Austin Allegro: The Car's The Star Part Two
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- Опубліковано 12 лип 2009
- Part two of Quentin Willson's look at the Allegro. Apologies for the poor quality 3/4 of the way through but this is due to a damaged tape. The silence mid way through is due to an ABBA song on the soundtrack that upset the copyright owner and it was blocked so I had to edit it out and upload it again. Quentin only talks about colours and trim in this section.
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People having fun with quirky old cars. Love it.
2019 and I owe a Austin Allegro 1100 deluxe and I love it ,😍
BL had a Belgian plant at Seneffe, which produced Allegros The build quality was quite decent and the cars were generally durable . The bodywork was quite rust resistant for its era and 200.000 kms achievable without major problems. The Allegro got good press in Europe at the time. People seem to be blind to the poor build quality of some German cars of the era -the mk I Golf was initially a disaster. My 1976 Golf rusted through in 4 years and had problems with bearings, water pump failure and overheating issues -all at under 60.000 kms. This was not uncommon - I remember a lot of rough ones less than 5 years old. A 1970s Audi 100 wasn't great either from a rust point of view. A lot of time spent with red oxide paint. The Allegro by comparison was easy to live with, if unglamorous. By no means the worst car in the world as its detractors would like to portray.
I have one of the Seneffe cars .
I had Allegro VP in the 80s
"Allegros were banned from the Mersey tunnel" absolute bollocks . They will make up anything to tell a fine tale
Tell a lie over and over again and it becomes the truth. So much inaccuracy by Quentin in this video.
Theres a lottery winner here in the North East having his Series II Tahiti 1500 super restored with no expense spared !!!
Thanks for the upload.
I used to drive one back in the mid '80's till the early '90's, never had any problem with it, apart from when the front wheel collapsed, (dishonest mechanic who said he had done the repair!). I had a lot of fun driving like a loon, even when there were floods in '92, and the car conked out. Other motorists in German cars took the micky, all I had to do is squirt some WD40 onto the dissy and off we went over taking the now stranded German cars, oh how I laughed! Sold it brought a Humber Hawk! Still strangely miss it.
Nice to see this uploaded it's a fun car you either love or hate! haters probably never even driven one though.
I used my first Allegro 1300 estate as a learning tool for modifying engines. I had it re-bored, skimmed MG metro pistons, oscillating bits lightened, tufrided, balanced, stage 3 rally head (but only on the exhaust side), larger exhaust valves, rimflow valves all round, hi-ratio rockers, Megadyne 266 camshaft, timing belt conversion, electronic ignition, stub stack, torque ram inlet, K&N filter, Mini spares inlet manifold, custom-made Janspeed exhaust, compression ratio of 12:1, and high-ratio final drive (25% higher). It absolutely went like shit off a shovel, but it could still tickover at 650 rpm and could manage 50 mpg over a tankful when driven gently. Really should have gone for the minisport 5-speed gearbox conversion as well but couldn't afford that. Thanks to Dave Vizard for his fantastic book about tuning the A-series engine - a true engineers encyclopaedia
The joys of being young Mike. You went through that engine with a fine toothed comb!
@@stuartwilkie4887 I did indeed, and it was really thrilling to enjoy the final results. Sometimes, doing something in a no-compromise way is really worth it for the spiritual joy you get from it, regardless of the cost
@@herseem I always love tinkering around with electronics and mechanical things. Just today, got some small batteries and plant saucers and making small adjustments ready for the winter gives me a lot of satisfaction. A friend of mine was a body shop mechanic, and he spent time getting his Marina running like clockwork and all rust eradicated (it wasn't really very rusty anyway). Using your car as a learning tool looks to have been a great solution. It got you around, you learnt mechanical skills, and you had something to feel proud of.
@@herseem How much power did you get out of it, and how reliable was it?
VW Audi must appreciate the Allegro Styling. Just take a look at the A1.... Has anyone else noticed the amount of funny shaped steering wheels these days?
My parents had one. Later, we changed it for a Montego. Recently, I saw a good one in pale orange in Hong Kong.
