Whenever the doers of the British television show Top Gear overwhelmed the anger over the former decline of the British car industry, a Morris (Leyland) Marina must suffer. It gets a piano on his head. As in almost every satire is also a grain of truth in it.

The car suffered a 'forceps delivery' in principle. It was the time of compulsive merger first of Morris, Austin and Austin Healey 1952 to the British Motor Corporation and then the expansion with the addition of 'Leyland' in 1959, after the no serious competitor for the successful models Viva or Cavallier of Vauxhall and Escort or Cortina of Ford was to be found. Also an underutilized production plant from the 20s was still there.

The time was too short for a real new beginning The role of the modern variant was provided for the Austin Allegro. Facing also to requirements from Commonwealth countries, it should be a proven, conservative design with a driven rigid rear axle and leaf springs.

For lack of money even the McPherson suspension in front was out of the question. It remained at double wishbones with torsion bar springs. In the simplest model were used even lever arm shock absorbers front, entirely uncommon at the time and received press coverage almost immediately. One speaks today of one of the last cars with conventional layout.

The car was sold also under the company names Austin respectively Wolseley. Initially the Coupé should come out as a particularly sporty version, but it had to share the front doors with the saloon then for cost reasons. Finally, it was downgraded to an inexpensive two-door. And nevertheless, the car had success in the beginning. In significantly less than two years 250,000 were produced, altogether one million.

Nonetheless, it's the wrong time for this car. All competitors focused to more modern designs now, while strikes impeded simultaneously the production in UK. Due to lack of money for a new beginning, the model thought as a kind of bridging had to be kept too long in production. There then helped not really the facelift in 1975. 09/15