I had one of the last Marina's. A v reg 1.7. Was a reliable car and quite nippy. Handling wasnt great but I liked the car. I also quite liked the look of the car although the Coupe could have been better. The car wasn't nearly as bad as some people make out. Top Gear has a lot to answer for.
I had a 1980 W reg Morris Ital 1.3 HL in 1988/89, the body was a bit rusted in the usual areas, but ok underneath, used it as a work car, never let me down, reliable and easy to work on, handled perfectly well and very economical. They did what it said on the tin.
I went to an Austin dealer in 1973 to check out a Marina. I owned a 1966 MGB sao I thought they were worth a look. They were going for about $300 less than the same size Toyota or Datsun. I liked the Sport version until I started to look at the specs and drove the car. That tiny 1.8 litre engine was being choked by the emissions controls. To my amazement, it was almost exactly the same as the engine in my MGB, only it didn't have a smog pump. It even had those same damned SU carbs. It had leaf springs and alive read axle, and the shocks were some kind of weird lever thing I had last seen on the on the old man's '49 Ford. Little things like the heater and even a basic AM radio were optional extras. The demonstrator I drove was just awful. I could see daylight from under the trunk (boot) lid. The passenger side vent wing wouldn't seal against the rubber and whistled at over 30 mph. It rattled and groaned on anything other than perfectly flat pavement. Getting on the freeway was a leisurely and somewhat scary experience. Then I stopped at a Datsun dealer to see the 510 two door sedan. Independent suspension front and rear, McPherson struts, telescopic shocks, a 1.6 litre engine with a two barrel downdraft Stromberg carb, and 110 horsepower, more than enough to get me on the freeway without white knuckles. The body was tight, quiet at speed, the two front seats were fully reclining, full instrumentation, and it came with a heater and AM radio. The price was $100 more than the Marina, and the Government later sanctioned BL for price dumping. I'll bet you'll never guess which car i bought. :-)
The principle of my secondary school had one, a four-door saloon in an odd pinky-white colour, not shown in this film. The car was not more than three years old and was speckled all over in rust spots and had a blown exhaust. Within a year he traded it in for a new Fiat 131 Mirafiori. Much more stylish and reliable, he went on to buy a face-lifted version two years later. The look of the Marina wasn't that bad; but like a lot of BL cars, underdeveloped. It was basically a Morris Minor in a new coat.
Just look at these heaps, there isn't one single design feature that leaps out as unique, different, appealing or even, heaven forbid, exciting!! The different trim levels were identified by more garish wheel trims, a bit more tacky chrome and badging, wow, what an achievement! Compare it to a Ford Escort of the time! I remember there was a bloke where I worked at the time, I'd only just started work, about 1977, one day he turned up in a 1.8 TC coupe Marina, in orange with a black vinyl roof, brand new. There was a crowd around it gaping and cooing over it. He said it was his dream car, and I remember thinking, sad bugger!!! I'd made a friend at this place and he used to help me out with lifts now and then, he had a Saab 95 V4, which I thought was way cool, made the Marina look cr4p!
There were definitely estate versions as my Dad had one when I was a kid. That was his third and last. Thought he'd have learned his lesson after the first one. I can still remember the number of cancelled trips to the local swing park because my Dad was underneath the Marina(s) with his drill and abrasive disc getting rid of all the rust. He became a dab hand with filler though. There were never any cancelled trips to the swing park when we had the P6...
We had a Marina in early 1972 a brand new K Reg, I was 4 years old at the time. It was a 1.3 Super Deluxe 2 Door Coupe in Limeflower... The same colour as the Marina 1.8 TC 4door Saloon in this film being photographed in the field. We had that car till 1981 and it served us well. What happened to BL?
They could have made it alot less awful with some simple mods. There were conversion kits available in Australia for telescopic dampers on the front end that transformed the handling. The E series engine was used in Australia/NZ/South Africa, the B series could have been retired. Longer doors for the coupe as others have said and how about some larger wheels for the top end models? Poor Lord Stokes looks so out of his depth. He's still thinking like he's developing trucks.
I had one of the first 50 TC saloons early front suspension ,think five seater MGB and faster as actually lighter ,head gasket went 90k ported stage 2 ,120 plus fun and still 35 to a gallon!
Your dad probably bought one of those in the film that had been driven in the sea :-). I had loads of them, never any trouble but then I did maintain them properly, - which was dead easy. Many of mine were estates which I think were first introduced in 1973, a couple of years after the launch of the Marina. Great cars.
