Is The Morris Marina The WORST British Car Ever? (1971 1.3 Deluxe Road Test)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
- The Morris Marina has long been the subject of jokes and ridicule in the classic car community (don't mention pianos...). But as the Marina celebrates 50 years in 2021, should we finally cut it some slack, particularly compared to contemporary Fords?
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Its nice to see an unbiased review of the Marina for once! Great video! 👍
Agree. I owned a 1.3 Martina back in the day and it was a nice car. Unremarkable but nice.
The fact that he called the other reviews lazily written means that it's not an unbiased review!
My Austin version in the USA was a very good car for what I needed it to do. Simple, efficient, and easy peasy to take car of at home.
I personally think that a lot of the criticism of Marinas and Allegros come from people who have never owned, or even driven one.I’ve owned an Allegro 3 and driven several Marinas and found them all to be good reliable transport, as good as their rivals back in the day.
That's it, Michael! Don't knock it until you've tried it!
I feel like a lot of it was because of the union troubles. Since media back then was largely run by money men who would either have investments or friends with investments in the plants it seems like they were going to shout it down anyway - as they did with a lot of BL stuff.
Then they tried to backtrack when it all went to Rover but by then the seeds were sown.
Marina my first car. Crock of shite
I totally agree with you Michael , however that Limeflower interior should never have been married with Teal blue bodywork !
@@Roger.Coleman1949 totally agree, my ‘73 Wolseley 1300 was in those colours.
My 1.8 Marina ran for 17 years and 200,000 miles on the same engine. Glad to see an unbiased review at last!
Did the original gearbox last as long as a matter of interest? They're meant to not be the strongest design.
My Dad's early Austin 1100 did 168, 000 miles on the original engine (valves ground in @ 100,000 miles) but had two replacement gearboxes to get to that mileage.
Dad always used BP Visco Static 20 W / 50 lube oil (Castrol lubricants would be the modern equivalent to BP).
@Martindyna
The gearbox also lasted for 200,000 miles but it did have several replacement clutches.
It would have gone on further if the bodywork hadn't of rusted away!
Nothing wrong with the Marina. Those who sneer at it are usually fashion victims who who take their cue from everyone else. It did what it said on the tin, which, as you point out, was to be a reasonably priced, no-frills fleet and family car. I had a couple of late model estates (with the 1.7 'O' series - good engine), bought secondhand when I had little money and needed cheap, reliable transport that could carry stuff. They did the job perfectly and never let me down.
I never had any problems with the Marina I drove for a couple of years, as opposed to the Rover 820 I had, it would breakdown if you sneezed within 100 yards of it 👎, worst car ever……..globally.
@Bad Lieutenant
Hyuk-hyuk.
I had a marina estate in the early 90s . I used it for work , it was built like a tank and very reliable . I really liked it .
My first car was a late 1.7. It was absolutely fine. I get bored defending them to people who've never owned one.
all part of the programme ...IMO .. it was co-ordinated. The Common Market was on the way, Govt was sold on London becoming the financial centre of EU ... at the cost of heavy uk industry. Get the press on board to slag off BL... whilst selling up the EU operations of Ford (in particular), depressing people about their UK motoring purchase. Eventually pay so called union leaders to screw the workers who were gullible enough to go along with it. Then you have sod all cars to sell into the UK , never mind Europe. Meanwhile FIAT, Renault, VW and co send ship loads of cars at vat discounted rates over here and dominate the UK market. The BL cars start failing due to poor workmanship and hurried production and became the joke of the industry. Meanwhile FORD held off production of Fiesta until they could produce in Spain and export Duty and vat free.... otherwise it would have had to have been built in the UK ...before long, those loyal Ford customers were now buying Euro product and nothing here was being produced. Transformation complete.
I drove the same 1.3 model as reviewed on a daily 38 mile commute over the moors and into Teeside and then back again. I loved it and only sold it (to a friend) once it had clocked over 100,000 miles.
I worked in the BL dealer network from the mid seventies to the early nineties and really there was nothing wrong with the engineering and certainly the series two and three Marinas were quite nice cars, what gave them their poor reputation was the woeful quality control cars would arrive from the factory often way after the agreed delivery date to the customer because of industrial action and there would be a myriad of faults, unlike today where the dealer would just put them right and submit a warranty claim you had to get prior authority even for a light bulb which involved filling out a report sheet submitting it to the factory and if you were lucky you'd get a reply in 48 hours (it could be longer if you were not a main dealer) so you would be forced to make the car as good as you could and then the customer would find the faults when they took delivery. My father had three Marinas a series 1 1.3 Coupé which did have a few problems when it was new, a series 2 1.8 HL which gave no problems and an Ital 1.7 estate. I think dynamically the Cortina was probably a better car but as a family car I don't think there was a lot to choose between the Marina, Cortina, Avenger and the Viva the problem with many modern journalists is that if a car wasn't developed on the race track and can't go sideways at 200mph on the track it's rubbish completely missing the point that the people that by car like the Marina or its modern equivalent want to go to and from work, go shopping and take the family out at the weekend and possibly the annual holiday and the Marina did that perfectly well.
