I was an apprentice in a company that had these for the commissioning engineers to use. The first thing they did was fit van springs on the rear to take the weight of tool boxes etc. The guy I was with had a 1.8 and he used to say that he tended to forgive it for it's shortcomings `because it would go in a straight line'. Top speed for the 1.8 was 95 mph (more or less bang on engine maximum power RPM).
1:53 "...we understand that the '71 version of the Cortina is gong up in size and price". That version came out in 1970. By the time the Marina was introduced that MK3 Cortina was already available to the public. They lost against Ford before they sold a single car.
I had a marina in the early 80's. Drove it about 6 miles with my foot to the floor down the A38, by the end of the road the crankshaft was knocking like thunder, had to replace engine
My girlfriend did that to her Marina......but then she never had grasped the concept of topping the oil up on the A Series engine. It drank it like a fish.....in a marina😂
I can remember the day they were launched. My car loving friend and I saw the photos and we groaned in unison. He christened them grudgemobiles. They defined the concept of lowest common denominator motoring. The 1.8 front suspension was extremely dodgy until they modified it. It was then just dodgy, except it understeered so much you couldn't dodge anything. I did run a 4 door 1.3 briefly. It was the nicest of the bunch, but thats not saying a lot.
The E6 was actually lighter than the Bseries 4 and the Australian Marinas had normal front suspension and a Borg Warner gearbox (local content requirements) - the whole front end was much more solid
The companies which were absorbed into British Leyland, did design and produce some very nice cars. Triumph and Rover were cases in point. But the Marina? Haha that is hilarious. They took 3 years to design and produce this car but it looked and drove as though it took 3 months. What were they thinking?
The problem was the suspension,it handled like a sea sick elephant and was dangerous in the wet and snow,if they had developed new independent suspension for it and not used the Morris Minor's it would have been a good car,the 1.8TC Coupe in particular was a good looking car......ps..the gear stick was about 20ft long and had the feel of stirring a bowl of porridge ....
Stokes to the meeting " I have managed to secure 1 pound / 12shillings/ 6 pence for development " wait a minute , lets go and have fish & chips instead!
Whenever I need a laugh I watch this. More reliable than planned ?? Rustproofing ?.. smirk. Really good performance and reliability 😱 2 completely different body styles ( but sharing everything forward of the B pillar including doors) 🤭 Brand new design ( with the ancient suspension of the Morris Minor) 🙄
I confess to actually liking the Marina when I first saw it. In my defence, I was only 9 and my then-favourite car was the Opel Kadett! The TC coupé isn't a bad shape for its day. Of course, its engineering, handling and build quality were what was wrong, not the basic shape.
Having owned, repaired, sold, driven and scrapped countless Marinas and Itals, it seems to me that this could be a candidate for the shortest video on youtube award......
@justas525 Thanks for your reply but i'm not swayed by the passage of time making things a "CLASSIC" i love Marina's and all BL/ARG products (up to the very end) and own both a Marina and a Maxi but to deem them as classic cars just doesn't cut it with me. If we use the 25 year rule as a general guide to determine classic car status cars ws have the very real and distinct possibility that the Reliant Robin and even the Sinclair C5 are indeed classics......well perhaps they just might be.
You're opening up a much debated topic there friend. To me, any car that invokes a bit of nostalgia has classic potential. You won't like hearing this, but there's a growing interest among younger people in Japanese cars as recent as the 1990s. You could argue that's just a love of "retro" styling. (See? It's getting complicated already.) What matters is, old cars get saved and preserved, regardless of era, status or any other terminology. But I do respect you point of view.
From what I have read, the problem with the Marina was that BL's predecessor hadn't built a small RWD car since the Morris Minor of 1958 - and that's what they based the suspension of the early seventies Marina on. If you think that's bad, Australia had a 2.6-litre SIX-CYLINDER Marina on sale - voted by our motoring magazines as "The Car Most Likely To Take A Life".
It was not a replacement for the landcrab. More like a replacement for the Farina Saloons and a direct competitor to the equally traditional and conservative Ford Cortina. The Princess was the successor to the Landcrab.
And they had that grill with the vertical slats instead of the one with that colour coded horizontal bar. I heard you had to remove the radiator to get to the belts haha. Chrysler Australia were smart enough to make a nose to accommodate the 4 litre hemi 6 in their Simca based Valiant Centura.
Kenny Scott I know of a guy who got one to take the engine out and when he drove it to the mechanics, they all ran outside to see it because they weren't sure such a thing existed!
As it was, the Marina was really a rehash of old BMC components in a new bodyshell - By contrast, the Hillman Avenger (for how conventional the car's specifications were) was actually a clean-sheet design, right down to the engine and platform...
