I loved the Marina they were a lovely car. Always dreamed of a Marina 1.8 tc lovely sounding engine. Ahhh happy days 😊
I owned a marina in the early 80s loved it
My first car was also a Marina and it was fine. Totally reliable.
100% reliability could also mean it started right away the only time you used it, before hitting a wall
@
Spoken like a true badge-snob! 😡
@@guidodresemann8494
It could also mean you have zero experience of the cars you're shit talking.
Yeah it was until a piano fell onto it
They rotted reliably & liked to burn oil & belch black smoke .
A few actually made it state side as the Austin Marina. A neighbor had an orange one. My dad made fun of the car... mostly because they were cooky neighbors. We lived in the North Carolina mountains. I can’t imagine where they had to go to get work done. It’s the only one I ever remember seeing in the USA
it would be a challenge finding anyone in North Carolina who would have even heard of Austin, much less a place that stocked parts for it.
Brightwells online auction have last week just sold a 1979 Morris Marina 1.3 for £6076, these rare vehicles are now commanding serious money.Thankyou for the informative vid!
My dad had the 1.3. The brakes were absolute carp.
@@johnbishop5316
Just about everything else from the same era had marginal brakes on cooking models.
@@skylined5534 Not that bad. They were very bad. I had the 1.8 which had discs on the front. That stopped OK.
@@johnbishop5316
I can recall some real horrors from that era and they were that bad. Drum brakes on anything up front were never great, especially after a good hard application or two.
Genius shot of that daily mail frontpage, nudge, nudge..😁
Tossers.
@ 14.20
Surely saying "if you drive your Marina at 90 miles per hour" is a bit like saying "if you sail your elephant across the atlantic"...?
No. The 1800 and TC could do 90 easily.
@@984francis Freefall doesn't count.
@@984francis I exceeded 90mph in my Ital 1.7 several times, and at the time it was very old and completely worn out. And the doors worked fine afterwards.
I just read that in a Jeremy Clarkson accent and I've been laughing for the past 10 minutes XD
I had a 1.8 and used to drive it along the motorway at up to 100mph. It never resulted in any door opening problems - "doors deformed" - WTF? It' was a heavier car, but it had the same engine as an MGB.
They played the stop-gap card for like 20 years...
That’s my kind of procrastination.
I couldn't live with that sense of urgency.
My first car was also a Marina. Yellow and later we installed a Datsun 1200 Y engine. Ran very well and a perfect car for a student.
Did a piano fall on it?
>see Morris Marina
>wait for the piano to fall
The Morris Maori, now that would have been a laugh in 1970’s New Zealand!
How about the Austin Aborigine?
Leyland Kiwi
@The Whore's Whisperer you could rebadge a VT commodore and sell it new as THE BOGAN.
@@casinodelonge the aboriginals would complain about it. ONLY IF it was not very good to sleep in. Otherwise they'd be fine with it. So long as you gave them a free beer week....
Make for a funny advertising campaign!
I was the young engineer who happened to be standing up when Ray Bates the director of Engineering asked me if I could "calculate suspension" as the press were about to slate the 1.8 Marina for poor handling. I proceeded to write a Fortran program to plot camber angle change with suspension movement. I plotted graphs for popular BL models and the Marina was almost a mirror image of the better handling ones. It was then a matter of what could be changed to improve things. This lead to increasing the size of the trunnion connecting the lower arm to the king pin. About 1.5 inches was added. Some experimental parts were made and as a reward I was allowed to go to the Dunlop test track as I recall which was a disused airfield so a test driver could drive before and after versions between cones to see if there was an improvement. There was so the cars were modified. So if you look under a 1.8TC that is my 1.5 inches of which I am proud. Such was the state of engineering at BL so I moved to Volvo which was a revelation.
Thanks Andrew, fascinating!
"He went down to the Seaman's Mission, but it's not there any more - it's just a Marina". "Well can't he kip in the back of that?"
That'll be lost on the modern generation!
john sullivan was a great writer, very sadly missed.