Wow I live in Hong Kong never seen an Allegro must be the only one Amazing.
Allegro Vandem Plas - the illusion of luxury is complete!
Okay, bad things have been said about this car, but at least it is a talking point all these years later, and has a bit of character. Will we be talking about these modern plastic spaceship like ones on the road nowadays much later in this century? I think not............
1:15 interfering bloody woman forces her husband to ditch his cortina for an allegro then threatens to leave him when said allegro turns out to be crap!
Compared to the Chevirolet Vega in the US, the Allegro was an engineering masterpiece
First car I ever bought after passing my test in '87, cos it was all I could afford (£200 was a lot back then!) It was a '76 P reg in dogs**t brown. It lasted all of 2 months til I totalled it into a tree. Wasn't all bad news though, I got £65 scrap and the insurance paid out £300! Life seemed a lot simpler back then........
The Allegro, whilst being not a very good car, wasn't as bad as people make out either. I remember hahing a spin in my friends Allegro; it was a lovely blue colour and handled pretty well, especially around corners.
Wonderful!
England had the Allegro and Australia had the Leyland P76 of which I have 3. It's so easy to fall in love with an "Edsel".
Thanks so much for this. Sorry, but grateful that you had to upload it again.
I’ll never forget a lad I knew had one in this horrible colour blue and the front passenger wheel collapsed in the middle of busy traffic at lights. We was all pissing with laughter when we got out. It looked so tragic stuck there holding up all the traffic. Lol
This actually could be true sometimes. I mentioned to someone that I saw this had happened to someone's Allegro- and the lady said it happened to hers, as well! Fortunately, it never happened to mine. Glad you were all okay, and could just laugh about it!
They are good looking cars
allegro, its like a virous, but the good kind, it slowly grows on you, and won't kill you,
I once parked my Aunts Allegro beside my Mothers Alfasud and was amazed by the extraordinary similarity. The Allegro lacked the wonderful fizzy flat four of the Alfasud but actually beat it hands down on build quality. Not that either was an example of mechanical excellence mind you. If you were very quiet, I swear you could hear both of them corroding.
The uncanny similarity was because of rumours of industrial espionage on other firms! Luckily I was able to sell my Allegro when it was 21 years old, rust-free, believe it or not
I bought the first Mrs W a 1500 allegro which was really quite nice and not slow. She promptly and heavily modified it by demolishing 10 feet of Scottish dry stone wall with the nose...side....boot. Fortunately she was entirely un injured. The allegro died at the scene.
Some of you fellas, Quentin included, need to look at the Allegro through the eyes we had back then :) Plus consider the political interference that dictated that BL was unable to rationalise production into one brand with maybe 5 models.
Its almost the Accepted Wisdom now that the demise of the British car industry was entirely due to the Unions, whereas the blame probably lies with the politicians who sheltered BL from fear of unemployment, and effectively made the place a sanctuary for deadbeat management.
Even the VHS tape rejected the Allegro.
I was thinking the same…😂😂😂
lol the soundtrack was removed because, of all things, an ABBA song!
I remember this when it was on originally, in those days I would have given up driving rather than owning and Allegro. However I have recently become an Allegro owner. It is an R Reg 1300 super 4 door in Antique Gold. It does have a slightly smokey engine. Apart from that it is surprisingly roomy and comortable. It has nice light steering and handles quite well.
Allegro was my 1st car, S reg 1275 Super 4 door in Taihiti blue. If people were in the back and you hit the brakes sharply (as you do regularly at 18) the base of the seat came off and they would fall on the floor! Fab memories :)
I think the austin allegro is perfect for being a driving school car, especially when they were current in the 70s and 80s, because of its price, running costs, size, layout, drivetrain, safety and to me even the styling expresses that of a functional, quirky but unfashionable but not over the top vehicle and I think the quartic steering wheel is ideal for learning to drive and also the rear pannel is the perfect place to stick an L plate.
The blonde girl and good looking lad in the interview section are my old neighbours from near derby....Racheal used to race me down the A38 in her allegro 1300 super....but my Datsun Blue bird had the edge...which totally hacked her off a few times. They still have a selection of Austins....I'm happy to say "I moved over to Austin Rover" and am a metro freak!
derwenthotel freak being the operative..