My parents bought 2 Marina's brand new,a 1973 4 door and a 1974 2 door GT.Both sheit boxes and both ended up literally being junked/scrappedwithin 10 years.
My father had a 1975 one from new. It spent a lot of time in the garage getting repaired. Then rust came from inside out. Dad didn't learn and eventually replaced it with a new Montego.
I had a 1.3 saloon in UK and it was OK albeit a Morris Minor with a different body. I then went to Hong Kong in 1975 and bought a second hand 1.8 TC. It was an absolute dog and it was the last British car I ever owned.
The Marina was never a 'new' car; to save time and money the pompous clowns depicted here took an ancient engine (not much more than a bored out version of the engine in my 1954 Austin actually) and put it on running gear largely borrowed from stone age gems such as the Morris Minor. The public weren't fooled for long, particularly as the finished product was built to Russian car standards (the factories were dominated by communist unions after all). British Leyland served as nothing but a cautionary tale of the downfall of the British motor industry. Idiot management and moronic power mad union officials topped off with interfering politicians. Yet today we have some of the most efficient car plants in the world, producing excellent cars, mostly of course run by Japanese and German brands.
Thank you for sharing. Old company films are sometimes such a delight. My impression is that, nowadays, company films and magazines are almost a thing of the past due to today's bean-counting management. Never had or drove a Marina, just being curious.
The Marina was more of an exercise in cost-cutting than engineering. 1 example; how many coupes sharte the sane front doors as their saloon counterparts?
I think some of the problems the Marina became known for were a direct result of the model's rush to production. Parts were sourced from other BL divisions (transmission from Triumph, I believe) and hurriedly put into use on the Marina. Another car rushed into production with disastrous results around the same time was the Ford Pinto here in the US. The exploding gas tank wasn't discovered until over 90 people were killed in rear-end accidents.
But the Marian was introduced after the Cortina Mk 3. It was 10 year behind in styling. 20 years behind in engineering using old early 1950s BMC A series engines. A clear dog!
The Marina was a better car than many like to think. However, I think the only "development", was Fisher figuring out how to press rust into a body rather than actual steel.
1:20 onwards - driving it through the sea. That was the end of that one, then. 4.30 - versions. What about the estate? My memory may be faulty but I'm certain I saw a Marina estate driving around the town I lived in in 1971. Could it have been a prototype? I was very keen on cars as a 9yo, and definitely noticed it and knew what it was - but I never saw another estate for quite a few years.
Well, they offered 2 engines, and 3 trim packages here. I've heard there was a station wagon and a pickup body as well as the coupe and sedan shown here, but those were never exported to the US. I like how the announcer introduces the Super Deluxe Saloon in one word : "Soopaddaluxaloon".
They were considered a complete joke in Australia. We even had a Marina built here with a 6 cylinder engine in it which was just a faster way to embarrass yourself.
saggo1712. This from an australian. Very few things more embarassing than an HQ Holden. I worked in a place where we had "The Golden Holden" and "The Unsinkable Marina", among other vehicles; Subarus (which virtually dissolved in the rain), Mazda B1600's (almost unbreakable) &c. The holden was generally despised, it was constantly getting stuck, the seat was diabolically uncomfortable (you would end up hard against the door because the seat was so bowed), nothing could be kept in the boot because it would only open when it pleased, it was evil handling, it often got bellied, and more; in short it was a waste of steel. On the other hand we had the use of "The unsinkable" for a week: because of punctured radiator in the B1600 and the floor of the Subaru was no longer there (something to with oxygen in the air). With four us in it and all our gear, it got us all the way round the track bordering one of the swamps (the holden wouldn't have got through the first gate). With two of us in it crossed one of the fords which the Mazda wouldn't have (its dizzy had an amazing attraction for water). It was comfortable, reliable, was a tardis, good handling and had surprisingly good traction. Most of our work colleagues didn't want to use it (and at first neither did we) and few of them did. It had been the car for one of the engineers who had subsequently retired so it sat round doing nothing except when one of the office wallahs had an errand. We were a little disappointed when we took back the Mazda. And the Marina had done a higher mileage than the holden.
The Marina would have been a great car if it had been developed and built properly and the 1.8 TCs performance could match a MK1 Escort Mexico and Hillman Avenger GT.
