Morris Marina - was it really that bad?
Discussion
Going south on the A74 it just stopped. Towed to a garage in Kirkpatrick Fleming where they took out a spark plug to find it all chewed at the end. Employer had a gold seal engine put in it. When I collected it, i was briefed about running in. You can imagine.
I remember one dark night on the A65 to leeds. I was going to see a girlfriend. Passed by a BMW so i tried to keep up. He showed me the corners so i could drive at a truly dangerous speed. We were young in them days
I remember one dark night on the A65 to leeds. I was going to see a girlfriend. Passed by a BMW so i tried to keep up. He showed me the corners so i could drive at a truly dangerous speed. We were young in them days
Davel said:
My very first car was a Morris Marina 1.8 Coupe as a company car.
Used to drive with 1cwt of sand in a bag in the boot to help keep it stable.
Rain used to piss in to the boot area.
I wrote to Lord Stokes, the then head of British Leyland at the time and actually got a handwritten letter back from him.
Impressed with Lord Stokes but hated the car.
The next car, an MGBGT, was far better....
Did you just sort of copy my post?Used to drive with 1cwt of sand in a bag in the boot to help keep it stable.
Rain used to piss in to the boot area.
I wrote to Lord Stokes, the then head of British Leyland at the time and actually got a handwritten letter back from him.
Impressed with Lord Stokes but hated the car.
The next car, an MGBGT, was far better....
Late October ’78, and there was unexpected snow on the ground. My dad gave me and my sister a lift to school in a purple 1.8 TC Marina Coupe. It was a put-us-on car for my mum though. We were a bit late so my dad wasn’t hanging around and I don’t think the car ever faced straight for the whole journey. My dad could certainly drive though. He arrived at my school driving almost up to the class room which was in a mobile with the car drifting from one opposite lock to the other. I got out and walked sheepishly into the classroom while my dad sped away to drop my sister off.
Teacher: “Who was that clown in the Marina who dropped you off? We need to tell your parents about this”
Me: “Errr……well.....”
Another one...
’88-ish a mate borrowed his mums Ital to bring his stuff back from Uni. He spun it at the top of a wet motorway slip road. Lord knows how. He did this right in front of stationary traffic police. They beckoned him over for a "quiet word". The only reason the police man didn’t take it further was because “its a Marina, that’s what they do sunshine…”
Teacher: “Who was that clown in the Marina who dropped you off? We need to tell your parents about this”
Me: “Errr……well.....”
Another one...
’88-ish a mate borrowed his mums Ital to bring his stuff back from Uni. He spun it at the top of a wet motorway slip road. Lord knows how. He did this right in front of stationary traffic police. They beckoned him over for a "quiet word". The only reason the police man didn’t take it further was because “its a Marina, that’s what they do sunshine…”
The instruments in the Marina Mark 1 were from the Mini Clubman (1.3) or the 1275GT (1.8 and TC), albeit in different bezels.
I had one in 1982, a K plate 1300 Coupe in Black Tulip. It was in fact a Marina 0.0 as it came without an engine or gearbox. I think I gave 20 quid for it. There was no way I was paying the going rate for a secondhand engine and box - Marinas were still relatively new back then and I had f
k all money. The solution was a 1622 cc B Series from an A60. Craned it in, had to modify everything from the mounts to the hole in the floor for the gear lever, and shortened the prop by cutting it and sleeving. Didn't bother rebalancing it.
It was fking terrible. 
I would like to drive a really good uptogether 1300 though out of interest.
I had one in 1982, a K plate 1300 Coupe in Black Tulip. It was in fact a Marina 0.0 as it came without an engine or gearbox. I think I gave 20 quid for it. There was no way I was paying the going rate for a secondhand engine and box - Marinas were still relatively new back then and I had f
k all money. The solution was a 1622 cc B Series from an A60. Craned it in, had to modify everything from the mounts to the hole in the floor for the gear lever, and shortened the prop by cutting it and sleeving. Didn't bother rebalancing it. It was f
king terrible. I would like to drive a really good uptogether 1300 though out of interest.
Growing up my dad always had Ford's, but in 1983 while I was still in Junior school he came home one day in a hand painted green Marina van. He was a builder at the time, hence the van, but it was the biggest pile of st ever! What made it worse was he had a Ford brochure and kept showing me the new XR3i which he told me he was going to have!