Design Team: We want to fit the Marina with Independent McPherson Struts. BL: No money, just use the same suspension system from the Morris Minor, Trunions!
I have a1976 diesel marina imported from Malta this year, has done over 600,000 kms & suspension is great, no knocks or bangs even going over the dreaded sleeping policemen, don’t know why people knock them, a British thing I guess, let’s see how many BMW’s are on the road at 42 years old & yes my daily driver is a 320d
The marina was only meant as a stop gap and used outdated technology esp in regards to suspension which meant it did not handle as good as similiar vehicles from ford, hillam and vauxhall, also the pre production vehicles were slated by the motoring press for woefull handling, BL promised to fit roll bars on production models on the strength of this the motoring press gave fairly good reviews, however this did not happen and the press feeling conned by BL never forgave them.
@themaneatingchimp My uncle is still an AA patrolman and i've asked him more than once which were the worst cars form that time,and he always says Fords in winter [non-starters] then anything Italian and after that the French stuff [Citroen being the far worst of them] the everything else pretty much the same. He doesn't rate the Japanese cars that highly either,overrated with excessive spares prices and a waiting list to get them,three weeks to get Mazda oil pump,two weeks to get a water pump.
My dad used to work in Pressed Steel in the Cowley plant and told me that the running gear used in the Marina was from the days of the Morris Minor. The Marina was a fresh new concept on paper but in reality no better than the cars from Eastern Europe and Russia. Triumph was not pleased with the merger in BL and it ended up killing them off. The europeans were making more advanced cars running on Unleaded fuel but BL & the abundant A-Series engines still running on Leaded fuel up to the 90's!!
Well, I must say that my Fiat Uno 60 s that I bought new in July 1986, wouldn't run on unleaded. I had to put a lead additive in with each fill up. I wonder where C36 GKO is now, by the way ...
Just to confirm. The War Against the Morris Marina Owners' Club and the Morris Men is not over. The Men at Amazon have amassed a piano stockpile of about 100, twice the increase in the secretive stockpile as reported by the UN's International Commission on Piano Inspectors which is also a clear breach of the Geneva Convention on Musical Weapons.
At age 20,and callow,i bought a new 1975 Marina in Canada.3years later,went through a mud puddle,the car stalled,there was a 2 piece white nylon wiring connector,below the starter that had 4 important circuits going through it.utterly stupid place stupid design,no weatherproofing.trans had particularly weak syncros.it handled highways well,would do 100 mph,the seats were particularly comfortable.gearing in the trans was poorly chosen, 2nd-3rd around town intraffic always changing.the hydraulic
@YS28863 You are incorrect in your statement that the Marina was a "face lifted Morris Minor" the Marina was a replacement for the "Farina" car range Cambridge, MG Magnette Mk. III, Morris Oxford V, Riley and Wolseley 15/60.z And yes you can compare East European and Russian cars against a Morris Marina (just as an auto journalist would and still do) As to the cars production,the Marina remained as the number 3 top seller in the UK during most of the 1970s proving this statement incorrect.
It's painful to watch this these days. The thing that you forget is that all the plant to make the cars, all the heavy presses, all the foundry equipment everything would have been British made. So as well as no longer having any motor industry we no longer have any heavy industry to talk about whatsoever. TBF saying there is no British motor industry isn't totally true, we do actually still make cars, a lot more than you would think, it's just that none of the companies are British owned anymore. Ford still have plants here, but only making engines and gearboxes I think, and there is Nissan and Toyota as well as Jaguar, Land Rover the BMW Mini plant in Cowley, plus all the other lesser players like Aston Martin, McLaren and all the small volume companies like Morgan and Noble (do Noble still exist ?), and all the small engineering companies building the race cars for the world.
At least we've still got Rolls-Royce (the gas turbine manufacturer) to take some pride in. They were so impressed by MTU of Germany that they bought the company. If you're not into trains MTU Diesel engines power the IC125 btw. Then there's JCB (unfortunately they use Japanese Diesel engines) and Dyson (although Dyson manufactures elsewhere of course). These companies come to mind that are in the public eye.
@themaneatingchimp In my country ( Denmark) you could buy many other cars at the same price as a Morris Marina like Ford Escort, Opel Kadett, Toyota Corolla and Datsun 120 Y - cars that were more reliable and much better quality . In Denmark the import off BLMC cars like Morris Mini, Austin Allegro, and Morris Marina stopped early in the 1980´s because off the pure quality and the competion from Japan . In DK you could buy a much better Toyota Starlet for the same price as a Mini 850 in 1980.