Couldn’t be that bad, I have just imported a Marina 1.5 Diesel from Malta that has covered over 650,000 kms & still going, don’t think even today there is a car that can equal that
The main problem was that they were not at all reliable at a time when the Japanese cars like Toyota, Datsun, Honda and Mitsubishi Colt (and VW) were building super reliable and inexpensive cars that lasted forever. In Canada our English mechanic told my girlfriend to ditch her Marina and buy a Jap car like the Dodge Colt.
Thanks for the upload, what a gem. With hindsight of history it is also, quite unintentionally I am sure, pure comedic gold! Here we have one of the dullest, drabbest bunch of defect-riddled anglo-malaise-era cars and all the hilarious characters who pretend that something big and meaningful is happening...there's a bloated, cigar puffing yankee in a suit waffling about the "glamo(u)r angle to a silly gaggle of look-alike conformist "agency" dolts. Cut to a bit of 1970s soft porn music and watch commercial artsy types and photographers of every imaginable stereotype go through their respective motions while those sorry looking cars get a thorough dousing of salt spray. The photo prep guys were probably equally busy hiding the emerging rust spots as they were wiping the dirt off the paint. Cut to another herd of vapid, executive n'er-do-wells, all dressed and be-speckled in the same dreary (non)fashion, pretending to "work". As if those hollow suits ever made meaningful contributions of any kind that could give the slightest vindication for their inflated and utterly undeserved paychecks. This is almost like an early version of "The Office", "Yes, Minister" and a number of other comedies. Perfect casting! "A tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying...nothing!"
Except it wasn't and they weren't. It was one of the best selling cars in the Uk for much of it's ten year lifespan and nearly a million were built (well over a million if you include the Ital). It's easy to look backwards and criticise but the designers of the time did a decent job with limited resources and produced a car that sold well and was a backbone of the BL range. The rushed development was down to BMC's failure to develop a successor to their late fifities / sixties family cars and, sadly, this reappeared again as the Marina / ital hung on at least five years too long.
To save money the coupe had same doors as saloon, usually they would be longer. This meant that it was hard to get in and out of the back seats and IMHO cocks up the styling
HAHA theres a part 2 ! 1:18 my heart skipped a beat my god a Marina, on an overcast beach barely breaking traction with its 1940's engine. Be still my heart , be still. I dream of owning a 1.8 super deluxe coupe.
So awful British Leyland sold over a million of them and they were the third best selling car of 1973. The Marina wasn't perfect or particularly stylish, but was designed to be simple transport for families and many became popular bangers in the eighties. I much prefer them to the Allegro and the Princess.
All you have to do is put a bit of negative camber on the front wheels and telescopic dampers or just thicker oil in the dampers and it handles pretty well. It annoys me that people keep bashing the marina we had more problems with the MK3 cortina now that was a pile of poo that ate camshafts for a living the void bushes at the back use to wear out on the back making the back axle sway side to side. My family had a lot less problems with the marina and it was a 1.8 and went like the clapper's.
Marina had its film debut in the big budget film "Carry On at Your Convenience" . the film was made in 1971 ,with Sid James driving a white 1800 Coupé .Appropriate car for the boss of a bog factory?
How old are you? I would say my late father's 1.3 Super (wow!) was a boring car to travel in, it seemed to have to have it's battery replaced quite a few times, I think the local BL garage was taking him for a ride, similar thing happened with a family friends Allegro serviced by the same garage, solved by re-adjusting fan belt. The Allegro was a car that I grew to like, never let me down bar when the front suspension collapsed (which I had paid another garage to repair after it had failed the MOT, the 'Mechanic' had not done the work I paid for). My father Marina was quite a good car compared to the one it replaced, just a crap garage.
Yank Leyland dude: puffs cigar with American accent..."hrrrn ..we've got the engineering and reliability story in the public conciousness...what we've got to do is the emphasis on the glamorous side of this styling".....after that ?..well then the men in the white suits took him off to the looney bin !
The Marina always had “reversed” wipers because it was found that, if set up correctly (i.e. no large blind spot in top corner ahead of the driver), the drivers wiper would lift badly...
The Maria was to replace the Morris Minor 1000 - it even used the silly lever arm dampers. The car was outdated when launched. Its looks were appallingly bland even for 1971. A prime example of how not to design and build a car.
