Morris Minor Owners Club

Loved my Maxi , hated my Marina . Aged eighteen I had a Ford Prefect ( transverse rear spring , side valve , vacuum wipers, three speed box ) which I rolled over . Only bought it because it had a bench front seat and ash trays !!!

les wrote:I wondered when the allegro was going to be mentioned. Very underrated, once the car received some negative comments many people felt uncomfortable praising the car. Not me, the estate especially, had great style.

Drove an Allegro once. A bright orange/black vinyl roof 1974 1750 Sport! I drove it about 30 miles in 1980 when it had a mere 30 miles on the clock (stolen when brand new from a BL dealership in Croydon and recovered FIVE YEARS later during a police raid on a west London warehouse). Quartic steering wheel was slightly wierd but otherwise I rather liked it.

Mercedes SL500. £1300 for a damper, and they only sold them in pairs.
Rust. Lots of it breaking out at every corner of every panel. Shoddy electrics meant removing the dash and posting it away for repair 3 times. When the boot latch system failed I was told that the easiest way to fix it involved cutting away at the alloy bootlid with a grinder.

A £200,00 car design with a £100,000 budget from the accountants. Everything was built down to a price. Truly awful.

True story of an Allegro, belonged to my brother-in-law in the 80s. It was capable of breaking itself even when it was parked up. Over a 3 year period it lost a wheel, grenaded the diff through it's casing, junked a clutch, had hydraulic failure and then finally the windscreen cracked during the night for no apparent reason. It was traded in with three days MoT for a guaranteed £1000 dealer deposit. Some weeks later the plod came round - was this his car? No! Why did they call? It had been used as a getaway car! During the time he'd had it it generally wouldn't start or failed when call in to service.

Most of the cars everyone hates I have had and liked them especially the Allegro and marina .

irmscher wrote:Most of the cars everyone hates I have had and liked them especially the Allegro and marina .

I've had half a dozen Marinas/Itals and a couple of Maxis over the years. Always found them generally reliable and likeable. Never had the chance to try a wedge-shaped Princess/Ambassador though. Perhaps I have a soft-spot for cars with a 'bad' reputation...?

A friend of mine said his least favourite cars which were company cars were an Alfa Romeo which he hated and was written off the first day he got it while parked outside his house and the other was a Morris Marina which went rotten after six months and while driving along the motorway the engine fell out because the engine mounts were rotten.

The TR7 is one of my favourites a brilliant car

Never very taken by the appearance of the TR7 or TR8... convertible was okay-ish with the top down.
You'll maybe remember that when ITV's 'The Professionals' first hit the small screen in 1977, the characters 'Bodie' and 'Doyle' drove a Dolomite Sprint and a TR7 respectively, both cars being loaned by BL's press office as was their boss 'Cowley's' Rover SD1. The production company fairly quickly changed allegiance from BL to Ford. The reasons cited were (allegedly) because BL kept disrupting the filming schedule by repeatedly 'borrowing' the cars back for loan to other organisations, and the TR7's frequent breakdowns.

What was the one that went through the plate glass window in the titles? The Sweeney started out with Jags but always had the 3l Granada in later episodes

Plate glass window was a Mk. II Granada.

Correction about the Sweeny. Started out with a Mk.I Granada (actually a Consul 3.0 GT NHK295M - sometimes accompanied by a Mk.III Cortina NHK296M with blue light on the roof), and later progressed to Mk.II Granadas. It was the bad guys who had the Jags. Usually 3.8 S-types with frequently re-appearing production art department fake number plates (DWD606C, GJE177E and JRY387E). DWD appeared in the opening title sequences on a black S-type and in one episide on a strange 2-tone navy blue/silver S-type.

PB I worry about you...... time could be usefully spent rebuilding that gearbox of yours! ..... then again just found this ...someone really has to get a life !

http://www.imcdb.org/movie_71059-The-Sweeney.html

or this http://www.mark-1.co.uk/Professionals/profcars.htm

Minors are not left out of the Sweeney either

http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_60209-Morr ... -1957.html

best page for minors tho......: http://www.imcdb.org/vehicles.php?make= ... nor&page=1

If you search the imcdb Sweeny entries and look for Sunbeam Rapier, you'll see an observational comment I posted there several years ago

Triumph Dolomite Sprint. 16 valve alloy head overheating rusty unreliable seriously fast pile of crap. Emptied my bank account from the day I bought it from my “friend”.
I’m not bitter and have forgiven him!

Worst car ive ever been in, my mothers old montego diesel... I remember the back doors would swing open if she turned to sharp around roundabouts... not pleasant when your 10, Horrid dull sky blue colour. Ugly, noisy, dangerous box on wheels.