@themaneatingchimp you stated in early comments that ford were crap like vauxhall,but they were holding the 1st & 2nd place iin sales for the 70s,not saying the marina was bad though,but by the time the ital came it was much out of date then in refinements and the ital was hated in the motor trade.i think they suffered very high depreciation from new
@themaneatingchimp Now in 2011 those cars are really classics. In GDR at the time were much more horrible cars like Trabant and Wartburg, Zaporozec, Lada.
If the development had just been fully focused on simply bringing the MINOR into the 1970s, freshening up the ADO16 with hatchback versions, they'd have saved a fortune as well as earning the respect of the motoring community at large...IMHO.
I have a guilty thought that I never told anyone... I love the front of the later marinas :$ - it's a bit like a chevy nova (pls don't hate me for this comment). If that was on a 2 door muscle car/coupe... I would buy.
Respond to this video... (cont 2) the reason that both the Cortina and Escort were No1 and No2 in the top sellers list . And as said a lot of the motoring press hated the Ital (how much of this was just following what was said before them is unsure but re-sale price were fell victim to this) Strangely for a car so disliked by many, the entire tooling and rights were sold to China to make their own version of the car and even more strangely some were even built. Thanks for your comments
This film makes it all sound like it was well planned but the result was a massive debacle that resulted in the investment needed for the car being 3× the budget which meant it had no hope to recover its investment in its short 3 to 4 year shelf life
Morris Marina tc cope cool 😎 car put a big 5.7 v8 in it even better good bases for a rat rod my dream build but finding one now days is a bit of a nightmare
The marina is a fairly attractive car for what it is in my opinion. They made the base spec ones look very basic but the TC and the like looked a bit muscular and quite endearing.
It could have been a hit with longer doors and at bit more sporty styling. But yet another stupid decision by BL was to reuse the sedan's doors. Those short doors give it a weird appearance. The whole design was ruined by trying to save a few pennies on door moulds. I don't know what it is with BL and doors. On the Maxi they also reused the doors from the Landcrab to save money and instead they built a completely new engine factory.
While I'll probably never buy a Marina, I generally prefer my classics to be pre sixties, it's really interesting to see what BL were thinking at the time. They didn't have a direct rival to the Escort, but were worried about Cortinas and Capris. Listening to the guys at the board meeting you can tell it wasn't going to be physically able to do everything better than multiple new Ford cars. Especially with limited resources and time. Buggers muddle really and a resulting car that tried to be too much and therefore didn't really excel at anything at all...
'The cars proved to be even more reliable than anticipated', my gawd what were they anticipating. Reading between the lines here in several places, they knew the cars were janky. Its ironic that they called them Marina given their aversion to salt water.
My god what an achievement .Stunning good looks and performance, a milestone in car production. If you were lucky enough to own one ,the term "pussy magnet" - though crass, would certainly apply. These men must have died proud of this masterpiece.
The Marina couldn't have been that bad, considering 800 000 were sold, nearly as many as the mk2 Cavalier (806 000). I can think of worse cars that have been around. My dad had a Marina for over ten years and rarely let him down and went from sourthern England to Scotland and back several times without any problems. The Marina, I think has some charm to it. I actually quite like the look of the car and much better than the Allegro, which is dreadful. Allegro, what a horrible name for a car.
So many commenters on here suffering from the 'Jeremy Clarkson Syndrome'...It was a great car, proved very popular & filled a niche both the motoring public & industry required...It's a very English-thing, this with the benefit of hindsight to look down one's nose & sneer at any & everything to do with British Leyland.
My late grandfather had one of these bought new 1972 and he passed on10 years later in 1982 we all thought it was a heap of rubbish now it's worth more in2023 !! I was wrong 😢
@1:48 The whole 1970s thing, the crusty suits, the horn-rimmed glasses, fake wood panelling on the walls and haunted-house style wall chandeliers, even two ashtrays on the table! The whole thing creeps me out. It's so difficult imagining anyone in this atmosphere using their imagination or creativity to design the best car they possibly can.
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.
Yes and the modern plants are still unionised, BL fell down mostly because of poor management, adversarial approach to industrial relations, and sold rubbish products, none of which were the workers fault
The Officer As someone who worked in the body repair industry all my life allow me to illustrate issues concerning car manufacture and the unions. As a 17ish year old painter I worked in a bodyshop that won the business to carry out rectification work on Hillman Avengers - the "c post" body leading over the panel joints was badly shaped and very poor quality workmanship. We had to grind out the factory lead, re-lead them properly and repaint. When the company warranty man came to inspect our work, someone asked him why it just wasn't done properly in the first play at the factory and why people weren't pulled up on their poor work. He told us that if they complained about the shoddy work they were told by the union to f!ck off. Imagine the costs involved in us and other body shops carrying out rectification, it doesn't take a super brain to work out why the car manufacturers went down.
Graham Pearson The fault was across the board, strong unions strangling production and management unable to deal with cocky union barrons, constant strikes, dreadful quality and subsequent loss making.