Hello and thanks for the video. I had Marina 1300 Coupe 1975 model 1980s when I was studuying as an engineer. The university was in another town here in Finland. Me and my friends commuted every day 70 km forth and back with the green Marina. Altough its many smaller problems it newer stopped on the road at let us down! We had lots of fun moments as well. Just one example. First the fuel indicator broke up. Ok. I started to calculate using km meter. Then broke down the km meter and I had to start keep books distances driven and have the spare canister of fuel wirh us. One day I heard loud cracking noise and the car started leaning right. Front right spring has ripped off from its attacment and there was a big hole in the floor. When welding it we almost burned the Marina. However, I graduated as Mechanical Engineer from the Technical Institute of Kotka. I still miss this peculiar car.🙄😄 Best Regards Veijo
My first car was also a Morris Marina 1.8HL . My parents bought it from my brother and had it when I was 15.He had a minor crash on the front which my parents paid for new panels. It was originally brown but when I started work had it sprayed red. I actually liked it and learnt so much on it
As a kid; my father bought our first new car; an Austin A30, that was Light Green in colour. I loved that little car and I remember dad who was a Marine Engineer servicing this car himself; and periodically pulled the engine down to what he called "Decarbonising" the valves so you could say I developed my love of working on engines back in 1952 at 6 years of age. Dad sold that car and purchased an Austin A50 (Black in colour). That too served us well, and upon the introduction by Austin of the A55 (Farina) dad bought one of those as well. In 1961, he sold the vehicle as we left for Australia that year. The name Austin lived with me and on turn ing 18 years of age and obtaining my Drivers' Licence in Victoria (Aust) I looked out for a suitable Austin to purchase however; I had saved up enough money to buy a Brand spanking new Holden EH Station wagon that cost me £1,0230.00.00 (Aust £) in December 1964. I had travelled over 129,000 miles in that vehicle and traded it in on a Brand New Morris 1100. Wow, what a car that was. I used to travel between Canberra (where I was living at the time) and Melbourne every fortnight and got some 50 MPG out of it on a round trip of 960 Miles when I travelled to see my parents. The hydrolastic suspension was brilliant, and the car very comfortable. Progressing from there to the Austin 1800 Mk 1 was also a dream. Following my marriage in September 1972, my wife and I bought a Brand New BL MARINA. That's when our problems started. The bloody thing was in and out of the dealers workshops every three weeks with engine problems, and the final straw came when we were travelling to my wife's home town 200 Kms away when the hood lining suddenly collapsed. The disc brakes were shockers and had to be machined more times than I had hot meals. I eventually got rid of the damn thing. As a matter of fact; the Car Salesman (who WAS a family friend) did tell me before i had purchased the Marina, that it was build on the same platform as a Morris Minor and had Morris Minor suspension. Stupid me never test drove the car before buying it. As a matter of fact, I was intending to buy a new car just yesterday as I can still get a good second hand price on my Mercedes E280 Avant Garde, and we had settled on a HYUNDAI but given that you mentioned HYUNDAI had built Morris Minor technology into the ELANTRA; I have changed my mind and will now got for a Toyota Land Cruiser. At least you cannot kill a Toyota.
I am not ashamed to admit that I quite liked my 1.8 orange 2 door marina company car in 1972. With an 8 track stereo and Tommy The Who blaring out as I sped round the Welsh roads hanging on as I slid round the bends. Quite fond memories!!…..and I survived, so the handling could not have been so bad.
Fantastic video this. Very nostalgic. The car of my 70s childhood. My dad must have had a soft spot for these, we went through two of them then later on had the Ital too!
I did 90 in my dads 1.8. The doors were fine, though I did lose one of my L plates!
The 1100 van could do that, too - easily.
A famously collected and well presented overview as well of the BMC-projects as of all possible mistakes done in british car industry of 1960/1970
A lovely trip down memory lane. My father had one. I seem to recall he never had any problems with the car. Excellent video, thank you 2👍⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My memory of our Morris Ital was the huge rust hole in the passenger side wing arch.