The cars used in the video filming on the coastline would have rotted out before filming was complete. They were just a boring car, and no upcoming executive, or Salesman would want to be seen in one. The dying days of BL, and the Ital was worse, lipstick on a pig.
i never knew rubbish came in so many versions. My father had the last mark marina the "ITAL". It was bloody rubbish. We only had it 8 years, and 68000 miles . He had to sell it for scrap ,because no one would buy it.
Sea water & a Marina.Could I please order my new 1.8 super in your new orange rust colour.No you can’t, it will never be built cos there on strike again!
you have got to be joking, oh my god get some better drugs. I bought a Fiat 124 sports and two Datsun 1600s in the 80s, all early 70s cars and they were brilliant. The former with a delicious twin cam an d 5sp gearbox, the latter with OHC engines and independent rear suspension. I also drove a Gemini (RWD Opel Kadett) around the same time - handled beautifully, tight as a drum. The Marina was borderline dangerous. Remember this monstrosity was launched barely 3 years before the mk 1 Golf. BL seriously thought they could get away with warming over a 1948 chassis - lever arm suspension and cart springs?
Morris Marina + Seawater = Oh Dear.................The Super Deluxe Pie Dish wheel trims..........Even for the promo film one of them had lost a rear hub cap LOL,FFS,BL......I blame that Yank with the big cigar and his boardroom bullshit "prosaic" speech,instead of paying him the big $$$ for SFA they could have dropped the torsion bars and trunnions and developed some new suspension.........!
The coupe is as horrible styled as can be. The sedan as boring styled as can be. Don't misunderstand me, I don't hate BLC cars in genreal. I really like cars like the Rover SD1 or the Triumph GT6. Bad build unfortunatley, but wonderful in their appearing! But the Marina? UGLY, NO SOUL, UNRELIABLE and just DULL
The Marina was a good car in the 1930s.
Yes. But only if you selected the convertible model.
I had one of the last Marina's. A v reg 1.7. Was a reliable car and quite nippy. Handling wasnt great but I liked the car. I also quite liked the look of the car although the Coupe could have been better. The car wasn't nearly as bad as some people make out. Top Gear has a lot to answer for.
that car epitomized the state of the uk car industry in the 70's
Why would they need to add oil ??
I had a 1980 W reg Morris Ital 1.3 HL in 1988/89, the body was a bit rusted in the usual areas, but ok underneath, used it as a work car, never let me down, reliable and easy to work on, handled perfectly well and very economical. They did what it said on the tin.
Gotta love the 70's. The highest spec Marina is bile green!
All the glamour of the 2 bodystyles
4:26 the rear wheel cover con the Marina 1.8 Deluxe Saloon is missing...
It was an option you fool !
@@simonf8902 Ah of course, the famous optional REAR wheel cover… it has mounted the front but not the rear one you halfwit!
I went to an Austin dealer in 1973 to check out a Marina. I owned a 1966 MGB sao I thought they were worth a look. They were going for about $300 less than the same size Toyota or Datsun. I liked the Sport version until I started to look at the specs and drove the car. That tiny 1.8 litre engine was being choked by the emissions controls. To my amazement, it was almost exactly the same as the engine in my MGB, only it didn't have a smog pump. It even had those same damned SU carbs. It had leaf springs and alive read axle, and the shocks were some kind of weird lever thing I had last seen on the on the old man's '49 Ford. Little things like the heater and even a basic AM radio were optional extras. The demonstrator I drove was just awful. I could see daylight from under the trunk (boot) lid. The passenger side vent wing wouldn't seal against the rubber and whistled at over 30 mph. It rattled and groaned on anything other than perfectly flat pavement. Getting on the freeway was a leisurely and somewhat scary experience.
Then I stopped at a Datsun dealer to see the 510 two door sedan. Independent suspension front and rear, McPherson struts, telescopic shocks, a 1.6 litre engine with a two barrel downdraft Stromberg carb, and 110 horsepower, more than enough to get me on the freeway without white knuckles. The body was tight, quiet at speed, the two front seats were fully reclining, full instrumentation, and it came with a heater and AM radio. The price was $100 more than the Marina, and the Government later sanctioned BL for price dumping. I'll bet you'll never guess which car i bought. :-)
is it that 510
thanks so much for posting this, not seen it before, and it's more than 40 years old! brilliant
The principle of my secondary school had one, a four-door saloon in an odd pinky-white colour, not shown in this film. The car was not more than three years old and was speckled all over in rust spots and had a blown exhaust. Within a year he traded it in for a new Fiat 131 Mirafiori. Much more stylish and reliable, he went on to buy a face-lifted version two years later. The look of the Marina wasn't that bad; but like a lot of BL cars, underdeveloped. It was basically a Morris Minor in a new coat.