Your point stands perfectly well, other than the fact that the Cortina did that better, and that was the Morinas intention. To steal the cortinas thunder but it failed
Spot on.
I was brought up in New Zealand 🇳🇿, the iconic Morris Marina on show was on my way home from Primary ( elementary) school on the way home in the mid seventies, inside the show room the windows were rolled down, that new smell was like.....just yesterday, with that three clock dash, and ALL models, including that great looking Coupe !
Loved to revit those days, I understand that in one of two countries a 6 cylinder variant was developed, other than the A & B engines of 1.3 or 1.8, I think it was either Australia 🇦🇺, or South Africa 🇿🇦, thats the benefit of New 🇳🇿 Zealand, you get a bit of everything 😀
Thanks for sharing that pristine blue 1971 model.👌👍
I had a marina estate 1.7 engine, it was the last of the line before they changed the name to Ital it was a great car, easy to drive ,comfortable and easy to maintain , folk who slag them off have never had one .
I had the 1.3 estate a rust bucket but it did it’s job until I blow the engine
You hit the nail square on the head with one of the comments you made. No matter what BL did, the haters were gonna hate, whether deserved or not.
Couldn't have put it better, Richard!
The Marina Was BRITISH. and as good as every other car for the price.
And the masses fall over themselves to buy the latest shit from Bavaria, Stuttgart, Ingolstadt or Wolfsburg. Ignoramuses such as Jeremy Clarkson will praise a turd, as long as it had a German roundel.
Steering was atrociously heavy on early Marinas in particular, that being said they were simple to fix and maintain
@@allthekingshorses7178 Heavy Steering is due to OLD or Worn Tyres, or Worn Steering & Suspension etc.
Lack of servicing / Vast Mileage, with a Clocked Odometer as was the Normal Back then.
Even Some Main dealer Retail Stock was CLOCKED.
Owners Disconnected Speedo Cables.
Winding Back Mileages is not Just done by the Occasional Rogue, It was Done in BULK. it was MASS MARKET.
Even a ONE OWNER Car was Suspect to having the Speedo disconnected or wound back.
Remember they only went to 100,000 miles then zero again.
a 3 yr old car with 140,000 would show 40,000,
Back then Buyers NEVER UNDERSTOOD this Fact.
These were the days of NO INTERNET,
Business people Travelled the Country to Personally Visit Clients & Customers. NO Mobile phones to Communicate etc.
Just SNAIL MAIL , or Go see the person & shake hands on the deal.
Nice to see the old Marina getting some praise. The media has a lot to answer for.
The Marina was a decent car - tired of all the cliches about it! My father had a new one in '72 and it was faultless. He later replaced it with a Cortina, which was better looking, but no better built....
Loved seeing top gear drop pianos on the horrible piles of UTTER SHIT.
@@MrJimbaloid Back to your homework now little chap.
@@MrsZambezi Really ?
True
Thank you for your balanced report.
They really were not as bad as they are usually portrayed.
Understeer was a factor especially with the 1.8 but they always gave enough feedback through the steering; ie. they gave you fair warning before 'letting go'!
Modern cars are arguably too easy to drive - when they 'let go' (which they eventually will) it is at such high speeds that the consequences often result in tragedy.
In a Marina you learned the 'craft' of correcting understeer and oversteer etc. at moderate road speeds. Once learned; you never forget the basics!
Many happy memories of BVH141K - my Limefower 1.8TC Coupe.
When I was a kid in the 70’s , we had a Marina Estate in maroon and I don’t remember it being that bad , it got us around and was pretty reliable.
It took us to the coast for our camping holidays and being an estate there was loads of room for all the camping equipment.
Remember my late Dad, he use to work at the local TA centre and the care taker was bit of wheeler dealer and a guy from Devon brought a Renault of him, he said can't drive 2 cars back to Devon and he left the Marina Coupe behind and that's how my Dad got it for nothing. He loved it, very comfy and never failed to start including in winter. Think Top Gear did not help none.
Used to drive these as a young lad going back and forth between factories to pick things up. They were company cars, borrowed from sales reps and varied in age between new and a couple of years old. Compared with my own car at the time which was a rusty old Triumph Herald they were great to drive. Personally don’t think they were any better or worse than any car of a similar type/price from that era.
Spot on! Not great but not terrible. They occupied the median of those two extremes much like other contemporary stuff of the time.
My first car was a 1.8TC. Served me well for two years. Quick enough space to get your mates to the pub and ridiculously easy to work on. Never understood why it was so slated. On reflection probably better value as first 'cheap' car than a new one.
Plenty of us have fond Marina memories, Nigel - thanks for sharing yours!
Yep
Easiest car I ever diy,d on but there was a LOT of diy 😂….. loved it all the same
I had a 1.3 ( I think?) coupe and she was nippy enough but you certainly couldn’t throw her around a corner 😍
@@michaelduffy9720 Mine was a 1.3, needed some welding on the sills and floor one year, a tweak to the brakes another. Engine never needed any work, nor did the gearbox etc. I did fit some really spiffy spotlamps to it.
