As the massive British Leyland nut I am, this car is my favourite.
It started my interest in BL cars when I seen one many years ago in Denmark. This car is something of a landmark in BL History – more specific: it showed everything that went wrong with BL in the 1970s. Harris Mann did the design work. His design sketches showed a sleak and sporty car, soon to be compromised. A lot of conflicting demands led to a very different car. One of it’s most (un)popular quirks was the Quartic Wheel. The rather poor interieur packaging meant the instruments weren’t visible, so this idea came up, as Harris stated in an interview with @practicalclassicsofficial. The car in the picture was driven by Jeremy Clarkson in his bit about the british motor industry, and belongs to Colin Corke, who drove me around in this and made a dream come true.
Another contribution to @plankhond |s #allegroweek. Here we have two different cars. The first one must be a post 1974 car. You can spot the round steering wheel – so this is a Allegro 2. With the Allegro 2 BL tried so solve some problems. They revised the interieur to gain more space and finally binned the Quartic Wheel, which was a major part in all the Allegro bashing back then. Also bigger engines been available, the 1500 and the 1750. You can also spot a new designed grille. Let’s leave this presumably “bronze yellow” car. The blue car, whis is part of the @britishmotormuseum, is the Allegro 3. The Mark 3 was introduced in 79 and was built until 82. It featured the “A-Plus” A-Series engine and had some clearly visible design changes. New grille, bumpers, light clusters and a modernised interieur. But lets cut to the chase, it was seriously outdated. BL already worked on the Metro and the Triumph Acclaim (which is one of the most significant cars in BL history btw).
What we have here is a sectioned Austin Allegro cutaway display car.
This car is also part of the @britishmotormuseum collection in Gaydon (strongly recommended!). Although this car is dated 1973 I would think this might be a Series 2, judging from some of it’s parts. Anyways, this is most probably a 1500 Special. Pusher interieur, a vinyl roof and many other details are noteworthy. You can see the 1500 E-Series engine, which compromised Harris Manns design a lot. It lead to much higher bonnet line and sort of ruined the innitial design – speaking of which… picture number 5 shows one of the early designs for the ADO67/Allegro by Mann (taken from the British Leyland Enthusiast’s Guide by @practicalclassicsofficial – also strongly recommended). More #allegroweek – head over to @plankhond for more Allegro content ☝️
Only Fans is in the making. Literally great content!
A website? So I have to follow you on IG, TikTok, Youtube and here.. please don’t tell me you have…
Absolutely, but when I look at all the Pike-Cars, the Pao remains my abolute favourite :)
The Nissan S-Cargo was also quite a neat design from the 90s. 😊