Just look at these heaps, there isn't one single design feature that leaps out as unique, different, appealing or even, heaven forbid, exciting!! The different trim levels were identified by more garish wheel trims, a bit more tacky chrome and badging, wow, what an achievement! Compare it to a Ford Escort of the time! I remember there was a bloke where I worked at the time, I'd only just started work, about 1977, one day he turned up in a 1.8 TC coupe Marina, in orange with a black vinyl roof, brand new. There was a crowd around it gaping and cooing over it. He said it was his dream car, and I remember thinking, sad bugger!!! I'd made a friend at this place and he used to help me out with lifts now and then, he had a Saab 95 V4, which I thought was way cool, made the Marina look cr4p!
notice when the drove off in a line the maroon one had a nearside rear hubcap missing
There were definitely estate versions as my Dad had one when I was a kid. That was his third and last. Thought he'd have learned his lesson after the first one. I can still remember the number of cancelled trips to the local swing park because my Dad was underneath the Marina(s) with his drill and abrasive disc getting rid of all the rust. He became a dab hand with filler though. There were never any cancelled trips to the swing park when we had the P6...
We had a Marina in early 1972 a brand new K Reg, I was 4 years old at the time. It was a 1.3 Super Deluxe 2 Door Coupe in Limeflower... The same colour as the Marina 1.8 TC 4door Saloon in this film being photographed in the field. We had that car till 1981 and it served us well. What happened to BL?
They could have made it alot less awful with some simple mods. There were conversion kits available in Australia for telescopic dampers on the front end that transformed the handling. The E series engine was used in Australia/NZ/South Africa, the B series could have been retired. Longer doors for the coupe as others have said and how about some larger wheels for the top end models?
Poor Lord Stokes looks so out of his depth. He's still thinking like he's developing trucks.
I had one of the first 50 TC saloons early front suspension ,think five seater MGB and faster as actually lighter ,head gasket went 90k ported stage 2 ,120 plus fun and still 35 to a gallon!
Your dad probably bought one of those in the film that had been driven in the sea :-). I had loads of them, never any trouble but then I did maintain them properly, - which was dead easy. Many of mine were estates which I think were first introduced in 1973, a couple of years after the launch of the Marina. Great cars.
My parents bought 2 Marina's brand new,a 1973 4 door and a 1974 2 door GT.Both sheit boxes and both ended up literally being junked/scrappedwithin 10 years.
My father had a 1975 one from new. It spent a lot of time in the garage getting repaired. Then rust came from inside out. Dad didn't learn and eventually replaced it with a new Montego.
They were rather nice looking at any rate.
The phrase "You can't polish a turd" springs to mind, although that's what they seemed to be doing to them on that beech.
I had a 1.3 saloon in UK and it was OK albeit a Morris Minor with a different body. I then went to Hong Kong in 1975 and bought a second hand 1.8 TC. It was an absolute dog and it was the last British car I ever owned.
The Marina was never a 'new' car; to save time and money the pompous clowns depicted here took an ancient engine (not much more than a bored out version of the engine in my 1954 Austin actually) and put it on running gear largely borrowed from stone age gems such as the Morris Minor. The public weren't fooled for long, particularly as the finished product was built to Russian car standards (the factories were dominated by communist unions after all). British Leyland served as nothing but a cautionary tale of the downfall of the British motor industry. Idiot management and moronic power mad union officials topped off with interfering politicians. Yet today we have some of the most efficient car plants in the world, producing excellent cars, mostly of course run by Japanese and German brands.
At 1:41, an Opel Rekord C can be seen in the background. Wise choice by the filmcrew.
“...and here, out of its normal environment, we have the rare sight of a heard of Marinas playing on the sand.”
Seeing this film makes me want to buy one !
Thank you for sharing. Old company films are sometimes such a delight. My impression is that, nowadays, company films and magazines are almost a thing of the past due to today's bean-counting management. Never had or drove a Marina, just being curious.
The Marina was more of an exercise in cost-cutting than engineering. 1 example; how many coupes sharte the sane front doors as their saloon counterparts?
You can almost see the bodywork dissolving with all that sea water!