My mates mum had an Ital, she had much better bodywork though.
@@casinodelonge our was 7 years old by the time we got it to be fair.
I owned a 1300 and then a 1700. Very good memories. Had the 1700 for 5years extremely reliable. The only problem with the Marina was it was in production for too long.
Why too long? I think it EVOLVED. The different bumpers on each of the versions incorporated the trends of each era. By comparison it's predecessor, the Minor was NEVER updated, like the Beetle. Although they all sold well, compared to the Marina/Ital, they became old fashioned
Great video! The Marina really sums up the whole mood of the UK in the 1970s. Clear disaster on the horizon and nevertheless pressing on headlong into it! So much better than all those videos you see looking back at Britain in the past through rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia.
My first car was a 1.3L Marina and I loved it! Never let me down. Replaced one trunion and one leaf spring. People slagging it off, frankly have no idea what they're talking about.
Why didn't Leyland put more effort on exacting quality, like say the Honda Motor Company? That's all customers ask! :)
You're that one guy who APPARENTLY had no issues with a car most people saw as a rusty trash heap.... There's ALWAYS ONE, no matter WHAT car the video is about.
@@OffGridInvestor They ran forevwr with no engine, gearbox or diff issues where the Fords guzzled camshafts and rusted above the struts. The Vauxhalls of the day just rusted period! Please name me an issue with the Marina!
@@TassieLorenzo The six sigma quality was not introduced to standard European cars till the 80s when the Japanese imports had become more of a threat. They had aluminium engines and lightweight bodies. The examined things like what makes a door close with a clunk and their dashboards lit up like Christmas trees! Easy to see that now but the general public had no idea that this would be the standard for production cars.
@@OffGridInvestor I had every model of marina , fantastic cars , then came the ital and the O dear series , game over for marina and sherpa , at the time I was converting near new just out of warranty sherpas from the new o series engine back to b series engines using sec hand cast iron b series 1622 and 1800 petrol and 1800 diesel , the 1700 alloy head o series was no more than a joke , you just could not keep a head Gasket in them , I would like a tenner for every one I converted , I did a camper 1700 to 1800 about 1983 ish it may be still on the road I had it in for mot just before lock down ,
Excellent video. as always. At the time Of it's launch the Marina looked as good as any contemporary saloon- just overstayed it's welcome
It was also my first car. A 1978, 200 Dutch Guilders coupe. Thanks for the story!
When I met the wife to be she had a Marina 1300 in that sick yellow/green but that thing went everywhere and carried tons of junk, we had another two Marina's, a really nice coupe and a estate, all were 2nd hand and the estate was rubbish, but the coupe was one of the best cars (at the time) and I did have the opertunity to drive a number of car up to BMW's series 7. The Marina was easy to work on both engine and body and I did a lot of body work but in those days every car rusted for the fun of it. This review really brought back the memories and a lot of them good, thank
I had it in my "Matchbox" car collection when I was a kid in the 1960s. A beautiful memory and a great report! Thank you! From Buenos Aires- Argentina
Someone reissued a Marina model, that came complete with an updside-down metal coat hanger in the aerial socket, as could sometimes be seen in reality
Wasn't expecting this one so soon! Top work as ever, sir. :)
Putting all it's problems and it's reputation to one side, I'd still like to own one someday. Yeah, I know I'm crazy lol
Had a tuned 1.8 TC in the 1980's and loved it. Would regularly go looking for E21 BMW 3series to embarrass! Needed regular maintenance but no worse than its contemporaries. Did rust though!
My first car also. Had saved up for a car but needed a car to go and see cars advertised. Was given one. Great car to learn. (I had passed test) I say great because you felt everything. No grip in wet. Only one wing mirror on drivers side. Taught me alot.
I can relate, with some bad experience of strange oscillating swaying setting in at motorway speeds driving the family Marina and being amazed at the relatively sharp handling of my student era Peugeot 304 and a later Lada.