My dad had one. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, a sound car. The beauty of these cars is that the average person can work on them without needing to plug them into a computer.
I had two Morris Marina. Took me and four friends to football everywhere. Never let us down. Never got stolen. Or vandalised.
Best car owned Saab. Morris Marina easy to work on. Most basic Fiat 500 Autobianchi van rare. Loved my Vauxhall Omega superb.
Well said. From a motor trade point of view they sold very well as second hand cars. Even some police forces had TC Coupes as pursuit cars, albeit with upgraded shock absorbers. Much of the criticism came from conceited so called "celebrity" motoring experts - mentioning no names naturally.
I'm not as pc as you so I'll say Jeremy Clarkson, the only reason that he took the piss out of Leyland, MG Rover, was because he could do a recognisable Birmingham accent, so he was able to get a laugh.
@@kennethtucker9844
Pretty much!
my mate had a mk1 marina in blaze orange. 1.3 deluxe, wings full of filler, but that thing went on for years! we had many an adventure in it, never broke down on him, and he used it every day to commute to work!
We had these as 'pool' cars when I was an apprentice and yet I sould still have one in my post Lottery win 10 car garage....LOVE 'EM.
*would..🙄
My dad had a 1.7 deluxe estate for 12 years only thing he replace were front wings and a radiator he put a screw driver through never let him down it was a good car for its time
Basically a good car in 1971 my grandma had a 1972 car she had it wax oiled from new, kept it in a garage, she did 15000 miles in fifteen years , she replaced it with a Ford Orion Ghia in 86, then her last car a 1991 Cavalier GL, it was always the Marina that she spoke about, totally reliable, what a shame it was not mothballed and put away as she wanted ....
That says it all your grandma had one
@@hannchris2762
She also had a Cav and an Orion you dork. Does that 'say it all' too?
No way was the Marina one of the world's worst cars. I had 2 a 1300 then a 1700
Had the 1700 for over 5 years. Engine seemed bomb proof. I did upgrade the trunions always a problem on the mot.
Changed it for a foreign car. The foreign car was knackered after 2 years it always had electrical problem and I could never get parts for it .Imagine how I felt when I spotted spotted my old Marina around the corner of my house still on the road.
Odd Job: Best to grease trunions every 5k, and especially just before Mot. However they were not the best engineering concept.
If totally neglected they could fall apart causing the suspension to collapse.
@@janicewatts5888 My old Moggy had similar, when they failed it was usually from a crack in the casting from a nasty curbing incident (happened to my dad in his). My first one did require some shims in but then it had been looked after from new by the local garage... who called a pop riveted plate over a hole welding and passed it with the front headlamps hanging out of the wing with coathangers and no functional brakes. Still after a bit of repair it lasted years.
For me, the design has worn fairly well over the half century - I didn't like the look of the Marina much as a kid, but I do now. Functional, sensible and tidy. Maybe I'm getting old, but nowadays even the Maestro strikes me as a fairly decent looking car for much the same reasons.
We'd agree, it's got a certain handsome simplicity to it!
It might be because they both have a simple honest character that’s sadly missing from today’s cars.
Had a 1.8 super as a company car in 1974 lol.70,000 miles and the only problem was when the fan belt snapped on the M1.Fast forward to 2021 and my Golf 8 has been back to the dealer four times with "software ' problems in the last 6 months........
The British criticism of BL was part of its downfall. The anti British press didn't help and Red Robbo should have been locked up. .People who knew nothing about cars and had never even driven one said they were bad, Marina was the best selling car in Denmark through Domi its importer. They were built on three continents . They did the job they were designed for at an affordable cost and were good to drive and economical to own.
The Marina 1.3 Deluxe was my first car. Terrible in the wet, very basic, no passenger side wing mirror, under powered but I loved it. Still think it is a good looking car. Certainly better looking than alot on sale during it's day.
Great cars, I owned two in the late 80's I think they rotted less than Fords and they get unfair slating by people with way too much money to know any better.
My Marina 1.8 TC was the only car that after owning it for 12 months when I sold it I received more than I paid for it and was the lowest car for repairs, so no it's not the worst car
We had a K Reg 1.3 Coupe and then a V Reg 1.3 Saloon. Both decent cars. I did a lot of driving lessons with my Dad, great memories of driving the saloon in the south Oxfordshire countryside.
I loved my Marina.
Any car named after the mermaid from "stingray" is OK with me.
Great to see a unbiased review of the marina my dad had two marina estates growing up strong reliable work horses and happy memories travelling in both one was the 1.3 a 1980 model and one a 1.8 a 1974 model
It’s funny dad said the same as you that his earlier marina estate was much better made and drove better and he preferred the early dash!
My father's fisrt car in Greece! First memories in car for me...!! Really loved it!