Liked marina no worse than another car from era.we called the Ford fix or repair daily the escorts were crap.capris 3 wheeled shopping trolleys around corners and cortinas when it rained broken down rac kept busy.
Old technology car. Lever arm suspension at the front, cart springs at the rear. Just like an old Morris Minor. Old A and B series engined. The Marina was doomed to fail.
When I was young My dad had to get a new van for work. The dealer could get him a new Marina or a new Austin A55( which was going out of production at that time). We had the A55 for a week then we got the Marina cos Dad did'nt like the column gearchange on the A55. BIG MISTAKE. Drum brakes were rubbish.
@TheVx490 The Ital is not for really me either (a step back in design perhaps, but the "MARINA" that really does drive nicely indeed how the car should have drove from new) Maybe the money spent to spruce up the Marina was better spent than you might think in Ital form the car lasted an other 4 years and this kept it often in the top ten sellers in the UK . The worst thing about the Ital is the re-worked inner wings that are just pure rust traps (a stupid thing to change them and for what?)
for all you marina fans out there the ital got its name by italy giving the marina a facelift at a tune of 2 million pounds in the 70s which cost BL dearly.not money well spent.there is a book liisting all cars designed in italy.nowhere does it list the ital.food for thought eh?
It was basically a re-skin of a late 1940s design, it had rather crude suspension and the styling was no more attractive than the competition. In what respects do you consider it to be excellent?
¨The merge into BMC was the final stage¨, the reporter told - and , yes that was unfortunally quite right...
I was an apprentice in a company that had these for the commissioning engineers to use.
The first thing they did was fit van springs on the rear to take the weight of tool boxes etc.
The guy I was with had a 1.8 and he used to say that he tended to forgive it for it's shortcomings `because it would go in a straight line'.
Top speed for the 1.8 was 95 mph (more or less bang on engine maximum power RPM).
No pianos were harmed during the making of this video.
Pianos? Where's the Maestro!
Wait - Morris Marina development? I wasn't aware that the Marina was developed.
It was, after the great piano storm of the late 60's hehe.
Lol
Developed ? it was certainly enveloped in shit ...
developed yes ,developed well : no
my first car ever, loved it and head gasket that went regularly only took an hour to replace
I guess you get proficient after the first 10 times
Or not after the first nine!
Racing a marina engine huh?
1:53 "...we understand that the '71 version of the Cortina is gong up in size and price". That version came out in 1970. By the time the Marina was introduced that MK3 Cortina was already available to the public. They lost against Ford before they sold a single car.
8:13
"in 2 totally different body shapes. A 2 door coupe and 4 door saloon"
They were identical from the B pillar forwards !
Yes so was the BMW 3 series and Audi -its quite normal.
@@michaelf.h8507
They had longer doors and so the B pillar was further back.
my first 2 cars: 1.8 saloon then a 1.3 coupe- simple and practical : )
@BLHeritageFilms come to Malta and see which is the only surviving car of the 70s! beleive it or not it's the Morris Marina :)
I had a marina in the early 80's. Drove it about 6 miles with my foot to the floor down the A38, by the end of the road the crankshaft was knocking like thunder, had to replace engine
My girlfriend did that to her Marina......but then she never had grasped the concept of topping the oil up on the A Series engine. It drank it like a fish.....in a marina😂
ah, the well known phrase at 3:40 - 'you've got a pretty big job on your plate'.
A good looking car. M.
I can remember the day they were launched. My car loving friend and I saw the photos and we groaned in unison. He christened them grudgemobiles. They defined the concept of lowest common denominator motoring. The 1.8 front suspension was extremely dodgy until they modified it. It was then just dodgy, except it understeered so much you couldn't dodge anything. I did run a 4 door 1.3 briefly. It was the nicest of the bunch, but thats not saying a lot.
Tim Hancock in Australia they shoehorned the Austin 6 cylinder into it ! Now that was dodgy and dangerous!
@@fordlandau more straight roads in Australia 😁
The E6 was actually lighter than the Bseries 4 and the Australian Marinas had normal front suspension and a Borg Warner gearbox (local content requirements) - the whole front end was much more solid
The companies which were absorbed into British Leyland, did design and produce some very nice cars. Triumph and Rover were cases in point. But the Marina? Haha that is hilarious. They took 3 years to design and produce this car but it looked and drove as though it took 3 months. What were they thinking?
The problem was the suspension,it handled like a sea sick elephant and was dangerous in the wet and snow,if they had developed new independent suspension for it and not used the Morris Minor's it would have been a good car,the 1.8TC Coupe in particular was a good looking car......ps..the gear stick was about 20ft long and had the feel of stirring a bowl of porridge ....