In Germany the add claim for the allegro was "Allegro, ein Auto wie Musik"
that means " Allegro, a car just like music".
Shame it was written by Bartok, huh?
The Allegro Estate was a great looking car!
had two bloody front wheels popped of
"More aerodynamic going backwards than forwards" 99% of cars are because you have a great big radiator in the front to cool the engine
Wrong!
That's where the Volkswagen Beetle scored, then. Sloped down at the rear, AND the front
About twenty years ago, one of my neighbours had an Allegro. It was an old N reg and bright orange. It was an automatic and you could hear it change gear as it went down the road. We nick named the old bloke "Funny Fred". Allegro, beautiful, get real. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I would stick with a Mk3 Cortina.
The other road users were not turning to look at your Allegro VP because they thought it was it beautiful, they were wondering, what the f**k is that! But, bearing in mind, this program is from well over 20 years ago, i wonder how many of the cars featured are still on the road. I haven't seen one for years. In fact the last one was owned by a guy I worked with and rented a room from in Bristol nearly 20 years ago. He would buy whatever the cheapest, half decent and MOT'd car was he could find, to get us to work, then drove it until it gave up or the ticket ran out, then go onto the next. He bought this orange 1300 Allegro, which was actually immaculate, and only about £400 with a full MOT, and had obviously been looking after. But, sure enough, after a couple of weeks of belting up the M4 and back, something broke inside the bell housing, and must have got jammed between the clutch plate and flywheel, as it started to make this horrendous juddering noise one morning and refused to move any further. That evening he went out and came home with a 2.9 Scorpio, much better, until we got on the motorway the next morning to find the front brake discs were warped! As you've probably realized, he didn't have much luck with cars.
excellent documentary, thanks for uploading
Sweet the Allegro's got Vroom for Five commercial is at 3:50
No sound at 3:00 ??
I would still love a bright metallic green 2 door Allegro on rostyles with a brown interior please!
@rovamota why don't you just put in subtitles of what quentin is saying during the part without sound because I want to know what he's saying
The Vanden Plas grilled version was a style crime
i like it, it looks really cute
Exactly what I thought!(reply to fjgh666) I think with their rounded shape, they look cute an cuddly!
It's unforgivable that the British motoring industry would build cars with such subpar quality. Even in the 1970s, people expected better quality than a car that rusted, that rattled, parts fall off, etc. It's not a bad looking car, as British cars of the 70s were, particularly with the variety of colours and patterns offered at the time. Perhaps the best looking Allegro I've seen thus far was the Vanden Plas. The problem was that quality control was iffy at best, but then what do you expect from a car built during the difficult time of the 70s?
To be fair the Allegro wasn't any worse at rusting than anything else, the Allegros rust story came about because at the time of its launch a BL mechanic got confused when asked about problems with them and thought he was being asked about the 1100/1300 range
I stuck to my old Wolseley 1300MK1, an 1100 clone. Glad I did, many reliable miles later, the poor thing died not through corrosion, nor the engine or electrics, but because some boy racer rear-ended me in an XR3I ! Couldn't get the panels I was told.
anyone know what the song the song and artist is from 6:20?
The Allegro was not worse than an Alfasud,Renault 5, Fiat 128 or Peugeot 104 etc...
I have to stand up for fiat 128, it was better car even with only two engines and therefore poorer range than allegro. fiat rode better and handled away in the future from allegro. interesting, front end of allegro reminds of 128....
TheYorkMan
Well an Allegro 1500 was a little sporty car!
still, in allegro's (italian name btw.) defence - they said its engines weren't short lived as far as I remember....
I heard a story about two cops in a 2.8 litre Ford Granada who couldn't keep up with an Alfasud through the twisty bends!
Thats must have been written tongue in cheek?
What is that song at 5:40? Never heard it before, but reminds me of Joy Division...
Atomic rooster I think
was there a diesel allegro??