I learnt to drive with BSM in a Marina Coupe. Before its launch I was working in a recording studio where we did the sound for TV and Cinema commercials. One of the bookings was to record the v/o for the trial ads. To keep the name confidential the letters of the name were rearranged so the tag line was, "The new Morris Manair, beauty with brains behind it". After all these years I've never forgotten it.
They were good cars and considering the mismanagment of the program it was amazing the engineers ever got a product to market. My Dad had a 1.3 4 door and I had 3 1.8s as company cars over the years. The 1.3 was better, however the nose heavy 1.8s with enough torque to steer that simple back end with the throttle were a hoot. They were reliable easy to work on cheap to service economical and roomy, they never promised to make you irrestible to women.
The 1.8TC when driven hard was quiet fast for a basic form of transport
I had a beige Morris ital as my first car. It was a 1.7 and beat my mates 2.0 Capri. I 🥰 loved it
I remember my dad buying a morris 575 marina van when I was a teenager. I was so embarrassed especially when he brush painted it. But it turned out to be a really good van and when I turned 17 I used to like driving it. I learned how to fix it and change the head gasket which helped me become a mechanic. Yes the wings and sills rusted and you had to lift the doors up to shut them. And it blew headgaskets and the front trunions wore out. But it was fun and I wish I still had it now.
Front trunions like the morris minor hardly ever got greased properly
@@rogersmith5167 yea. Used to grease them but not often enough. I had a morris minor and the wheel actually fell off that one.
I was an engine designer at Longbridge in the 1970s. A Rover (Buick) 3.5 litre V8 was fitted to a development car. The V8 engine weighed less than the B Series 1.8 litre!
We'd love to see that!
Owned one in the mid 80s, needed a front gearbox bearing when I got it in an auction in Australia for $440AU. I used to drive it onto some pretty rough dirt roads on fishing trips and it never let me down. Lent it to a friend for a week and it came back with a blown engine, but still running. Off it went to the scrapyard.
Well I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I watched this video, I've owned every single variant of Marina, and covered several hundreds of thousand miles cumulatively in a couple of those.
I dread to think how many oil filters I went through in my 10CWT pickup, which in the course of an average week was driven between 1100 and 1500 miles!
I own a very early example which has the unmodified kingpins fitted, and I can confirm it understeers dreadfully, conversely I have a car fitted with the late Ital telescopic damper arrangement, and anti roll bars back and front, on gas Spax, which can be thrown around with a degree of confidence.
I don't mind them one bit, bought one as a stopgap in the late eighties, and still own one or two to this day.
Thanks for the video :0)
At last! Somebody actually giving a proper opinion of a Morris Marina. I seem to have skipped the Morris Marina though. When I hit 17 in 1987 my Grandad gave me his Morris Oxford VI. Great car but by 1994 I wanted something a little faster and more modern so I bought a Morris Ital. A totally awesome car. Then, in 2016, I fancied another upgrade so I bought a Rover 75 Tourer. Another awesome car. I now drive a '63 Oxford, an '81 Ital and an '04 Rover 75. Maybe one day I'll fill the gap and buy a MkIII Marina.
My Mum had one of these and as I remember she really liked it she even named it "Bessy"
I had a marina back in the day. It was a “crab on stilts” when it came to handling but I still have fond memories of it.
I can remember changing a head gasket with a few spanners and a screwdriver after getting a gasket kit and a head skimming on the cheap 😍
You did what? come now weetabix and kellogs have always provided excellent and very cheap head gaskets and if theres a problem 2 saves the price of a skim.
@@davehitchman5171 tut tut , this was a marina ....and engineering like that needed to be respected 😀 ..... besides, we only had bread and water in our house.....cereals were for people who drove Ford cortinas and the like.....:)
@@michaelduffy9720 yes, some of the neighbours had Fords, grabbed the cereal packets from their bins :0
Compared with the Farina Oxford/Cambridge the Marina was a revelation. Light steering, disc brakes, all synchro, reasonable fuel consumption and some acceleration. If only they had used mcpherson struts like the Mk2 Cortina and Hillman Hunter instead of trunions and lever dampers.
At last someone has seen the good in a Morris Marina. Thank you sir .
A friend of mine put a six cylinder Valiant Charger engine in one of those. I asked him how he had upgraded the brakes. All I got was a 1000 yard stare.
Are you in Aus or NZ? They could be specced with a 2.2 straight six there.
I owned the very same model as what you’re testing here and I’ve got to say it was a bloody good car. I have got to say for it’s time, it was as good as the opposition just look how many it’s sold, the 1300 engine was good for 140,000+ my friends dad was a salesman for an electric company his car had well over 250,000 miles on the clock and it was still going well when he sold it. Let’s face it the Ford Cortina was just a re-bodied 60s design. Often with PL/Rover they made cars fare to long by the end of the production run it was well out of date and hence the joke
I had a 1.8 for quite a few years. Perfectly happy with it.