Stokes to the meeting " I have managed to secure 1 pound / 12shillings/ 6 pence for development " wait a minute , lets go and have fish & chips instead!
Whenever I need a laugh I watch this.
More reliable than planned ??
Rustproofing ?.. smirk.
Really good performance and reliability 😱
2 completely different body styles ( but sharing everything forward of the B pillar including doors) 🤭
Brand new design ( with the ancient suspension of the Morris Minor) 🙄
Tremendous car!
I confess to actually liking the Marina when I first saw it. In my defence, I was only 9 and my then-favourite car was the Opel Kadett! The TC coupé isn't a bad shape for its day.
Of course, its engineering, handling and build quality were what was wrong, not the basic shape.
Yes it was not perfect :Still sold all over the World including NAS and was No 1 seller in Denmark -No 3 in UK -well over a Million were produced.
This is one of the greatest comedy films of the 1970s. Was subtitled:
“ Carry on Marina”.
Having owned, repaired, sold, driven and scrapped countless Marinas and Itals, it seems to me that this could be a candidate for the shortest video on youtube award......
@justas525 Thanks for your reply but i'm not swayed by the passage of time making things a "CLASSIC" i love Marina's and all BL/ARG products (up to the very end) and own both a Marina and a Maxi but to deem them as classic cars just doesn't cut it with me.
If we use the 25 year rule as a general guide to determine classic car status cars ws have the very real and distinct possibility that the Reliant Robin and even the Sinclair C5 are indeed classics......well perhaps they just might be.
You're opening up a much debated topic there friend. To me, any car that invokes a bit of nostalgia has classic potential. You won't like hearing this, but there's a growing interest among younger people in Japanese cars as recent as the 1990s. You could argue that's just a love of "retro" styling. (See? It's getting complicated already.) What matters is, old cars get saved and preserved, regardless of era, status or any other terminology. But I do respect you point of view.
From what I have read, the problem with the Marina was that BL's predecessor hadn't built a small RWD car since the Morris Minor of 1958 - and that's what they based the suspension of the early seventies Marina on.
If you think that's bad, Australia had a 2.6-litre SIX-CYLINDER Marina on sale - voted by our motoring magazines as "The Car Most Likely To Take A Life".
The 2.6 litre E series 6 is actually lighter than the Bseries 4. The Aussie marina wasn’t that bad
That coupe could have been a game changer with longer doors and more swept styling
🎹
⬇️
💥
🚙
And on that bombshell...
We gotta show British Leyland some love. They might have messed up in a lot of ways, but you can't fault them for trying.
“Let’s make a replacement for the land crab and engineer all of the fun out the 1.3l A-series engine.”
“Good idea.”
It was not a replacement for the landcrab. More like a replacement for the Farina Saloons and a direct competitor to the equally traditional and conservative Ford Cortina. The Princess was the successor to the Landcrab.
The Morris Marina development video- Christ knows they did well to stretch this out to 9 mins long.
Freeze-framed the guys coming out of the boardroom. That bought an extra twenty seconds.
Leyland Australia made a Leyland Morris Marina Six with a 2.6 Litre six cylinder motor. I saw (heard) a green one once. THEY EXIST.
James French Yep. Had one. Little bugger went quite well.
And they had that grill with the vertical slats instead of the one with that colour coded horizontal bar. I heard you had to remove the radiator to get to the belts haha.
Chrysler Australia were smart enough to make a nose to accommodate the 4 litre hemi 6 in their Simca based Valiant Centura.
James French Yes it was jammed in for sure. I was led to believe the motor had to come out underneath. I didn't have it long but I didn't mind it.
Kenny Scott I know of a guy who got one to take the engine out and when he drove it to the mechanics, they all ran outside to see it because they weren't sure such a thing existed!
James French You would just cut the front out wouldn't you.
As it was, the Marina was really a rehash of old BMC components in a new bodyshell - By contrast, the Hillman Avenger (for how conventional the car's specifications were) was actually a clean-sheet design, right down to the engine and platform...
Right here is the beginning of the end for British cars.
Design Team: We want to fit the Marina with Independent McPherson Struts. BL: No money, just use the same suspension system from the Morris Minor, Trunions!
I have a1976 diesel marina imported from Malta this year, has done over 600,000 kms & suspension is great, no knocks or bangs even going over the dreaded sleeping policemen, don’t know why people knock them, a British thing I guess, let’s see how many BMW’s are on the road at 42 years old & yes my daily driver is a 320d
@@markevans2280 Why did you buy the car from Malta then, if they're so great as you say they are there should be plenty good cars in the UK!
They never produced the Diesel model in the UK, that’s why
@@markevans2280 So you went out of your way to buy a car not produced in the UK ...
