Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sir Tigger KC]

Aaaaah!! Back in the day, I had a Morris Marina 1800TC Coupe, Mustard, with black go faster stripes and a big bold black stripe up the bonnet!!

It cost me £50 with 6 months MOT and Tax, it never missed a beat and I loved it  After 6 months of fun, I optimisticly put it in for its MOT and it failed miserably..... I was gutted 

I must admit it didn't do much for my street cred (My mate had a 205 GTi), but at 19 it was my first experience of a big motor and rear wheel drive!!

[Vamps]

Aaaaah!! Back in the day, I had a Morris Marina 1800TC Coupe, Mustard, with black go faster stripes and a big bold black stripe up the bonnet!!

It cost me £50 with 6 months MOT and Tax, it never missed a beat and I loved it  After 6 months of fun, I optimisticly put it in for its MOT and it failed miserably..... I was gutted 

I must admit it didn't do much for my street cred (My mate had a 205 GTi), but at 19 it was my first experience of a big motor and rear wheel drive!!

They were a pretty quick car........

[Banjax]

My sister knows the original owner. Not sure if it's the 'death by piano' or the one that got torched. (I'll find out which)

It was in excellent condition, with all the MOT's and service history etc.
He was chuffed to bits that it was to appear on TG...

....then he saw the episode.            

hahahaha see what i mean. thats a sad story and i imagine some poor old pensioner thinking his marina is going to ''get the great review it deserves''!!!!!

although i have to admit im PMSL 

Not a pensioner tho', I think he's early 50's.
He told every man and their dog that his 'classic' car was to be on TG.   

now that is "classic" 

seriously tho, did he never watch the show? it'd be like donating a prized caravan 

[Martin_1962]

Aaaaah!! Back in the day, I had a Morris Marina 1800TC Coupe, Mustard, with black go faster stripes and a big bold black stripe up the bonnet!!

It cost me £50 with 6 months MOT and Tax, it never missed a beat and I loved it  After 6 months of fun, I optimisticly put it in for its MOT and it failed miserably..... I was gutted 

I must admit it didn't do much for my street cred (My mate had a 205 GTi), but at 19 it was my first experience of a big motor and rear wheel drive!!

The only one worth saving

1300 Marina - yuk

HOWEVER they do all have one redeeming feature RWD, but were a generation behind the Escort and two generations behind the Cortina Avenger & Viva.

[Kevin Wood]

The only one worth saving

1300 Marina - yuk

HOWEVER they do all have one redeeming feature RWD, but were a generation behind the Escort and two generations behind the Cortina Avenger & Viva.

I'm not so sure about that. I reckon all the RWD cars of that era were  absolute sheds, TBH. Newer FWD replacements in the pipeline for most manufacturers, so each RWD model was just a parts-bin emptying exercise, trying to get a little more life out of an utterly outdated platform before its' imminent replacement.

The Ital / Marina did have all the dynamic capabilities of an oil tanker, though, which made the pokier ones a liability, IMHO.

As to classic status? Depends. I get as much enjoyment out of seeing the sh1te cars preserved as the sexy ones. Not saying I'd own one, personally, but it's refreshing that sometimes you come across an absolutely mint Austin Maxi at a show and recall memories of getting carted around in one by your parents 30 years ago.

Kevin

[tonyyeb]

Yep, the Marina had no redeeming features whatsoever.

The 1.8TC Coupe looked alright and sounded good.....

[henryd]

Yep, the Marina had no redeeming features whatsoever.

The 1.8TC Coupe looked alright and sounded good.....

went pretty well at the time as well,until you came to a corner

[bluey]

I'm not so sure about that. I reckon all the RWD cars of that era were  absolute sheds, TBH. Newer FWD replacements in the pipeline for most manufacturers, so each RWD model was just a parts-bin emptying exercise, trying to get a little more life out of an utterly outdated platform before its' imminent replacement.

The Ital / Marina did have all the dynamic capabilities of an oil tanker, though, which made the pokier ones a liability, IMHO.

As to classic status? Depends. I get as much enjoyment out of seeing the sh1te cars preserved as the sexy ones. Not saying I'd own one, personally, but it's refreshing that sometimes you come across an absolutely mint Austin Maxi at a show and recall memories of getting carted around in one by your parents 30 years ago.