1.41, touching up the rust spots lol,
I think some of the problems the Marina became known for were a direct result of the model's rush to production. Parts were sourced from other BL divisions (transmission from Triumph, I believe) and hurriedly put into use on the Marina. Another car rushed into production with disastrous results around the same time was the Ford Pinto here in the US. The exploding gas tank wasn't discovered until over 90 people were killed in rear-end accidents.
70Kenny :yes I remember the Pinto era,what a peice of crap. So it wasn't just the British that had problems lol.
Paul Kirkland you want a 1.3 deluxe!!!
But the Marian was introduced after the Cortina Mk 3. It was 10 year behind in styling. 20 years behind in engineering using old early 1950s BMC A series engines.
A clear dog!
i'm surprised they did the photoshoot near water as the marina rusted at the mere mention of water
I have many clear memories of being regularly sick in my Dad's biege coloured 4-door Marina
"The cars needed constant attention to keep them in photographic condition'. You mean keeping the rust off of them.
Really loved the comments, (pity BL weren't able to see them at the time)
The Marina was a better car than many like to think. However, I think the only "development", was Fisher figuring out how to press rust into a body rather than actual steel.
1:20 onwards - driving it through the sea. That was the end of that one, then.
4.30 - versions. What about the estate? My memory may be faulty but I'm certain I saw a Marina estate driving around the town I lived in in 1971. Could it have been a prototype? I was very keen on cars as a 9yo, and definitely noticed it and knew what it was - but I never saw another estate for quite a few years.
I'll take a Sandglow 1.8 TC please
Well, they offered 2 engines, and 3 trim packages here. I've heard there was a station wagon and a pickup body as well as the coupe and sedan shown here, but those were never exported to the US. I like how the announcer introduces the Super Deluxe Saloon in one word : "Soopaddaluxaloon".
They were considered a complete joke in Australia. We even had a Marina built here with a 6 cylinder engine in it which was just a faster way to embarrass yourself.
saggo1712. This from an australian. Very few things more embarassing than an HQ Holden.
I worked in a place where we had "The Golden Holden" and "The Unsinkable Marina", among other vehicles; Subarus (which virtually dissolved in the rain), Mazda B1600's (almost unbreakable) &c.
The holden was generally despised, it was constantly getting stuck, the seat was diabolically uncomfortable (you would end up hard against the door because the seat was so bowed), nothing could be kept in the boot because it would only open when it pleased, it was evil handling, it often got bellied, and more; in short it was a waste of steel.
On the other hand we had the use of "The unsinkable" for a week: because of punctured radiator in the B1600 and the floor of the Subaru was no longer there (something to with oxygen in the air). With four us in it and all our gear, it got us all the way round the track bordering one of the swamps (the holden wouldn't have got through the first gate). With two of us in it crossed one of the fords which the Mazda wouldn't have (its dizzy had an amazing attraction for water). It was comfortable, reliable, was a tardis, good handling and had surprisingly good traction.
Most of our work colleagues didn't want to use it (and at first neither did we) and few of them did. It had been the car for one of the engineers who had subsequently retired so it sat round doing nothing except when one of the office wallahs had an errand. We were a little disappointed when we took back the Mazda.
And the Marina had done a higher mileage than the
holden.
The Marina would have been a great car if it had been developed and built properly and the 1.8 TCs performance could match a MK1 Escort Mexico and Hillman Avenger GT.
Honestly, the board room scenes could be from Monty Python.
Hilmer Paradise ???
Couldn’t be that bad, I have just imported a Marina 1.5 Diesel from Malta that has covered over 650,000 kms & still going, don’t think even today there is a car that can equal that
volvo 240s running on vegetable oil
either way it is RARE to see a marina in one piece
Some of the storyboards shown at the beginning look like they were drawn by a 3 year old!
The main problem was that they were not at all reliable at a time when the Japanese cars like Toyota, Datsun, Honda and Mitsubishi Colt (and VW) were building super reliable and inexpensive cars that lasted forever. In Canada our English mechanic told my girlfriend to ditch her Marina and buy a Jap car like the Dodge Colt.
