As a fan of the Morris Ital
Discussion
and a man of a certain age, this really does it for me: http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C445443
God knows why I love the Ital so much...
God knows why I love the Ital so much...
te BL!! Each to their own 
Dear baby Jesus & Mary.
My old dad ran one of those vans for years & it was truly a god awful contraption. To think all these years later when you thought the terrible memories had been finally & irretrievably laid to rest, some fool has to bring it back to my tortured consciousness.
The smoke, the balsa wood suspension, the rust, the bills, oh the bills.
My old dad ran one of those vans for years & it was truly a god awful contraption. To think all these years later when you thought the terrible memories had been finally & irretrievably laid to rest, some fool has to bring it back to my tortured consciousness.
The smoke, the balsa wood suspension, the rust, the bills, oh the bills.
That is a 1300, not sure they ever offered the 1700 in a van, I remember when the AA had them, they were all 1300 but the first ones had drum front brakes, more than one patrol run out of brakes completely whilst towing!
I had two Itals the first was a 1700L & the second was NMO713X which was a denim blue 2.0HLS Auto. That went like stink but the brakes never managed the 6K service intervals, pad life was typically 4k or so. Had various BW65 gearbox issues which took ages to sort out. The gearbox flaring took the head gasket out as well. The compnay I worked for sold it & replaced with a 2.0GL Mk5 Cortina. Just checked DVLA & last taxed 1989 so didn't last long!
I had two Itals the first was a 1700L & the second was NMO713X which was a denim blue 2.0HLS Auto. That went like stink but the brakes never managed the 6K service intervals, pad life was typically 4k or so. Had various BW65 gearbox issues which took ages to sort out. The gearbox flaring took the head gasket out as well. The compnay I worked for sold it & replaced with a 2.0GL Mk5 Cortina. Just checked DVLA & last taxed 1989 so didn't last long!
Plenty of people were happy with them back then, not great but ferried people around, kept them dry and did its job, ok they rusted, weren't much fun and were pretty unattractive but I don't get the hate, my mates mum had one and on a cold winters morn, with the heater blasting it was the best car in the world as it meant avoiding a three mile walk or the mobile bedlam that was the school bus, we went off to the hills to go sledging, he had it as a first car and got us all over the place. Nobody is forcing you to drive one so let's let part of our motoring history rust in peace, if it were an equivalent Escort people would be spoffing their pants, when really a 1.3 pop plus escort was only slightly less miserable, just as rusty and they were not all considered rally cars back then, just the actual rally ones.
I quite agree, I drove various equivalent Fords in the day & they were on a par with the Marina & Ital. Especially the Escort Popular which our staff got lumbered with!
J4CKO remeber that at one point the factory looked at using the Marina as their rally weapon, firstly with a DOlomite Sprint lump then the V8. The switch to the Dolomite, then the TR7 was quite late in the day.
I remember Car & Car Conversions building a 1300 BLST spec Marina in the mag with Andy Dawson as a rally tool.
J4CKO remeber that at one point the factory looked at using the Marina as their rally weapon, firstly with a DOlomite Sprint lump then the V8. The switch to the Dolomite, then the TR7 was quite late in the day.
I remember Car & Car Conversions building a 1300 BLST spec Marina in the mag with Andy Dawson as a rally tool.
tr7v8 said:
I quite agree, I drove various equivalent Fords in the day & they were on a par with the Marina & Ital. Especially the Escort Popular which our staff got lumbered with!
J4CKO remeber that at one point the factory looked at using the Marina as their rally weapon, firstly with a DOlomite Sprint lump then the V8. The switch to the Dolomite, then the TR7 was quite late in the day.
I remember Car & Car Conversions building a 1300 BLST spec Marina in the mag with Andy Dawson as a rally tool.
I have seen rally prepped Marinas in the past, but to be fair, the Escort was a better base as it didn't have Morris Minor front suspension, though anything can be made to go well with enough effort, most Escort rally cars suspension bears no relation to the road cars.J4CKO remeber that at one point the factory looked at using the Marina as their rally weapon, firstly with a DOlomite Sprint lump then the V8. The switch to the Dolomite, then the TR7 was quite late in the day.
I remember Car & Car Conversions building a 1300 BLST spec Marina in the mag with Andy Dawson as a rally tool.
The Ital did seem pretty stodgy to drive, no fun to throw about but we still got to school, it got replaced by a 5 Cyl Audi coupe which was awesome at the time, seemed so fast, only think it was a 2 litre.
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