We went on holiday from Nottingham to Devon in it once, holy moly how horrific was that trip in the back! We even struggled to get up a hill in it, and had to find another route!
I was ecstatic when he replaced it with a 1.6 Cortina. How BL sold any cars is still a mystery to me.
t ever! What made it worse was he had a Ford brochure and kept showing me the new XR3i which he told me he was going to have!We went on holiday from Nottingham to Devon in it once, holy moly how horrific was that trip in the back! We even struggled to get up a hill in it, and had to find another route!
I was ecstatic when he replaced it with a 1.6 Cortina. How BL sold any cars is still a mystery to me.
A friend had a manky Coupe with a bit of a worn engine. He ended up in casualty one day, after the dipstick fired into his eye due to excessive crankcase pressure while he was looking under the bonnet.
A personal experience as a rear seat passenger, suggested poor quality passenger seat mountings.
As the driver ran out of talent on a forest road, rode a bank and hit a tree, i exited the vehicle through the front passenger window, having been deflected by the passenger seat breaking off it's mounts.
A personal experience as a rear seat passenger, suggested poor quality passenger seat mountings.
As the driver ran out of talent on a forest road, rode a bank and hit a tree, i exited the vehicle through the front passenger window, having been deflected by the passenger seat breaking off it's mounts.
I owned a dark blue Marina once. I had to replace both front doors because the locks were buggered and a couple of doors from the scrappy with a key were cheaper than getting new locks etc..they were light blue however. It also had a gearbox that kept popping out of 4th gear, so you had to hold the gear lever in place whilst driving along. This was remedied by replacing the gearbox, again sourced from a scrappy, in the car park at college....in the rain. Fond memories.
Superleg48 said:
. It also had a gearbox that kept popping out of 4th gear, so you had to hold the gear lever in place whilst driving along. This was remedied by replacing the gearbox, again sourced from a scrappy, in the car park at college....in the rain. Fond memories.
I think they all did that I know mine did and my mates 1.8 TCWe had three Marina vans at a firm I managed in the early eighties, one had the Reg no TOM I9S worth way more then the three vans I would think
Edited by hilly10 on Thursday 14th November 21:03
They were different days in the 60's, and different aspirations and different standards applied. The British car industry had been on top, and the concern was about the threat of weaselly foreign manufacturers importing their cars in increasing numbers and putting the British manufacturers out of business. There was something a little traitorous about buying a foreign car. There was a perception that the British industry, like the rest of the country, was going to fight its way back to world supremacy. We were to be treated to a series of embarrassing disappointments. British cars, particularly Rootes, were seen in the mid 60's as quality products. The American car industry produced cars that were of a scale which made them irrelevant in the UK, though you saw a few around. BL didn't exist as such and those models were still known by the constituent brands, Austin, Morris, Triumph, Rover, Jaguar, Land Rover. Ford, tainted by association with its American parent, was seen as 'a big pennyworth', and generally more cheaply constructed. Italian and French cars were seen as best used in Italy or France, and little more than eccentric rustbuckets when used in the UK.
German cars were seen at that time as more lightly constructed than British ("Jerry-built" was the expression) liable to fail, expensive to maintain, and rather rust prone.
As a British car, the Marina was expected to have British characteristics. That is, to have soft suspension and well padded soft seats, and something on the dashboard that looked like wood. Performance didn't matter that much, so the brakes didn't matter that much either. A Rover, which might have some real wood as opposed to coloured plastic in it, was 'the poor man's Rolls-Royce' (as a Jaguar was 'the poor man's Bentley') and the Marina was the even poorer man's Rover. And so on down the food chain. In an era where people had jobs for life, and some fairly menial occupations were a source of respectability, this type of respectable car was kind of aspirational. Ordinary people didn't wish to be seen tooling around in high performance cars, which were for 'playboys'.
Were they as bad as they are made out to be? Absolutely. They didn't go, they didn't handle, they were dull and boring. They had little or no rust protection. As we got into the 70's, and it became clear that the foreign competition had got Britain totally licked, some similar products started to get performance makeovers, and were generally interesting cars. Apart from the Minis, there was no similar effort at Austin-Morris, only a determinatiion to service the fuddy-duddy clientele which they saw as their patch. There was a 'Tiger' version of the Hillman Avenger which was a fun machine to drive, and quite an expensive rarity today. The little rear engined Hillman Imp was a genuinely dynamic car, particularly in fastback Stiletto form, and with its rear weight bias and superb little short shift gearbox you could kid yourself that you were in a Porsche 911, but poor quality and reliability killed it. The later Hillman Hunters were much more competent basic saloons than the Marina, and there was a more prestigeous 4 seat fastback edition of the Hunter called the Sunbeam Alpine (not the little early 60's 2 seater as used by Connery in Dr.No).