Paul Squires no
Worst thing in this video is Quentin’s jacket, only problem I can see is that it is not a hatchback. The car not the jacket!
Mate of mine had one, But it got nicked......Never to be seen again and it wasn't even an insurance job lol
"I drive an Allegro because I enjoyed having grease under my finger nails!"
I loved mine
nice car
Parambulating?
Yo tube uno d esos autos.
Allegro has Vroom for five! LOL
A square sterling wheel
5:55. A 'sporty' Austin Allegro? Take it to the Nurburgring! Those Corvettes and Koenigseggs will be quaking in their boots!
Most of this is unwatchable due to no picture.
my first car a bright yellow allegro my mates would take the piss calling it the banana wasnt sorry when i wrote it off
The estate version was a particularly appalling design.
my worst vehicle was a vw air cooled pickup what the salesman dint warn me about if you went off rd and got stuck not to rev the engine to try to get out use ruin the engine
i liked my austin A60 better
8:20-8:29.....polishing a turd...LOL.
Know it all Quentin Wilson doesn't even know how to pronounce Vanden Plas; it isn't French, it's Flemish, and the "s" in Plas isn't silent.
who gives a fuk. get a life , you cretin!
Oh don't get me started... BMC, BL, Austin Rover and Daimler called it Vanden Plas (pronounced Plar) He who goes far drives Vanden Plas. Don't use the Belgian pronounciation as an excuse! After all the French pronounce Paris different to us in England.....
I'm picking Quentin knows more than you pal.
@@thrillseekanz7874 Not, actually on this occasion. Van den Plas is pronounced PLAR with an R, not PLASS with an S
If these useless,lazy buggers at British Leyland had bothered to put them together properly, they could have had a decent car.
The Allegro was a failed experiment, there were too many conflicting interests for it to find a place in the market, the British didn't want an odd "European" car, the Europeans didn't want an odd British car trying to be European. Build quality was admittedly poor, but affected everything, 1970s Minis and MGBs had the same issues with rust and poor build quality.
You're SO right, that British didn't want a European looking car. And that prejudiced Europeans didn't want a car they knew was British!
But the rust problem must have been solved, because I sold on my 21-year old Allegro, to my neighbour, without any rust!
@@nygelmiller5293 It wasn't a "bad" car, it was just created for a market that didn't exist. Keep the Maxi engine out and use lower, cleaner styling and it would have been a winner like the ADO16.
Mr Wilson...go have a pop at some french and Italian equivalents....as l worked on these very cars back in the late 70s early 80s some of these cars were very poorly built to say the least....
"it looks like a Reliant Scimitar" WHAT?!
CarambleTV it does after serious eye removal surgery
The back bit of the estate is the bit that looks like a Scimitar estate
It is the 1970s, one has a choice of many cars from BL. Marina, Maxi, Allegro, Princess, Mini, so what do you choose. Answer, none of them because they are all rubbish. I would get a Ford. At least they look decent and go pretty well to. Live on the Cortina and Escort.
But Cortinas n Escorts rotted out in 3/4 years, FACT ..
Mate of mine had one of these and some saddo nicked it, never to be seen again lol
Allegro's got vrust Allegro's got vrust lots and lots of vrust room for vrong vrust plenty of vrust for ussssss!
They must have varied! I sold my 1980 model 20 years ago, to a man who bought it for his son's birthday.He was 21, and so was my rust-free Allegro
"Bad things have been said" I had one and it was a load of crap. The only good thing was that the motor could be lifted out easily and you could change the clutch in situ. As for the rust.........
You also had to be careful with the rear wheel bearings or the wheels fell off. Also never jack them up with a door open or the rear window could come out. I almost forgot, they had high oil consumption past the piston rings, something to do with draining on the oil control ring.
I have a VDP 1500, lovely car, a little scabby round the edges but its 40 years old !! I can"t understand all the Leyland knockers saying they were rotboxes ??? Just look at ANY Ford from the same era !!! Now they WERE rotters !!!!
Allegro VandenPlas? C'mon you're just fooling yourself!