Yes, same model but different engine, you can see it on you tube, Morris marina diesel 1976
The marina was only meant as a stop gap and used outdated technology esp in regards to suspension which meant it did not handle as good as similiar vehicles from ford, hillam and vauxhall, also the pre production vehicles were slated by the motoring press for woefull handling, BL promised to fit roll bars on production models on the strength of this the motoring press gave fairly good reviews, however this did not happen and the press feeling conned by BL never forgave them.
@themaneatingchimp My uncle is still an AA patrolman and i've asked him more than once which were the worst cars form that time,and he always says Fords in winter [non-starters] then anything Italian and after that the French stuff [Citroen being the far worst of them] the everything else pretty much the same.
He doesn't rate the Japanese cars that highly either,overrated with excessive spares prices and a waiting list to get them,three weeks to get Mazda oil pump,two weeks to get a water pump.
My dad used to work in Pressed Steel in the Cowley plant and told me that the running gear used in the Marina was from the days of the Morris Minor. The Marina was a fresh new concept on paper but in reality no better than the cars from Eastern Europe and Russia. Triumph was not pleased with the merger in BL and it ended up killing them off. The europeans were making more advanced cars running on Unleaded fuel but BL & the abundant A-Series engines still running on Leaded fuel up to the 90's!!
Well, I must say that my Fiat Uno 60 s that I bought new in July 1986, wouldn't run on unleaded. I had to put a lead additive in with each fill up. I wonder where C36 GKO is now, by the way ...
Yes when you think about it, the Marina ran on 1940s running gear. BL must have stood for Bloody Losers.
Just to confirm. The War Against the Morris Marina Owners' Club and the Morris Men is not over.
The Men at Amazon have amassed a piano stockpile of about 100, twice the increase in the secretive stockpile as reported by the UN's International Commission on Piano Inspectors which is also a clear breach of the Geneva Convention on Musical Weapons.
At age 20,and callow,i bought a new 1975 Marina in Canada.3years later,went through a mud puddle,the car stalled,there was a 2 piece white nylon wiring connector,below the starter that had 4 important circuits going through it.utterly stupid place stupid design,no weatherproofing.trans had particularly weak syncros.it handled highways well,would do 100 mph,the seats were particularly comfortable.gearing in the trans was poorly chosen, 2nd-3rd around town intraffic always changing.the hydraulic
I had a 1300GT
@YS28863 You are incorrect in your statement that the Marina was a "face lifted Morris Minor" the Marina was a replacement for the "Farina" car range Cambridge, MG Magnette Mk. III, Morris Oxford V, Riley and Wolseley 15/60.z
And yes you can compare East European and Russian cars against a Morris Marina (just as an auto journalist would and still do)
As to the cars production,the Marina remained as the number 3 top seller in the UK during most of the 1970s proving this statement incorrect.
Lord Stokes looks like a tycoon to me. He was the boss of British Leyland at the time the Morris Marina went on the drawing board.
It's painful to watch this these days. The thing that you forget is that all the plant to make the cars, all the heavy presses, all the foundry equipment everything would have been British made. So as well as no longer having any motor industry we no longer have any heavy industry to talk about whatsoever. TBF saying there is no British motor industry isn't totally true, we do actually still make cars, a lot more than you would think, it's just that none of the companies are British owned anymore. Ford still have plants here, but only making engines and gearboxes I think, and there is Nissan and Toyota as well as Jaguar, Land Rover the BMW Mini plant in Cowley, plus all the other lesser players like Aston Martin, McLaren and all the small volume companies like Morgan and Noble (do Noble still exist ?), and all the small engineering companies building the race cars for the world.
At least we've still got Rolls-Royce (the gas turbine manufacturer) to take some pride in. They were so impressed by MTU of Germany that they bought the company. If you're not into trains MTU Diesel engines power the IC125 btw. Then there's JCB (unfortunately they use Japanese Diesel engines) and Dyson (although Dyson manufactures elsewhere of course). These companies come to mind that are in the public eye.
Anyone who doubts the ability of the Marina to rust very badly should check out "Morris Marina Barn Find" on this site.
some of them would survive long enough to be pianoed on top gear
6.45..... the wipers aren't even on the screen.... 😂😂
@themaneatingchimp In my country ( Denmark) you could buy many other cars at the same price as a Morris Marina like Ford Escort, Opel Kadett, Toyota Corolla and Datsun 120 Y - cars that were more reliable and much better quality . In Denmark the import off BLMC cars like Morris Mini, Austin Allegro, and Morris Marina stopped early in the 1980´s because off the pure quality and the competion from Japan . In DK you could buy a much better Toyota Starlet for the same price as a Mini 850 in 1980.