If it really had been such a bad car they would never have sold so many i still think there a good looking car the engines are well proven
my dad had a 1.3 delux bought brand new in '71 .he traded in his white vauxhall victor . it was the family car and it worked pretty good.i had a white 1.8 in the '80's that i got for like 70quid. it went pretty well
Loved marina and allegros. Growing up we called cortina and escort owners the fix or repair daily crew.
Thank you for uploading this helpful video regarding the Morris Marina.
I agree 100% with you, the Marina was NOT a bad car as many suggest it was when it came out back in 1971 & yes it had design mistakes like retaining the Morris Minor type front suspension of torsion bars & lever units/trunions which led to understeering on the 1.8 engined models but it was quite reliable & easy to service & work on.
A friend of mine had a 1973 1.3 Marina Super Deluxe in maroon which never ever let him down. His car had the disc brakes, alternator & heated rear window with that bright green warning lamp when switched on & cigarette lighter as standard.
As you state BL had woeful quality control over the cars at the time when they arrived from the factory & of course the industrial action/strikes which really hindered progress overall & gave BL a really bad name.
My older sister had an orange and black 1.8 TC (twin carb) coupe. It was surprisingly nippy and could do over 100mph. The only reliability problem was the Lucas starter motor, which was very poor, but our local auto electrician replaced it with one that had non-standard copper windings and that fixed the problem. It wax a great little car I was sad when she traded (i.e. part-ex) it in the 1980s for a new Toyota which had no character whatsoever.
I always thought the Marina and Allegro were originally mocked due to poor build quality and reliability issues. They weren't bad cars, just badly built. Over time and the likes of Clarkson have played Chinese whispers with the poor reputation of both cars.
Generally I would say not badly built. Of course BL like ALL other manufacturers at the time hadnt got to grips with rust, used cheap steel etc. Its not like any of the VWs, BMWs or Mercs from the era have faired any better.
Brings back so many happy memories for me, travelling from Belfast to Lincoln and back with my nanny and granda 40 years ago, it never broke down once😁
Memories like that stay with you forever!
My first car was an M reg marina coupe and i loved it, ofcourse i thrashed it to death and put 3 engine's in it. But it kept going and i had a lot of fun with the lack of grip, i think it taught me how to drive and now all these years later I'm driving a rover 75..
Long live longbridge..
I had a 76 1.8 as my first car in 1985, it was my late uncle's car. I was just learning to drive and as a cheap in family buy it got me around very well for a few years. In fact I had to remember that the driving school's new Metro did not have the same level of performance when getting ready for my test.
My first car was a Marina same colour as this one. Second car was a Marina in Snapdragon yellow just before the Ital took over.
Surely no worse than the dire mk2 Escort...mine was virtually scrap after 12 years.
The Marina suffered from the same problem we have today, a main stream media (including the BBC) which hated Britain and everything to do with it. It was built by a workforce led by destructive Unions which were not interested in the industry but in establishing communism. Some things don't change.
I owned two 1.8 Marinas I thought they were excellent 👍 thanks good video
I had one, it was the most reliable, easy to maintain car I have had, on long journeys it purred along effortlessly
My dad had a retina flash orange marina coupe with melt your legs blue vinyl. You always knew it was springtime because he was welding new sills in. 😅
No better or worse than most cars of the period. A Marina would seldom develop a fault that couldn't be fixed by an auto mechanic, unlike some continental cars and their electrical issues.
Main issue was that a car designed as a stop gap lasted 10 years and even then lived on until 1984 as the unlovely Ital.
You can't deny it had a good innings!
I've found there's a big difference between the 1.3 Marinas and the 1.8s. The 1.3s very much feel like a Minor in a new body - generally straightforward handling, accurate steering, a smooth gearshift, decent refinement etc. The 1.8 seems to have been too much for the parts-bin-raided mechanicals - the gearboxes can't cope with the torque so they go all notchy and tend to pop out of gear under hard acceleration, the nose weight is too great for that trunnion/torsion bar suspension, the steering ratio or geometry is different and feels all vague and woolly, and the infamous understeer is much more prevalent and 1.8s all seem to have much worse refinement, with odd thrums through the bodywork, scuttle shake etc. It's as if the 1.3 was the car they intended to make and the 1.8 was a forced stretch. WORST CAR EVA? No - a car explicitly intended to be average at a time when the average was (by the standards of only a decade later, let alone today) shockingly low. The Marina isn't even the best in its class; but then the only one of its class that I've found to be genuinely good to drive and properly engineered is the Avenger. Ford Escort/Cortina, Vauxhall Viva/Victor, Triumph Toledo? All designed down to a (low) cost, built down to a (low) minimum standard and shoved out of the factories by the thousands to a market that didn't want anything other than 'a car' with an engine at the front, a boot at the back, some seats in the middle with a familiar badge on the grille to take them from A to B and that Dad could use all his existing tools and his shed-full of gaskets on.
Completely agree. A good 1.3 Marina was quite a nice thing and a well run-in one would do over 90. Also agree about the Avenger - properly located rear axle and a smooth engine, whether 1250, 1300, 1500 or 1600.