The Austin Allegro was the same styling mistake as the Ford Pinto. For those of you in Europe, The Ford Pinto was a subcompact intoduced to our market in November,1970 as a 71 model. The fuel tank was right behind the useless bumper. If the car was rear-ended, the doors would jam and the car would explode! As bad as the styling was, the Allegro should have outsold the Pinto here.
Oh god they made an estate version! that's just more of it to hate.
Most of them were in a state soon after leaving the production line!
Worse cars than that 🤣 just had a few dodgy built ones,650k sold !
They were built by people who hated their job !!!
Absolutely hideous car ... I remember it new and even back then it was a joke style wise
Now an iconic car and for all the wrong reasons, but on it's release, the Allegro was nothing less than a shattering disapointment to those of us back then who liked cars and were expecting BL to offer a car that would sparkle. But that was not to be and people who cared about such things as style, design, reliability found nothing much to like about these hideous little blobs. Along with the Marina, Leyland P76, Maxi and Princess, the Allego were all part of what seemed to all be signposts in the road to the eventual demise of the British car manufacturing industry. Now, the Allego is as cute as a button, they sell at not a bad price on the auto nostalgia market and their owners treasure them. And these days when I look around on the roads and see the equivalent cars today, well, I can understand why Allegros have become little treasures.
What a clever man you are! It's like so many things, and music, too.Sometimes people don't appreciate things when they are new. But when they are old, they become suddenly "vintage"
What is he talking about with the auto box? Does he think that all the autos did that? Obviously it was faulty. Half a story there.
More near the truth, it had 20,000 miles all done in a year by an unsympathetic rep who kicked shit out of it. Then, the company gets rid of it because it's got the fault and is just out of warranty.
Arrogant Quentin thinks he's got a bargain because it was a year old, but got stung. What a shame.
I had the 1300 Automatic, changed all the gears at exactly the right times, but didn't like hills one bit.Not even the slightest incline.I was afraid of long journeys, in case there would be any hills, so I would hold up the traffic!
shocking car especially as the vw golf was just around the corner. Good riddance to BL.
I think the FIRST Golf was very smart in its time, but has been repeated so many times in all its lookalike forms, that it has no individuality.The Golf is exactly like an episode of Eastenders, or Coronation Street. When you've seen one, you've seen them all!
Fuck off
Allegro is latin for "OMG IT'S ALL SHIT".
It's a frightening thought that nearly all the world's worst cars were all made by one company BRITISH LEYLAND .My God if anyone thinks that the Allegro was a good car they must be suffering with depression .Over the years British Leyland and then Austin Rover failed miserably when it came to building cars because after the crap cars in the 1970s like the allegro marina the Princess and of cause lets no for the pile a utter crap the Rover SD from the 1970s .Then it the 1980s what does the British public get the maestro montego and the metro .Was it any wonder why people brought foreign cars simply because they were a lot better more reliable didn't rust drove better far better build quality and actually started every time .I makes me laugh to think that there is a very sad group of people that think British Leyland cars from the 1970-80s are classic cars .
The AustinRover era stuff wasnt bad at all. Once they escaped Leyland quality went up pretty damn quickly. Even Clarkson admitted that the Maestro was ahead of the game against its competitors.
The problem the cars had was Leyland had hurt the brand reputation so badly. Even though the quality was far better people still assumed it was going to fall apart because it was an Austin and that's what was expected thanks to BL.
allegros were pathetic....i sat once in them and i hid my face because it was such an embarasment to be in one..plus they were not reliable,clumsy...and that square wheel was a joke...but the ride was good
These square wheels came from America, where people are open to new ideas. The square wheel is to give leverage when turning the steering.(No power steering in those days).Unfortunately, the reason square steering wheels were not accepted here, is because our old-fashioned public are "squares" themselves, a not modern!
They look like the SAAB 99's smaller and uglier sister. And the young fogeys at 6:55, get a life! There are plenty of 70s vintage cars that are cool - this isn't one of them.
Great to hear Gloria Gaynor at the end, ugly car
You've made me cry.Former Allegro owner, Nygel Miller.
Truly awful cars.
Sweet the Allegro's got Vroom for Five commercial is at 3:50