Kevin

I agree.  It's wrong for anyone to start determining what constitutes a classic or not as that is only opinion, as well as it bordering on being elitist.  Cars like the Marina should be preserved, if nothing else to remind everyone of the basket case that was BL and the rubbish it at times turned out, but the Ford Escort was in many ways just a better built example of lowest-cost manufacturing cynicism.  But some people do like them and however horrendously misguided that might be it's their choice.  Bit like me with the old Austin 1800.  In some ways Issigonis was too uncompromising with the design and it suffered badly for it, but in part it was quite brilliant.   

Thiking about it, I can recall one saving grace of the Mk1 Ford Escort.  It had the best gearchange quality of any manual transmission I have ever experienced, far superior than the myth perpertrated by hacks about BMWs or the utter conkers about Ferraris.   

[Sir Tigger KC]

[/quote]

went pretty well at the time as well,until you came to a corner
[/quote]

That was the fun bit..... Especially as a slightly reckless 19 year old in the Darzet lanes!! 

[Martin_1962]

The only one worth saving

1300 Marina - yuk

HOWEVER they do all have one redeeming feature RWD, but were a generation behind the Escort and two generations behind the Cortina Avenger & Viva.

I'm not so sure about that. I reckon all the RWD cars of that era were  absolute sheds, TBH. Newer FWD replacements in the pipeline for most manufacturers, so each RWD model was just a parts-bin emptying exercise, trying to get a little more life out of an utterly outdated platform before its' imminent replacement.

The Ital / Marina did have all the dynamic capabilities of an oil tanker, though, which made the pokier ones a liability, IMHO.

As to classic status? Depends. I get as much enjoyment out of seeing the sh1te cars preserved as the sexy ones. Not saying I'd own one, personally, but it's refreshing that sometimes you come across an absolutely mint Austin Maxi at a show and recall memories of getting carted around in one by your parents 30 years ago.

Kevin

Funny front suspension and cart springs, also long stroke 1950s engine

Escort front struts, carts 1960s square to oversquare engine
Cortina struts coils and the Pinto
Avenger struts coils late design oversquare pushrod lump
Viva only engine is old fashioned

[Kevin Wood]

Funny front suspension and cart springs, also long stroke 1950s engine

Escort front struts, carts 1960s square to oversquare engine
Cortina struts coils and the Pinto
Avenger struts coils late design oversquare pushrod lump
Viva only engine is old fashioned

Yes, but, technicalities aside, did any of them actually perform significantly better? Offer better reliability? (in standard form, of course)?

My recollection of the above is that they were all pretty woeful in most respects.

Kevin

[Martin_1962]

Funny front suspension and cart springs, also long stroke 1950s engine

Escort front struts, carts 1960s square to oversquare engine
Cortina struts coils and the Pinto
Avenger struts coils late design oversquare pushrod lump
Viva only engine is old fashioned

Yes, but, technicalities aside, did any of them actually perform significantly better? Offer better reliability? (in standard form, of course)?

My recollection of the above is that they were all pretty woeful in most respects.

Kevin

Only driven two of them, but my parents had an Avenger estate for a while, (wanted cheap car), very comfortable, and handled pretty well.

[albitz]

The Escort imo was a car that was greater than the sum of its parts. Going by the spec sheet it didnt have a lot going for it, but it was a very sweet handling car straight from the showroom and in its ultimate development form was  all but unbeatable in rallying until the quattro came along.
As a former Viva owner (and my dad had 4 of the bloody things) imo they had nothing going for them whatsoever.
Avenger - not a great car, but as a tuneable Escort rival, they were quite under rated in their day imo.
Having read back my earlier post, it did come across a bit eletist - sorry about that.

[tonyyeb]

I agree with Mr Wood that wanton destruction of any old car is a bit unsavoury. Don't mean to sound too po-faced, but I'd prefer to see a Wolseley 2200 being used rather than a 250GTO in a hermetically sealed bubble. I read 'Practical Classics' every month, and enjoy the 'discovered' section and the classifieds, scanning for interesting survivors.

When I was in my early twenties (early '80's), I campaigned as a banger racer at circuits around the south - my home track was Smallfields, near Horley in Surrey. I sent many a Rover 3.5 (P5), Triumph 2000 and Humber Super Snipe plus many other similar vehicles to their final resting place, and I regret that now. Nobody then regarded those cars as precious, yet most would now.
It's easy to denigrate the Marina and other similar vintage BL & Rootes / GM products as worthless now, but scarcity and nostalgia will play a part in their preservation and re-evaluation by the motoring public, if it isn't already happening now.
As an aside, it's a sure-fire certainty that the better-equipped Omega models will be considered classics in 10 or so years time.....

[craykent]

a second class ride is better than a first class walk 
 not much love on here for the old workhorse [ donky ]  :-?