I also bought an 1800TC Marina “Super” from British car auctions Enfield in 1986 for £40. Think the bidding started at £10. Was my first car. It was a green P reg, 1976 model. But I sprayed it brown. I think what made it a “Super” was that it had a rev counter. Having just passed my test in 1985, this was the beezneez at the time and being a 1800 twin carb it beat the Cortina’s and Escort’s of the day at the traffic lights. It cruised down the motorway at 70-75 with no issues. Had the Marina for 4 years until I got a boring company car. But in those 4 years I didn’t have any issues with it. And I sold it in 1990 for £250....so made money! Not ashamed to say I owned a Morris Marina...and loved it.
Thank you! We had the taupe two-door coupe. The vinyl seats were cold in the winter and too hot in the summer - thus the tartan car rug!! atb snack.
After watching many stories and videos on BL, BL had talented engineers and designers, let down by the constraints put on them by shocking management, grippy accountants and a pissed off work force. Any ground breaking design was destroyed by the cost cutting chainsaw, any attempt at modern forward thinking was slapped down by a staid old fashioned super conservative management. Its like BL was sabotaged from within by total managerial incompetence. The original design of the Austin Allegro was stunning, the end result was a cost cutting turd, shaped by a grey old fuddy duddy management and Dilbert in accounts. Engineers and designers make and build cars, like in Germany. In BL they were designed by accountants and out of touch old fashioned managerial fossils. The work force were not innocent though, striking for no bog roll in the toilets or any other excuse to bunk off.
Plenty of blame to round unfortunately. A little bit more risk on BLs part could have delivered a really great car but lack of money was always a huge constraint.
Don't be so easily impressed by designers, it's all to easy to design a 'stunning' sporty wedge car and then say 'we need a flat foor engine' Same story Citroen DS, fortunately they used the old agricultural engine, otherwise there would have been no Citroen after the first year. They had no money, because they didn't make money, so they were government backed, so they couldn't lay off lots of people and after a while nobody gave a toss about anything.
We tried to be like the USA in management style and marketing we are nothing like that Cars are far too big these days.
Too true. BMW took over Mini at Cowley and the rest is (successful) history.
Surely you meant militant politicised stupid workforce? They did after all strike their own jobs out of existence!
This is the first "Big Car" video I've watched and I'm impressed. The presenter has a particularly pleasant voice too that adds to the pleasure. I look forward to watching other videos about cars from my youth.
Hello, great video! I'm in Melbourne Australia, and the Marina definitely hasn't aged well here. In the UK in the mid to late 1970's, my dad was given a Morris Marina as a work vehicle. One day, he tried to put it in reverse (from memory), and he pulled the gear stick straight out of the gear box! Apparently, his first instinct was to try and put it back where it had come from, and it worked! The Marina could have been a great car, but the 70's weren't kind to British motoring (or Australian motoring, for that matter- see the Leyland P-76!) Cheers, I really like your work. "-)
I remember the BL mod was to drill the extension housing and fit an oversize locating pin. As a workshop tech. the Marina gearbox must have been the source of most of my income; the synchro. baulk rings broke causing the 'box to crash gears.
Awesome video as always do one on the peugeot 504. They were very popular here in Kenya
Shame that many aren't well taken care of, from my point of view, esp the 504 estates.
That would be an interesting video. They were very popular in the middle east as well.
Best looking Peugeot ever
lots of 504s in Argentina, too
@@Isaackariuki775 they are very rare
THANK YOU, I've been requesting this for ages, great video👍🏻
I'm glad you liked it George.
I loved my 1.3 Marina and hammered it for 100,000 miles around North Yorks & the North East. I never had an issue with the doors jamming (as suggested). I did however have to fit to two recon gearboxes (which wasn't expensive) and new rear leaf springs after carrying bags of cement in the boot :-)
I remember my dad coming home with a 1974 Austin Marina. "Runs like a little sewing machine", he crowed.
No. No it did not. My mother was the only one who could coax it into functioning, and she swore that it came down to the way you spoke to it. That and plenty of baling wire.