My music teacher in high school had one and I have fond memories of pushing that thing almost daily during the Canadians winters he owned the damm thing.
Maybe you should have clubbed together and bought him a battery. 99% of cars not starting is a battery issue
Had one myself same colour and model as the one being test driven it was reliable easy to work on parts where cheap it did the job never let me down also owned two door coupe :-)
I learned to drive in a marina pick up. We also had a marina van. Unlike the cars they were very low geared and much more than 50 mph was a struggle. We had problems with those dreaded trunions and spent hours either replacing them or trying to get grease through them. I believe the gearboxes were triumph. These cars were easy to work on. Could do a complete engine strip down and rebuild in a weekend. 😊
Jesus, two variants which are now worth relatively obscene amounts of money!
Owned a couple of Marinas back in the late 70s / early 80s.
Apart from the front trunions needing regular greasing, they were generally ok for what they cost. On par with standard Escorts, and Chevettes etc.
Good review, thanks. And just for a change, no grand pianos seems to have dropped on this particular Marina..!
Absolutely. My dad bought one from new and when it rained the boot was full of water. The dealer offered to drill a hole in the bottom to let the water out!
I used to think the BL dealers were bad, then I moved to a company where I got a Cortina.
As a used car dealer that is the standard fix the Escorts suffered the same problem but often had a rust hole in the boot to save you the bother !
I owned 3 Marina saloons in the 70's, good reliable cars, roomy and efficient. Regards understeer - Demon Tweeks supplied a telescopic strut conversion kit was inexpensive and easy to fit. I fitted these and ride and cornering was much firmer. Parts were cheap, plentiful and easy to fit. There was no job that I could not DIY on these cars.
Inherited my mum's 10 year old Ital 1.3 estate when it had died and I had no money. Welded on 2 sills, filled the front lever arms with EP90 and put transit shocks on the rear then a (sprayed) coat of Hammerite light blue paint. We had it for another 4 years, cleaning and greasing the front trunnions about every 8 months, I could strip, clean and rebuild them in about 10 minutes. It never let us down, not once! We new the trunnions needed done when the steering wouldn't self-centre coming out of a corner! A set of Dolly Sprint wheels set it off nicely too when money became less scarce. Fond memories.
Worked as a mechanic at a Rover dealership back in the 80s. Used to buy a few of the cheaper trade-ins every now and then to supplement my income. These consisted mainly of a choice from Mini, Maxi, Allegro and Marina/Ital. Metro mk1s were a no-no really, anything remotely near my price range was usually beyond redemption. Customer brand loyalty tended to dictate your options. You may on occasion get a chance to buy a chopped-in Escort mk 2, or a mk4/5 Cortina, but generally they were either too pricey or beyond any help that made financial sense. Nope, there were only two cars from the BL range I made a beeline for. The first one you could probably guess?... Yep , the good old Mini. If you bought the right one you were quids in, no problem. Minis always were a very good seller, whether you liked them or not. The second? You guessed it, the Marinas /Itals. Why?..... Well it was simple really: In their day they were a very popular second-hand buy. There were loads of them about at the time, and if you kept on top of them mechanically, they were generally a pretty reliable motor. Of course there were the rot-boxes, but you let the auction/scrapyard have them. If they did go bang, they were really cheap to repair. I don't recall there being that much vitriol aimed at these cars back in the day. That was usually reserved for Lada & Skoda (cars that really weren't that bad either). You paid your money and you made your choice, just as you do now. Only difference in more recent times is the advent of TV show/media pundits and critics, who seem to have little better to do than rewrite history to make a name for themselves. So-called car shows that have pandered to casual viewers by dreaming up ever more dim-witted, half-arsed ways of trashing the very thing they are meant to love... Cars. Back in the day, pretty much ANY car from ALL makers rotted like a pear, given half the chance. All had mechanical issues of one sort or another. Nowadays, ANY 40-year old (give or take) vehicle is worthy of a little respect, regardless of which car company made it. Regards and whatever you drive, Happy Motoring!
Nice review other than the car was based on the Minor idea but the underpinning were all new and not interchangeable, different lever arm suspension, 1275cc engine rather than a 1098cc that kind of thing. They definitely didn't deserve the hate that they get though.
Yep - there was a bit of mission creep from what I've read, meaning the basic engineering concepts of the Minor were (in some elements) carried over, but not necessarily the parts themselves. I suppose it did utilise the tooling/expertise in the factory (assembling parts similar to a Minor's into a new car), and with component suppliers, so in that respect it did speed up getting the car to the market a little bit. Which, given BL's desperate need for fleet car sales, wasn't such a daft idea. The Marina was originally slated for a six or seven year lifespan, and in that context it was perfectly fine - it gave BL a toehold in the all-conquering Cortina's market. Basically the Minor's engineering was a starting point, which the Marina was developed from.
I think "all new" is stretching it quite a bit. Most bits may have ended up different in some way but if you look under both its fairly obviously the same design which has been updated/enlarged. In the same way as that little A series can trace its roots all the way back to before the Mini. Nothing form the 1275 will fit a very early motor but its development rather than replacement.