Thanks for the upload, what a gem. With hindsight of history it is also, quite unintentionally I am sure, pure comedic gold! Here we have one of the dullest, drabbest bunch of defect-riddled anglo-malaise-era cars and all the hilarious characters who pretend that something big and meaningful is happening...there's a bloated, cigar puffing yankee in a suit waffling about the "glamo(u)r angle to a silly gaggle of look-alike conformist "agency" dolts. Cut to a bit of 1970s soft porn music and watch commercial artsy types and photographers of every imaginable stereotype go through their respective motions while those sorry looking cars get a thorough dousing of salt spray. The photo prep guys were probably equally busy hiding the emerging rust spots as they were wiping the dirt off the paint. Cut to another herd of vapid, executive n'er-do-wells, all dressed and be-speckled in the same dreary (non)fashion, pretending to "work". As if those hollow suits ever made meaningful contributions of any kind that could give the slightest vindication for their inflated and utterly undeserved paychecks. This is almost like an early version of "The Office", "Yes, Minister" and a number of other comedies. Perfect casting! "A tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying...nothing!"
Your comment is comedic gold too!
In other words, these cars were shite.
@@TheHorsebox2 I don't think they could polish a turd any more for the photo shoot 😬
@@a0r0a7 true.
Except it wasn't and they weren't. It was one of the best selling cars in the Uk for much of it's ten year lifespan and nearly a million were built (well over a million if you include the Ital). It's easy to look backwards and criticise but the designers of the time did a decent job with limited resources and produced a car that sold well and was a backbone of the BL range. The rushed development was down to BMC's failure to develop a successor to their late fifities / sixties family cars and, sadly, this reappeared again as the Marina / ital hung on at least five years too long.
I was all hyped for a Marina, but now I want an Alegro :)
Marina or Avenger ......what’s your choice!!
here in malta there r still alot of marinas in the streets
To save money the coupe had same doors as saloon, usually they would be longer. This meant that it was hard to get in and out of the back seats and IMHO cocks up the styling
BMC350FG except a cock has more style!; & muscle!
HAHA theres a part 2 ! 1:18 my heart skipped a beat my god a Marina, on an overcast beach barely breaking traction with its 1940's engine. Be still my heart , be still.
I dream of owning a 1.8 super deluxe coupe.
So awful British Leyland sold over a million of them and they were the third best selling car of 1973. The Marina wasn't perfect or particularly stylish, but was designed to be simple transport for families and many became popular bangers in the eighties. I much prefer them to the Allegro and the Princess.
Made for fleet sales
Simple transport for simple people !
@Arthur No Sheds Jackson Yes Rover 2000 P6 range.....brilliant cars. Had one and loved it.
@BLHeritageFilms y does an allegro ad just randomly end the video?
As a Sydney collector of Marinas said "best car in Australia".
All you have to do is put a bit of negative camber on the front wheels and telescopic dampers or just thicker oil in the dampers and it handles pretty well.
It annoys me that people keep bashing the marina we had more problems with the MK3 cortina now that was a pile of poo that ate camshafts for a living the void bushes at the back use to wear out on the back making the back axle sway side to side.
My family had a lot less problems with the marina and it was a 1.8 and went like the clapper's.
Piano? Anyone?
Marina had its film debut in the big budget film "Carry On at Your Convenience" . the film was made in 1971 ,with Sid James driving a white 1800 Coupé .Appropriate car for the boss of a bog factory?
Why BL thought lever arm dampers would be a good idea in the 1970's is anyone's guess.
These were completely 'crap' when compared to Datsuns and Toyotas of the time.
These cars were crap when compared to crap aswell kid.....
How old are you? I would say my late father's 1.3 Super (wow!) was a boring car to travel in, it seemed to have to have it's battery replaced quite a few times, I think the local BL garage was taking him for a ride, similar thing happened with a family friends Allegro serviced by the same garage, solved by re-adjusting fan belt. The Allegro was a car that I grew to like, never let me down bar when the front suspension collapsed (which I had paid another garage to repair after it had failed the MOT, the 'Mechanic' had not done the work I paid for). My father Marina was quite a good car compared to the one it replaced, just a crap garage.
Totally agree as we spent more times under the bonnet then in the car
100% junk motor and equally the body
Yes Toyota far more superior
But they were British mate.
I put an 1800 in my Marina van. Fuck did it go!
Yank Leyland dude: puffs cigar with American accent..."hrrrn ..we've got the engineering and reliability story in the public conciousness...what we've got to do is the emphasis on the glamorous side of this styling".....after that ?..well then the men in the white suits took him off to the looney bin !
The Marina always had “reversed” wipers because it was found that, if set up correctly (i.e. no large blind spot in top corner ahead of the driver), the drivers wiper would lift badly...