The Rootes Group was taken over in 1964 by Chrysler. By 1978, what remained of the Chrysler UK were taken over by Peugeot-Citroen.
GM made a much better fist of Vauxhall, and most of us will I think remember the hot versions of the Viva and Firenza models promoted by James Hunt. The qualities of Ford UK became much clearer as its snootier former rivals bit the dust, but it was soon clear that Vauxhall and Ford UK even with massive US backing and German built engines faced very serious challenges from the major European manufacturers, most notably Volkswagen AG, particularly from the Golf, introduced in 1976, and miles ahead of anything Chrysler/Rootes could by that time produce.
British Leyland were increasingly strike bound, quality suffered and they became a joke. These were the days of Red Robbo. Their prestige cars were woefully unreliable, the best they could do by way of a sports cars were the 50's MGB design which was still running, and the mid-engine-supposed-lookalike and rather slow TR7. They ended up trying to make Japanese models in the UK, and were broken up with the major brands being sold to their former foreign competitors.
Looking back it does make me wonder what Brexiteers hope to achieve by leaving the EU. Sorry to bore you all with that trip down memory lane! It was the mention of the Marina that did it.
German cars were seen at that time as more lightly constructed than British ("Jerry-built" was the expression) liable to fail, expensive to maintain, and rather rust prone.
As a British car, the Marina was expected to have British characteristics. That is, to have soft suspension and well padded soft seats, and something on the dashboard that looked like wood. Performance didn't matter that much, so the brakes didn't matter that much either. A Rover, which might have some real wood as opposed to coloured plastic in it, was 'the poor man's Rolls-Royce' (as a Jaguar was 'the poor man's Bentley') and the Marina was the even poorer man's Rover. And so on down the food chain. In an era where people had jobs for life, and some fairly menial occupations were a source of respectability, this type of respectable car was kind of aspirational. Ordinary people didn't wish to be seen tooling around in high performance cars, which were for 'playboys'.
Were they as bad as they are made out to be? Absolutely. They didn't go, they didn't handle, they were dull and boring. They had little or no rust protection. As we got into the 70's, and it became clear that the foreign competition had got Britain totally licked, some similar products started to get performance makeovers, and were generally interesting cars. Apart from the Minis, there was no similar effort at Austin-Morris, only a determinatiion to service the fuddy-duddy clientele which they saw as their patch. There was a 'Tiger' version of the Hillman Avenger which was a fun machine to drive, and quite an expensive rarity today. The little rear engined Hillman Imp was a genuinely dynamic car, particularly in fastback Stiletto form, and with its rear weight bias and superb little short shift gearbox you could kid yourself that you were in a Porsche 911, but poor quality and reliability killed it. The later Hillman Hunters were much more competent basic saloons than the Marina, and there was a more prestigeous 4 seat fastback edition of the Hunter called the Sunbeam Alpine (not the little early 60's 2 seater as used by Connery in Dr.No).
The Rootes Group was taken over in 1964 by Chrysler. By 1978, what remained of the Chrysler UK were taken over by Peugeot-Citroen.
GM made a much better fist of Vauxhall, and most of us will I think remember the hot versions of the Viva and Firenza models promoted by James Hunt. The qualities of Ford UK became much clearer as its snootier former rivals bit the dust, but it was soon clear that Vauxhall and Ford UK even with massive US backing and German built engines faced very serious challenges from the major European manufacturers, most notably Volkswagen AG, particularly from the Golf, introduced in 1976, and miles ahead of anything Chrysler/Rootes could by that time produce.
British Leyland were increasingly strike bound, quality suffered and they became a joke. These were the days of Red Robbo. Their prestige cars were woefully unreliable, the best they could do by way of a sports cars were the 50's MGB design which was still running, and the mid-engine-supposed-lookalike and rather slow TR7. They ended up trying to make Japanese models in the UK, and were broken up with the major brands being sold to their former foreign competitors.
Looking back it does make me wonder what Brexiteers hope to achieve by leaving the EU. Sorry to bore you all with that trip down memory lane! It was the mention of the Marina that did it.