I don't see that as a bad thing to be honest. Taking an already well proven platform and making any improvements you can is a cheap, fast and easy way to make it competetive again without the massive costs and time it takes to make something ground-up. It also means you're far less likely to get first year production issues.
My dad had a marina 1.3 super it was a fantastic car. . . . . .never gave any trouble. . .my next door neighbour had a ford escort mk 1 would never start in damp weather . The marina started every time. In all sorts of weather. . .it was comfortable car . .not all British Leyland cars were crap . . Simple to maintain X parts were cheap X service
Had a van ,I was watching the Eubank Watson fight ,at the last round I had the plod at my door telling me it had been stolen and dumped a couple of miles away they took me there and said the ignition had been damaged I told them no it wasn’t it’s just operated by a penny I kept in the ash tray ,I only got rid of it because the rear springs came up through the floor at the back but I didn’t know THAT until I took it in for an MOT.
Morris Marina 1800 was my first car in 1981. Was fast on the straight and slow in cornering owing to the discussed understeer. On a bendy section of the A483 I let a Capri overtake me as I knew I was slowing him down on the corners. Some people said it was dangerous but I enjoyed driving it. Like any car, its for the driver to know the strengths and weaknesses of what he is driving.
Can't for the life of me understand why people "love to hate" the marina. Never understood why. As if other cars were any better... The Cortina, the Avenger, the Viva. Please.
The Ford Escort was much better and by '74 you could buy a Golf instead.
The Cortina, The Viva, and the Avengers didn't suffer from severe understeer for a start. Trouble with the Marina was it used most of the running gear and suspension left over from the Morris 1000 with cart spring suspension on the rear axle. Engines was the best part but dated..
@@alexanderheath6662 Not quite. The problem was in the investment in spheroidal graphitic iron casting technology that BL had made. SG iron in effect makes cast iron behave like and be nearly as strong as a steel forging. SG iron was used in the Morris 1000 suspension, the Mini and continued to be used up to the Maxi and for suspension uprights and hubs beyond that in later models.
The designers (who Included the lead designer of the Escort) of the Marina wanted McPherson struts, the accountants wanted to keep using SG iron components rather than the steel fabrications that that a McPherson strut needed.
So the Marina ended up with a suspension like the Morris 1000, but using completely new parts, still cast in SG iron. The understeer was a simple design flaw ameliorated if not cured in the 1.8, with new bottom trunnions. The 1.3 had very satisfactory handling.
The very next model from that design office was the TR7 which used the McPherson struts the Marina should have had.
VW, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa, PSA, Renault all had far superior offerings to this BL shite
@@alexanderstefanov6474 Yes at a price that made them uncompetitive in the UK.
The Fiats and Lancias rusted away in months due to shite Russian steel they used.
The Golf was very expensive in the UK as were Citroens, unless you wanted a 2CV.
Renault, You jest surely?
I had two of them, first a 1974 and then a 1980 model.
They were pleasant to drive, reasonably economical and reliable.
Compared to the American owned manufacturers, BMC cars were much more advanced in the 1970s. It was only about 1980 that Ford etc caught up, due to the need for economical engines following the 1973 oil crisis.
Never liked them growing up, but now I have a soft spot for them especially the later face lifted models 🙂
We agree!
Weirdly though we grew up with a facelift car I prefer the earlier ones!
If you clear your mind and then apply a Pontiac or Chevrolette badge to a Marina I honestly don't think it'd look out of place!
I had a couple of Marinas as company cars and they were perfectly good cars. Smooth, comfortable and spacious. They were replaced by Colt Lancers which, by comparison, were cramped and harsh riding. KUP 220N and SPT 812R are you still out there?
These two that were blue and white had short lives, died in 1983 and 1985. KUP210N was a battered Datsun 120Y I remember in my town in the 1980s, while KUP215N was a more respectable Wolseley 2200 before the Princess name was introduced.
Odd! Couldn't tell you my partner's phone number but my first car was a royal blue Marina with a gold triple coachline, reg number SGE 771N
@@ABCDEF-yf4yu That's interesting. Both cars were driving school cars and had a hard life and a high mileage. After KUP was retired it was used as a spare car by the school and was a bit neglected by the time it was sold. SPT also had a high mileage, around 80,000 when it was sold in 1978 but it ended up in my home town a few weeks later. I saw it parked up and had a look through the window and it had 'lost' 60,000 miles.
My first new car was a four door 1300 Marina de luxe in 1972. Ran it for three years, 40,000 miles, economical, comfortable, quiet, never had an issue.The first or second best selling car in the U K in the 70's.
And still a great car today!
I had a 1.8 super years ago and loved it.
I sold parts for them at a BL dealer back in the late 70s. Here in Canada, they were all 1.8 litre engines. I remember switchgear being a common failure. I never had one, but I never wanted one either. I did have a 1300 though, and loved it, even though it rusted apart, and the engine was so tired at the end, it would hardly run. The hydrolastic suspension was amazing.