@themaneatingchimp you stated in early comments that ford were crap like vauxhall,but they were holding the 1st & 2nd place iin sales for the 70s,not saying the marina was bad though,but by the time the ital came it was much out of date then in refinements and the ital was hated in the motor trade.i think they suffered very high depreciation from new
@themaneatingchimp Now in 2011 those cars are really classics. In GDR at the time were much more horrible cars like Trabant and Wartburg, Zaporozec, Lada.
If the development had just been fully focused on simply bringing the MINOR into the 1970s, freshening up the ADO16 with hatchback versions, they'd have saved a fortune as well as earning the respect of the motoring community at large...IMHO.
I have a guilty thought that I never told anyone... I love the front of the later marinas :$ - it's a bit like a chevy nova (pls don't hate me for this comment). If that was on a 2 door muscle car/coupe... I would buy.
Don't feel too bad, I have always liked the look of the Allegro.
Graham Chapman as Lord Stokes
Cleese as Turnbull
Terry Jones as Filmer Paradise
Eric Idle as Harry Webster
Palin as the Manufacturing fellow
i had a ital 1700 my first motor
I'd love to own an Ital
The new Morris Marina.... Beauty with brains (left) behind it.
So it was a rushed job? That explains so much.
Respond to this video... (cont 2) the reason that both the Cortina and Escort were No1 and No2 in the top sellers list .
And as said a lot of the motoring press hated the Ital (how much of this was just following what was said before them is unsure but re-sale price were fell victim to this)
Strangely for a car so disliked by many, the entire tooling and rights were sold to China to make their own version of the car and even more strangely some were even built.
Thanks for your comments
@themaneatingchimp Thanks i think all BL products were good and cool.
Yes. I'm thinking Triumph 2000 and Stag. Jaguar xj6. And P6 Rover to mention a few.
This film makes it all sound like it was well planned but the result was a massive debacle that resulted in the investment needed for the car being 3× the budget which meant it had no hope to recover its investment in its short 3 to 4 year shelf life
This meeting is the beginning of the end for BL.
Best car I never owned or drove ...
@themaneatingchimp well i wouldn,t have minded the 1,7 slx in its day
@themaneatingchimp Moskvich is not rubishb it's a classic like morris marina
9.14 length of video and total of Marina development
@rickerbycourt he was expecting a piano to drop on it :D
They didn't exactly manage to pull off the 'stylish like a Capri' part did they? Lol. I still like the Marina though.
@BLHeritageFilms Moskvich is not rubishb it's a classic like morris marina
Morris Marina tc cope cool 😎 car put a big 5.7 v8 in it even better good bases for a rat rod my dream build but finding one now days is a bit of a nightmare
Am I the only one who thinks that the Marina Coupe looks quite good??
The marina is a fairly attractive car for what it is in my opinion. They made the base spec ones look very basic but the TC and the like looked a bit muscular and quite endearing.
It wasn't actually an ugly car. I thought the shape of the four-door was OK. But only OK.
@Daan Vaan hah! My son in law is called Nigel but I don't think he'd like the Marina with any amount of cylinders. Lol.
But the doors are from the sedan. Too short !
It could have been a hit with longer doors and at bit more sporty styling. But yet another stupid decision by BL was to reuse the sedan's doors. Those short doors give it a weird appearance. The whole design was ruined by trying to save a few pennies on door moulds. I don't know what it is with BL and doors. On the Maxi they also reused the doors from the Landcrab to save money and instead they built a completely new engine factory.
Silver XJ6 Series 1 was the most interesting car in the video.
My favourite car of all time.
While I'll probably never buy a Marina, I generally prefer my classics to be pre sixties, it's really interesting to see what BL were thinking at the time. They didn't have a direct rival to the Escort, but were worried about Cortinas and Capris. Listening to the guys at the board meeting you can tell it wasn't going to be physically able to do everything better than multiple new Ford cars. Especially with limited resources and time. Buggers muddle really and a resulting car that tried to be too much and therefore didn't really excel at anything at all...
Did they really think anyone contemplating buying a Capri would consider a Marina?
'The cars proved to be even more reliable than anticipated', my gawd what were they anticipating. Reading between the lines here in several places, they knew the cars were janky. Its ironic that they called them Marina given their aversion to salt water.
@themaneatingchimp I know one worst. The Ford Pinto!
My god what an achievement .Stunning good looks and performance, a milestone in car production. If you were lucky enough to own one ,the term "pussy magnet" - though crass, would certainly apply. These men must have died proud of this masterpiece.
This looks like a bad mission impossible episode.