Really enjoyed this, you're a wealth of information. Top man
Well, the Internet is. I just collate it.
First car was a Marina. Bought it at the car auction for £150, it was 7 years old. I didn't want it, was told I was buying it and hated it. I wanted a Datsun I saw at the auction as my first car.
Tell us more about how disappointed you are by your parents buying you a car.
@@fastinradfordable What part of 'I was buying it' do you not understand? I was told what car I was having.
Hahaha my first car was a similar story, my dad took me to a car auction and told me to buy a Rover 200 I ended up leaving with a Mercedes 190. It was on its last legs but I loved having a Merc as my first car when most my mates had Fiestas and Polos :D
My dad was not one bit impressed with my purchase, probably because my ancient Merc was in a way nicer than his own car. Ran it into the ground spent less than £200 to keep it running for 2 years spent the last month of its life as a 3 cylinder with a 0-60 of about a minute.
Fantastic video. Very well researched, informative and interesting. A professional job. 👏 I recall a fellow soldier had one of these back in 1986, when I was learning to drive HGV s in Leconfield. It was very fast!
Absolutely LOVE these videos!!
Another great informative video. Thanks Big Car.
My pleasure Pete!
To be honest, I have always liked the visual shape/look of the Marina saloon, (it's visually proportioned) but not so much the coupe. Yes, it had it's issues, but I wouldn't call it an ugly car by any means (The french were better at building those) It did have stiff competition to be fair. Another informative video from the Big Car Guy, well researched as always!
I think the Marina was a far better styling exercise than the Allegro. If they hadn't insisted on outdated technology in it, it might have been a winner.
@@smorris12 Agreed! The Allegro is well out of proportion visually, IMHO, both top to bottom and bumper to bumper.
@@chrisjohnson6876 It seemed to be a stock design that afflicted all sorts of BL stuff; the Maxi, 1100s, even as late as the Maestro. "Lumpen" is the word that always comes to my mind. I hadn't realised that the Cortina designer was behind the Marina - but it doesn't half explain a lot!
@@smorris12 I think the Allegro has stood the test of time better than the Escort Mk2, too boxy for my liking, and having taken my driving test in one in '82 and driving than owning a 1975 Allegro in 1986, I felt the Austin was a far better riding car, still remember driving from Scrubs Lane (via the A40 and North Circular Road) down to Brentford High Street and back within an hour in 1992, great times!
I saw a 'rat' Marina on Instagram recently, a Mk2 4 door I believe, it looked boss. Black paint with black wheels and chrome hubs, lowered a bit too. It was probably drifting??😂It looked Boss!
My first company car was a white two door Marina which was purchased new in 1973 having had its predelivery check. On collection it had no fuel filler cap. Was covered in flicks of grey paint and there was mud on the seats. So that was how good BMC dealers were . I collected it again one month later. After all that I really enjoyed the car and drove it for three uneventful years all over the country. It was economical. easy to drive , reasonable performance and I have only fond memories of it.
I never owned one, but back in the 70s, I worked at a dealership and sold parts for them. Lots of parts, actually. From what I remember, reliability isn't a word that springs to mind.
I had one absolutely crap I virtually rebuilt it myself mechanicaliy plus a fxxxxxx total rot box
Hey, my first car was a Morris Ital 1.7HLS, black vinyl roof. I loved it, even if it did try to kill me at least 3 times. .......great video as always sir.
What methods did it try?
@@hunchanchoc8418 ……well, I took a turn on a wet road that put me in a ditch, I was going under the speed limit in slow traffic, then the front bearing seized on a dual carriageway at 70mph …..which is when my front offside wheel decided to part company with the rest of the car…..that was a fun walk to a phone box in the rain, at night, with massive articulated lorries flying past at warp 2.