Edited by cardigankid on Thursday 14th November 21:42
cardigankid said:
They were different days in the 60's, and different aspirations and different standards applied. The British car industry had been on top, and the concern was about the threat of weaselly foreign manufacturers importing their cars in increasing numbers and putting the British manufacturers out of business. There was something a little traitorous about buying a foreign car. There was a perception that the British industry, like the rest of the country, was going to fight its way back to world supremacy. We were to be treated to a series of embarrassing disappointments. British cars, particularly Rootes, were seen in the mid 60's as quality products. The American car industry produced cars that were of a scale which made them irrelevant in the UK, though you saw a few around. BL didn't exist as such and those models were still known by the constituent brands, Austin, Morris, Triumph, Rover, Jaguar, Land Rover. Ford, tainted by association with its American parent, was seen as 'a big pennyworth', and generally more cheaply constructed. Italian and French cars were seen as best used in Italy or France, and little more than eccentric rustbuckets when used in the UK.
German cars were seen at that time as more lightly constructed than British ("Jerry-built" was the expression) liable to fail, expensive to maintain, and rather rust prone.
As a British car, the Marina was expected to have British characteristics. That is, to have soft suspension and well padded soft seats, and something on the dashboard that looked like wood. Performance didn't matter that much, so the brakes didn't matter that much either. A Rover, which might have some real wood as opposed to coloured plastic in it, was 'the poor man's Rolls-Royce' (as a Jaguar was 'the poor man's Bentley') and the Marina was the even poorer man's Rover. And so on down the food chain. In an era where people had jobs for life, and some fairly menial occupations were a source of respectability, this type of respectable car was kind of aspirational. Ordinary people didn't wish to be seen tooling around in high performance cars, which were for 'playboys'.
Were they as bad as they are made out to be? Absolutely. They didn't go, they didn't handle, they were dull and boring. They had little or no rust protection. As we got into the 70's, and it became clear that the foreign competition had got Britain totally licked, some similar products started to get performance makeovers, and were generally interesting cars. Apart from the Minis, there was no similar effort at Austin-Morris, only a determinatiion to service the fuddy-duddy clientele which they saw as their patch. There was a 'Tiger' version of the Hillman Avenger which was a fun machine to drive, and quite an expensive rarity today. The little rear engined Hillman Imp was a genuinely dynamic car, particularly in fastback Stiletto form, and with its rear weight bias and superb little short shift gearbox you could kid yourself that you were in a Porsche 911, but poor quality and reliability killed it. The later Hillman Hunters were much more competent basic saloons than the Marina, and there was a more prestigeous 4 seat fastback edition of the Hunter called the Sunbeam Alpine (not the little early 60's 2 seater as used by Connery in Dr.No).
The Rootes Group was taken over in 1964 by Chrysler. By 1978, what remained of the Chrysler UK were taken over by Peugeot-Citroen.
GM made a much better fist of Vauxhall, and most of us will I think remember the hot versions of the Viva and Firenza models promoted by James Hunt. The qualities of Ford UK became much clearer as its snootier former rivals bit the dust, but it was soon clear that Vauxhall and Ford UK even with massive US backing and German built engines faced very serious challenges from the major European manufacturers, most notably Volkswagen AG, particularly from the Golf, introduced in 1976, and miles ahead of anything Chrysler/Rootes could by that time produce.
British Leyland were increasingly strike bound, quality suffered and they became a joke. These were the days of Red Robbo. Their prestige cars were woefully unreliable, the best they could do by way of a sports cars were the 50's MGB design which was still running, and the mid-engine-supposed-lookalike and rather slow TR7. They ended up trying to make Japanese models in the UK, and were broken up with the major brands being sold to their former foreign competitors.
Looking back it does make me wonder what Brexiteers hope to achieve by leaving the EU. Sorry to bore you all with that trip down memory lane! It was the mention of the Marina that did it.
The fast back Hunter was the Rapier.German cars were seen at that time as more lightly constructed than British ("Jerry-built" was the expression) liable to fail, expensive to maintain, and rather rust prone.