Another top product made by British Lazieland !
wow mesmerising
4:31 is my favourite type!
they should have followed the white one on the left at 3.23
Hard to believe that this was actually 'styled' at all. Were those designers actors?
I love Lord Stokes.
He clearly has no idea whatsoever.
He vanished soon after BLMC was formed.
We had a Marina in 1972.
All the glamour of burnt toast.......
They (everyone) knew very little about marketing and consumer preferences until the 80s
0:53 the beginning of vaping.
The motoring equivalent of porridge. Worthy but dull! Until Ital stepped in of course!
Luv the muic... :-O
what is he smoking at 0:50?
The Maria was to replace the Morris Minor 1000 - it even used the silly lever arm dampers.
The car was outdated when launched. Its looks were appallingly bland even for 1971.
A prime example of how not to design and build a car.
Completed in two years and eleven months, it shows 😬
its odd tho how the coupe model looks more like the granny model
The cars used in the video filming on the coastline would have rotted out before filming was complete.
They were just a boring car, and no upcoming executive, or Salesman would want to be seen in one.
The dying days of BL, and the Ital was worse, lipstick on a pig.
Er....why did they take a box of Castrol oil on the photo shoot. These were brand new cars, for crying out loud.
Was a good roomy family car but BL lack of quality and rust hurt its development,very tunable motors for flash!
TOP GEAR
Also, anyone else scream when they drove through that salt water?
And which smart guy thought letdts change the wipes round
1,8 TC. Twin Cam?
Nope guv'ner - Two carburettors!
but come on,they were twin SU's
Filmer Paradise must have been putting crack in his cigar if he thought he could sell that many Marinas a week.
Second best selling car in the U.K.
@@timleech in its first year, they had pie in the sky dreams of it taking 11% of the U.K. market, it never had a chance.
i never knew rubbish came in so many versions. My father had the last mark marina the "ITAL". It was bloody rubbish. We only had it 8 years, and 68000 miles . He had to sell it for scrap ,because no one would buy it.
@gentil79 Well spotted :)
My brother shut me in the boot of ours. I've never forgiven him
You were probably in the most interesting part of the car!!
3:52 hahaha! Even my old Audi A6 FWD could had gone thrue there with no problems! xDD
Why launch with so many variants? Awful!
WTF! Chris Evans at 2:01! LOL
Sea water & a Marina.Could I please order my new 1.8 super in your new orange rust colour.No you can’t, it will never be built cos there on strike again!
they pretty much overcooked that
Super Deluxe marina !!!! WOW
Morris Marina was not worse than a Opel Kadett or Fiat 124!
Hey hey hey do not talk about Oliver like that lol.
THEY are shit !
you have got to be joking, oh my god get some better drugs.
I bought a Fiat 124 sports and two Datsun 1600s in the 80s, all early 70s cars and they were brilliant. The former with a delicious twin cam an d 5sp gearbox, the latter with OHC engines and independent rear suspension. I also drove a Gemini (RWD Opel Kadett) around the same time - handled beautifully, tight as a drum. The Marina was borderline dangerous.
Remember this monstrosity was launched barely 3 years before the mk 1 Golf.
BL seriously thought they could get away with warming over a 1948 chassis - lever arm suspension and cart springs?
You've got to be joking, I had a Datsun 1600 from exactly that time and it drove like a cut price BMW- OHC engine and IRS
Morris Marina + Seawater = Oh Dear.................The Super Deluxe Pie Dish wheel trims..........Even for the promo film one of them had lost a rear hub cap LOL,FFS,BL......I blame that Yank with the big cigar and his boardroom bullshit "prosaic" speech,instead of paying him the big $$$ for SFA they could have dropped the torsion bars and trunnions and developed some new suspension.........!
The yanks always were better at building and selling cars that didn't rot in 5 months.
Cos there big in The States...
What an embarrassing film eh. Shocking. It even finished with eh Austin All-Aggro.
It is easy to see why the British motor industry went belly up.
Outdated technology .Uninteresting styling. Etc. It was the beginning of the end
body styling was not proportioned
The coupe is as horrible styled as can be.
The sedan as boring styled as can be.
Don't misunderstand me, I don't hate BLC cars in genreal.
I really like cars like the Rover SD1 or the Triumph GT6. Bad build unfortunatley, but wonderful in their appearing!
But the Marina?
UGLY, NO SOUL, UNRELIABLE and just DULL