My absolute favourite was when I was on a B road doing the national speed limit heading for home, the accelerator became stuck to the floor and I couldn’t slow down, in fact I was gaining speed, I stood on the brakes and pulled up the handbrake, which had little effect, it was night, and I was getting closer and closer to a built up area, I tried taking it out of gear, the engine went berserk, I slammed it back into 2nd, the wheels spun like I was driving on glass, I shot over a roundabout, cleared a 6ft ditch and ended up in a petrol station forecourt, where the car stalled and I got out of it unharmed but a little bit shaken.
When I looked under the bonnet I found that the accelerator cable connection had wiggled loose and jammed itself open, I did a quick roadside repair and drove it home at 15mph.
There were other incidents, but none as bad as those three.
I sold it a month later and bought a mint green mk2 Granada automatic……and that my friend, is a whole other story.
@@jimd385 Great story! I learned to drive in a 1.7 HL Ital Estate (1981) and not long after I passed my test I was doing a car treasure hunt one day with some mates and turned a corner at about 60mph only to be faced with a humped back bridge. The whole car left the road in true dukes of hazzard style and came down with an almightly crash barely giving me time to avoid a ditch in front. The passangers in the back were let's say being very vocal! The car drove on but it needed a new gearbox the following week. On another 3 hr journey I had to make I could only get the car to operate on full throttle. It make for a tough drive. Turned out to be the points.
I like the Leyland "Pac-Man" gobbling up the other marques, it was very subtle.
I was quite happy when I did that bit!
I used to drive a company Marina van, and I'd swear it could leave anything else in a haze of dust in the rear view mirror! 😆
I must have had one of the good ones. I remember it with great fondness , it was my first car . It was originally my dad’s, who gave it to me when i passed my test in 1989. Lime green , Reg no. WCY 811T . It never let me down. It was going strong into the early 90’s until rust finally kiiled it. 😭😭
Cheers as always for this vid.18:40 love it, the kid circumventing the child lock.
I owned a '68 Triumph 1300; I will say the gearbox was excellent! My brother owned an Ital estate , brilliant load lugger .
@k halliday Yes , as I said , I owned one , it was FWD .
Fascinating video. I always enjoy yours, Big Car, made very watchable as you don't have any irritating background music (other than that which is part of other inserts).
Our car industry had it all and threw it away. If you've never seen it, have a look for Clarkson's Car Years where he examines BL and how it all went wrong, which does pretty much sum it all up.
My dad had two of them, the 1.3L and 1.7 overhead cam. Both had bottom steering joint problems and reverse gear problems in the gearbox. But they were cheap to buy second hand
Thank you that was brilliant i have been waiting for you to do a BIG CAR on the dear old Marina for ages.
Personally i love the Marina perhaps i just like the under dog, though as a kid in the 70s when all my other mates were into Ford i always favoured BL which was just as well as i worked for an Austin Rover Dealer when i left school back in 1982. At that point the Ital was still in production and just hanging on by its fingernails til the Maestro arrived a year latter. We did not sell many Itals though they were popular on our hire fleet probably as they were so simple to maintain.
My Dad had a Marina 2 1.8 Estate back in the day and i owned 2 both 1.3 models they had quite a lot of character if not performance, but if you forgot to grease the stearing trunions regularly you were in trouble Haha.
Thank You Darren.
PS i own an I 10 now so realy i have the Marinas distant cousin Cool ! (:
We had a Marina in that lovely 70s brown colour when I was a kid. My only memories of it are us kids burning our legs on the vinyl seats on hot days and my mum writing it off by hitting a telegraph pole after skidding on black ice.
Understeering off the road, maybe?😂😂😂
Now you've brought back memories of me burning my legs on hot vinyl seats!
@@HappyDaysNI you EVER HIT black ice? I have here in stinking hot Australia. It's unexpected and like driving on a skating rink when the rest of the road had been just FINE kilometers before that.
Wow looking at that curving dashboard took me back! Dad has two Marinas and later on a silver Ital. Quite dreadful but at the time you just didn’t see it as a kid. Great memories of a not so great car.
Not dreadful by the standards of their time. Maybe Cortinas were slightly better but Avengers were not.
Excellently researched & presented as always. Each newly minted episode delivers something fairly rare on RUclips these days..... Escapist enjoyment.