I had a coupe 'M' Reg, I think, White/Brown vinyl roof. Looked OK. was all going well until I jacked it up and the jack went through the floor... the leaky windscreen was fixed with bluetac and a ceramic mug... the petrol tank leaked and odd tyres had it sideways in the rain at even pedestrian speeds... ah, those were the days...
One of my very early cars was a 1.3 Marina Coupe, in orange (of course!)
It was shockingly cheap, at just £35, with a little tax & MOT! (I got it cheap from my dad!) & I owned it for around 2 years.
The clutch eventually went, so I sold it to a guy at work, for £50 who then fitted a new clutch in the same week, & was more than happy with it.
By then, I'd moved on to a Lada Combi estate (£95) from a local dealer, who just happened to be the ex-youth club leader from my village! Thanks for the discount John!
I had a Marina, and it was a reliable, and actually very decent car.
The hate is unjustified, because the three cars it was based on (the Morris Minor, MGB, and Dolomite), were all much loved, and still are today.
I remember my Dad bought a Polskie fiat 125p (I believe there's pills you can now take for that😂) and returned it a couple of weeks later for a Morris Marina. Compared to the Fiat, the Marina was like a Rolls Royce!
Saw an episode of the Sweeney recently that had a scene that I think probably sums up what the general perception of Marinas vs the competition was back in the time when they were current.
Carter catches a young toerag nicking a really rough looking Beetle that was around 12 years old at the time, and he asks him why he chose that car in particular to steal. He points at a Marina and a Mk3 Cortina in the same car park, both a year or two old, and says "why not the Marina? Or the Ford?" Implying that they were both nice cars that any self respecting car thief would have chosen over a tatty Beetle.
I think that sums it up. If you had either of those cars when they were current, or a Victor or Hunter or whatever, you were perceived to have a decent car.
There will be some people that had Friday afternoon examples of all four that will say they were rubbish
My very 1st car in 1983 was a 1975 Marina 1.8 Coupe. I loved it, I fixed the rust, added go faster stripes and a good stereo. It went well, always beat my friends 1.6 Capri, and very rarely let me down. Maybe now and again on cold damp winter mornings. It was fairly fast, very comfy especially the big back seat, with the fronts tilted forward 😉. Kinda wished I still had it.
I remember having a lift in one with my mum to school in the late seventies and i thought what a nice car and never have thought they're awful, I'm a top gear fan but wasn't impressed when they destroyed that Marina just for entertainment, good review by the way 😎
Top gear are anti British. A bunch of closet Germans
Silver lining? One of the Marinas that got 'pianoed' actually got lovingly repaired and restored. An extremely rare black late model saloon as I recall!
My grandfather had a 1971 K reg 1.3 Coupe deluxe for over 10 years. It was a good car and the A series engine was smooth and economical. I had two Marinas: the first I bought secondhand, it was a 4 door 1,8 Jubilee special edition in Citron yellow with a dark blue vinyl roof. The twin carb 1.8 B series engine had good torque. It had comfortable seats covered with a nice crushed velour material. My second Marina was a new 1978 Mk2 GT Coupe in British Racing Green with a brown vinyl roof. It was a great sporty Coupe and like the Jubilee it had the same engine basically as that found in the MGB GT. The spindly 155/80 tyres couldn’t handle the power so I upgraded to 175/70 G800S tyres, the ones Sir Robert Mark advertised. They were excellent tyres and transformed the handling of my Marina. Good cars, simple to maintain. Lever arm suspension in the front and leaf springs at the rear, like a Morris Minor.
As an x Leyland Austin Austin Morris Rover worker tied with warranty and Engineering, going back people complained of rust corrosion how awful pile of rust etc but these cars were sold with a 6 six year corrosion warranty in effect this would make the car good for six years at the minimum if then looked after another 4 yrs making 10 yrs.But people never bothered to have the car serviced with a yearly free corrosion warranty, owners did not bother but the product was no good then we have the younger generation quoting what they have read or my Dad had one etc etc. Older cars did corrode from poor quality steel thankfully this has improved.
I owned two Marinas as work horses back in the 80’s , one a 1300, the other an 1800, construction sites, motorways, summer winter they never let me down 👍🏻😎
I owned Marinas and Allegros back in the day. And being in the motor trade I had to fix them too. They were no worse than their contemporaries. Albeit the Marina handling was shite if pushed just a little. The engines were always sweet and quite reliable. Folk slag them off then go on to say how wonderful Escorts were. Yes, they were fantastic after been heavily modified. Bog standard ones were nothing special. BL stuff felt plusher whereas Fords had a better modern image.
Oh I'd love that lil' MK1... Gorgeous... :)
Marina here in Canada was badged as the Austin Marina. They sold in reasonable numbers. I only rode in one once. It was white with a dark brown vinyl top and interior. Because of the import duties we only got the top of the line models, where they were still fighting above their class. I've always wanted a top of the line 4 door saloon. That is the looker of the lot.