As a British car, the Marina was expected to have British characteristics. That is, to have soft suspension and well padded soft seats, and something on the dashboard that looked like wood. Performance didn't matter that much, so the brakes didn't matter that much either. A Rover, which might have some real wood as opposed to coloured plastic in it, was 'the poor man's Rolls-Royce' (as a Jaguar was 'the poor man's Bentley') and the Marina was the even poorer man's Rover. And so on down the food chain. In an era where people had jobs for life, and some fairly menial occupations were a source of respectability, this type of respectable car was kind of aspirational. Ordinary people didn't wish to be seen tooling around in high performance cars, which were for 'playboys'.
Were they as bad as they are made out to be? Absolutely. They didn't go, they didn't handle, they were dull and boring. They had little or no rust protection. As we got into the 70's, and it became clear that the foreign competition had got Britain totally licked, some similar products started to get performance makeovers, and were generally interesting cars. Apart from the Minis, there was no similar effort at Austin-Morris, only a determinatiion to service the fuddy-duddy clientele which they saw as their patch. There was a 'Tiger' version of the Hillman Avenger which was a fun machine to drive, and quite an expensive rarity today. The little rear engined Hillman Imp was a genuinely dynamic car, particularly in fastback Stiletto form, and with its rear weight bias and superb little short shift gearbox you could kid yourself that you were in a Porsche 911, but poor quality and reliability killed it. The later Hillman Hunters were much more competent basic saloons than the Marina, and there was a more prestigeous 4 seat fastback edition of the Hunter called the Sunbeam Alpine (not the little early 60's 2 seater as used by Connery in Dr.No).
The Rootes Group was taken over in 1964 by Chrysler. By 1978, what remained of the Chrysler UK were taken over by Peugeot-Citroen.
GM made a much better fist of Vauxhall, and most of us will I think remember the hot versions of the Viva and Firenza models promoted by James Hunt. The qualities of Ford UK became much clearer as its snootier former rivals bit the dust, but it was soon clear that Vauxhall and Ford UK even with massive US backing and German built engines faced very serious challenges from the major European manufacturers, most notably Volkswagen AG, particularly from the Golf, introduced in 1976, and miles ahead of anything Chrysler/Rootes could by that time produce.
British Leyland were increasingly strike bound, quality suffered and they became a joke. These were the days of Red Robbo. Their prestige cars were woefully unreliable, the best they could do by way of a sports cars were the 50's MGB design which was still running, and the mid-engine-supposed-lookalike and rather slow TR7. They ended up trying to make Japanese models in the UK, and were broken up with the major brands being sold to their former foreign competitors.
Looking back it does make me wonder what Brexiteers hope to achieve by leaving the EU. Sorry to bore you all with that trip down memory lane! It was the mention of the Marina that did it.
Edited by cardigankid on Thursday 14th November 21:42
In the mid nineties part of my job was driving cars from a secure car park to the local airport. As you can imagine we drove a huge variety of cars which suited a lad in his twenties. One day a customer turned up with a 14 year old Morris Ital. It was a 1300 estate, bleached red and held together with bits of gaffa tape in various places. At some point someone had broken in by pulling the drivers windows frame outwards to stick their arm in and hadn't tried that hard to put it back in. It was a shed.
Turning my nose up I gritted my teeth and reluctantly got in the bloody thing and.... enjoyed it! It had a comfy seat, the steering was lovely and informative, the gearchange had a nice precise throw to it; the engine didn't have much but what it did was instantly accessible, no need for silly revving to make little progress. Even the wind whistling past the window frame didn't seem that bad. Twenty years of automotive "progress" suddenly seemed ill-directed at best. To this day it remains the car that most exceeded my expectations of it.
Mind you some years earlier I had ran an Austin Ambassador as winter wheels and had enjoyed driving that along closed feet deep snow covered roads, with the comfy seat and warm heater keeping my mind off the baldy tires, creaky power steering and knackered wiper blades. I suspect I have a perverse sense of taste.
Turning my nose up I gritted my teeth and reluctantly got in the bloody thing and.... enjoyed it! It had a comfy seat, the steering was lovely and informative, the gearchange had a nice precise throw to it; the engine didn't have much but what it did was instantly accessible, no need for silly revving to make little progress. Even the wind whistling past the window frame didn't seem that bad. Twenty years of automotive "progress" suddenly seemed ill-directed at best. To this day it remains the car that most exceeded my expectations of it.
Mind you some years earlier I had ran an Austin Ambassador as winter wheels and had enjoyed driving that along closed feet deep snow covered roads, with the comfy seat and warm heater keeping my mind off the baldy tires, creaky power steering and knackered wiper blades. I suspect I have a perverse sense of taste.
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