Nice one BigCar.
Keep revving it up!
It's all a big nostalgia fest, isn't it? Seriously, one thing I've tried to do during this whole pandemic is change nothing in my videos. I think people want a bit of the old normal, or not to be reminded of how crap 2020 is.
@@BigCar2 Mr BigCar & his wonderful Time Machine ...! What adventure awaits as we motor together down the fondly remembered roads of our youth .... Sheer pleasure indeed.
You drive well Mr BigCar.👍
This was my Dad's 2nd car which he bought from new. Stupid thing was frequently being repaired in the garage, so much that he had to rent a Vauxhall to bring my Mum and newborn sister back from hospital. It also had huge rust problems despite not being very old. By the time we got rid of it, the hole in the boot was big enough to fit a small suitcase in.
Dad didn't learn, his next car was the Austin Montego..
I worked at Longbridge, the unions strike all the time nearly lost me my house , I was an electrician I left for a more stable job.
I totally understand, I experienced the same conditions at the rover SD1 plant , I stayed for six months and then decided to leave due to ongoing strike action, we had a 1 day a week strike in support of marine workers and one or two walkouts per week, I was getting about 3 to 4 days pay per week just couldn’t survive on this pay.
Good for you
The Union’s were the problem at BL,going on strike if someone spilt their tea was the rule of the day,the workers spent more time in the car park than they did working. I’ve had several BL models and Never had a bad one,the best one I owned was the 1800 land crab as they called them which I ran for 150,000 miles without any problems. The bodies were the problem with little or no rust protection,I sprayed used engine oil diluted with diesel on mine underneath but forgot about the doors,the tops of the front wings around the headlights were a mud trap but I used to spray it regularly there so never had a corrosion problem with it,every manufacturer had rust problems at the time except Volvo, Vauxhall Vivas were built of tissue paper thin metal and fell to bits in 3years as did my dad’s Ford Corsair which he bought in 1965 and by 1970 was scrapped because of Chassis corrosion so it was not only BL vehicles that were bad.
@@davidellis279 I can assure you, 70's Volvo's did rot, slower maybe but surely. The japanese wonder cars and the car from heaven called Golf were quite a match for the 1100. Sad thing you could't or hardly could repair a rotten 1100.
I used to deliver parts to Fords at Halewood and Dagenham. One day I was in the middle of unloading when they all walked out. I asked why they had done that and was told because one of the managers had come onto the floor.
My brother had a Marina in Belgium, originally it was a 1800, but the engine went bad and was replaced by a 1300, handling improved and the car went on for years. Take of was slow with the 1300 but mileage was good. Rust killed off the car, but my brother still talks fondly of his Marina.
My Dad sold his Viva in the early 80's and bought a mustard Marina 1.8 saloon. He liked the power so took it for a country drive on the Berkshire Downs. I remember him describing his experience by saying "the back end was rather fond of stepping out". Sounds like fun to me now. I'd love to drive one to test that!
Interesting story as always! i heard some rumors about the link between the Marina and the Pony which was a very popular car over here back in the day. Great video.
They're more than rumours - Hyundai's hired a Brit as its new boss, and he brought Marinas with him to copy and improve. Voila, the Pony!
A great story on the Marina. My first memory was the lifting wipers at speed. I still think the Marina is not an ugly looking car by European standards of the day. Some beautiful still pics here as well of the Marina and its competitors. great presentation, as usual!
My 2nd car was a '73 1.3 Automatic bought for 70 quid in 1986 when I was 18. Had 18 months of use out of that. And my first company vehicle was an '83 Ital 1.3 van in 1987. In beige lol. Both were wholly unremarkable cars but as you said, they got you from A to B.
My parents had one of these! It was a brown/beige estate car. Broke down on a day trip out to the Potteries and my dad managed to get it running again and it nearly caught fire 🔥 on the way home! Ha ha!
Great vid, you missed the 1300's good fuel consumption.Big selling point at the time.