It's interesting to see the men who destroyed the british car industry go to work
The Marina couldn't have been that bad, considering 800 000 were sold, nearly as many as the mk2 Cavalier (806 000). I can think of worse cars that have been around. My dad had a Marina for over ten years and rarely let him down and went from sourthern England to Scotland and back several times without any problems. The Marina, I think has some charm to it. I actually quite like the look of the car and much better than the Allegro, which is dreadful. Allegro, what a horrible name for a car.
So many commenters on here suffering from the 'Jeremy Clarkson Syndrome'...It was a great car, proved very popular & filled a niche both the motoring public & industry required...It's a very English-thing, this with the benefit of hindsight to look down one's nose & sneer at any & everything to do with British Leyland.
My Marina never handled as well as the ones in the video. Not without about 50kg in the boot.
3:57 How to politely say "fuck you" in a corporate environment.
Where's the piano?
My late grandfather had one of these bought new 1972 and he passed on10 years later in 1982 we all thought it was a heap of rubbish now it's worth more in2023 !! I was wrong 😢
one dislike, probably jeremy clarckson lol
Up to two now!
@1:48 The whole 1970s thing, the crusty suits, the horn-rimmed glasses, fake wood panelling on the walls and haunted-house style wall chandeliers, even two ashtrays on the table! The whole thing creeps me out. It's so difficult imagining anyone in this atmosphere using their imagination or creativity to design the best car they possibly can.
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.
Yes and the modern plants are still unionised,
BL fell down mostly because of poor management, adversarial approach to industrial relations, and sold rubbish products, none of which were the workers fault
The Officer As someone who worked in the body repair industry all my life allow me to illustrate issues concerning car manufacture and the unions. As a 17ish year old painter I worked in a bodyshop that won the business to carry out rectification work on Hillman Avengers - the "c post" body leading over the panel joints was badly shaped and very poor quality workmanship. We had to grind out the factory lead, re-lead them properly and repaint. When the company warranty man came to inspect our work, someone asked him why it just wasn't done properly in the first play at the factory and why people weren't pulled up on their poor work. He told us that if they complained about the shoddy work they were told by the union to f!ck off. Imagine the costs involved in us and other body shops carrying out rectification, it doesn't take a super brain to work out why the car manufacturers went down.
hodgheg Totally agree.
Graham Pearson The fault was across the board, strong unions strangling production and management unable to deal with cocky union barrons, constant strikes, dreadful quality and subsequent loss making.
What amazes me is that the 'B' series engine was quite reliable - until they slung it in this log, with questionable, meretricious results..
Liked marina no worse than another car from era.we called the Ford fix or repair daily the escorts were crap.capris 3 wheeled shopping trolleys around corners and cortinas when it rained broken down rac kept busy.
@MrJezza31 The Ital was nothing more than a refurbished Marina.
0:02 How Ironic, it must be opposite day
Not really, it was the unions.
Ehhh, Id raher have a Chevy Vega.
@themaneatingchimp , but BL produced consistently bad cars. Not just Morris Marina, but Austin, Triumph, Rover, Jaguar...
Old technology car. Lever arm suspension at the front, cart springs at the rear. Just like an old Morris Minor. Old A and B series engined. The Marina was doomed to fail.
Oh well, it could be worse than the Marina: The Ital..... Pure horror..
id love to hear jeremy larkson disect this documentary
Can't imagine which would be preferable - An enema or having to put up with that twat Clarkson........Probably an enema!
When I was young My dad had to get a new van for work. The dealer could get him a new Marina or a new Austin A55( which was going out of production at that time). We had the A55 for a week then we got the Marina cos Dad did'nt like the column gearchange on the A55. BIG MISTAKE. Drum brakes were rubbish.
@TheVx490 The Ital is not for really me either (a step back in design perhaps, but the "MARINA" that really does drive nicely indeed how the car should have drove from new)
Maybe the money spent to spruce up the Marina was better spent than you might think in Ital form the car lasted an other 4 years and this kept it often in the top ten sellers in the UK .
The worst thing about the Ital is the re-worked inner wings that are just pure rust traps (a stupid thing to change them and for what?)
for all you marina fans out there the ital got its name by italy giving the marina a facelift at a tune of 2 million pounds in the 70s which cost BL dearly.not money well spent.there is a book liisting all cars designed in italy.nowhere does it list the ital.food for thought eh?
British people should have bought british and supported there products.
Marina was a excellent car with just bad marketing.... If only BM had better marketing at that days.
It was basically a re-skin of a late 1940s design, it had rather crude suspension and the styling was no more attractive than the competition. In what respects do you consider it to be excellent?
Hold up.. did he just say 1000 million per year.. and we wonder why it all went to shit
Development? Beauty with brains behind it? Certainly not the Marina
Who was best at pissing in the wind here......
5:58 And yet they still managed to make them rust while being produced lol
At last. Lost and forgotten episode of Monty Python flying circuss finally has been found!