Oh wow, my first car was a Marina. I loved it! I ended up getting through three of them, one 1980 saloon, one 1973 coupe, and another '80 saloon. Sure it had its' problems - crappy electrics, crappy windows, and I kept getting locked out of mine - but it was comfortable and easy to maintain. Got the last 1980 one up to a highly naughty 90MPH the last time I drove it - the doors definitely worked afterwards!
The way u narrate. ..either car is number or masses .....fallin to drive n to have ....i love marina
I love Marina. A no nonsense car designed to be easy to service. And they were. I had an Australian 262 anda series 3 with the O series engine. Both great cars. Extremely comfortable in the back seat. I would have another one in a heart beat.
Love these videos. Would love to see some videos on Opel, particularly the GT and the Ancona/Manta.
Good shout yes*
Shout *
You can't have a Morris Marina without an old piano falling on it.
Top Gear 🥱
Dad had a second hand one on the early 80s with a vynal roof. We liked it. It was comfortable for 5, (Dad, Mum and 3 teenage children!) had a big boot and went well. We 'ran it into the ground,' as we did with his cars and still does! I'm in my late fifties!
Hi , around 1972-4 Leyland Australia has some "influence" with government run Post Office, Telecommunications and Public service.
There was a decent percentage percentage of ex govt / lease Leylands and the Marina was one of them, but by say 5 years later or 1980 you hardly saw any Marina / Morris 1100 , or Landcrabs on the road - with local production cancelled and basically Mini and Jaguar and Rover surviving there was basically uncertainty on spares and any older vehicle was drive until unsafe or it fails next years roadworthy
One of my neighbours had one - white coupe actually, it disapered one day close to1980 and while he always talked good about it , he admitted he was glad it was stolen and the insurance money went to same year ( 1973 / 4 ) Mazda 808 which he did admit was a 100% improvement in driveablility and 300% improvement in reliability
Regards
George
I’ve only started getting into British cars recently, it’s a really fun subject. But if I may say something (and I love quirky cars like old Citroën‘s): design-wise most of them look odd to me. Like someone drew an existing car from memory. You have unexpected curves on an angular shape, axles that look offset... strange! But fun :)
For those who were concerned about the known understeer in the 1.8L version, just picture what we had down here in Australia. All of our locally built Marinas were fitted with E series engines. Cheapest base model with the 1500 as standard, and the more upmarket went as far as the 1750 with twin carbs. No, we weren't satisfied with that either. The little Marina was then made available with 1½ 1750 engines. Yes, the 1750 was lengthened with 2 more cylinders, resulting in a 2620cc 6 cylinder, which got crammed quite tightly into the standard length Marina bonnet. Now, do I hear somebody mentioning understeer being a problem? (I believe the same basic engine was also used in an Austin 2600? Or was that a lengthened 1500 making it the 2200? Not too familiar with British models we didn't get down here)
My very first car was a 1975 Austin Marina, two-door coupe, the cheapest new car on the market in Canada. I cannot believe it lasted 5 years before rust won the battle. Thanks for the memories.
A Morris Marina was was my first car, 4 door blue 1300 SMV 227R.. Loved it. It did throw a rod on the M42, but was soon back up and running for £50 using a scapyard engine. I then bought another, an 1800TC Coupe. Loved that too. I was then lured away by a capri. To this day 35 years later I still have a Capri.
These videos are special. I go into a room alone to watch them!!
What you do in your own time is your own business Robin! 😉
The littlest room...??? 🚽
@@andrewmcphee8965Big or small, it's the most important room in the entire house. It's where all the serious thinking is conducted. 😅
Greek style yoghurt was involved!
Thanks i enjoyed that any chance of the avenger story.
I remember this car fondly, OK my mother had a Marina 2 door GT in Blue which finally went to the car grave yard in 2018. For a car from 1970's she did well with it lasting that long. Shame it finally died, I had my first lessons in that car, then well, not for this channel... Really love the videos ... thanks
Brilliant detail and diction..
Well done 👍👍👍