Mock or envy Marina owners?
Discussion
Objectively the Morris Marina is not very good. Yet I understand that there is an owners club and some people actively want one. There are plenty like Clarkson who mock such people but on reflection maybe we should envy them. Most car enthusiasts crave Ferraris and the like but very few will actually own what they dream of owning. Craving a Marina is a much more achievable dream so aren’t they lucky as surely what matters is that you are happy and satisfied, not what makes you so?
There are plenty of people that enjoy old and/or slow motorbikes. Personally I enjoy the acceleration, speed and cornering. I’ve tried pootling around but unfortunately it doesn’t do anything for me. I am slightly envious of those who get pleasure from riding slowly. It would make my life easier if I were like that.
The Marina is just one example. It applies to life in general. People that like simple or unfashionable things get mocked but I can’t help feeling that actually they have the last laugh.
There are plenty of people that enjoy old and/or slow motorbikes. Personally I enjoy the acceleration, speed and cornering. I’ve tried pootling around but unfortunately it doesn’t do anything for me. I am slightly envious of those who get pleasure from riding slowly. It would make my life easier if I were like that.
The Marina is just one example. It applies to life in general. People that like simple or unfashionable things get mocked but I can’t help feeling that actually they have the last laugh.
We were given a 1.3 Marina Coupe just after we were married, 1982.
What a pile of poo.
Horrible and dangerous. My wife and I still laugh about it today.
It needed an exhaust. Whole system was under £15!
Can't imagine why thousands are not still on the roads such was it's performance and dynamics.
What a pile of poo.
Horrible and dangerous. My wife and I still laugh about it today.
It needed an exhaust. Whole system was under £15!
Can't imagine why thousands are not still on the roads such was it's performance and dynamics.
I often used to borrow my mate's mum's automatic Marina. A car both hateful and usable it'd teach you all you needed to know about understeer and roll oversteer. With its gun-carriage suspension, asthmatic B-series lump and 3-speed Borg Warner 'box, it would entirely fail to inspire but served to connect A and B reliably.
Doing the sill with gas welding kit (didn't have MIG back then), my mate set fire to the back seat. This in turn ignited the headlining, which melted all over the steering wheel. The first he knew about it was when the offside back window burst and went down the collar of his overalls.We got an interior from a scrapper (brown) and swapped it over, headlining included. Locals should've bought shares in clothespegs and Evo Stik but the the old tank served for several more years 'til Mum passed away.
The old bus's party trick involved finding a snow-covered car park to play on - huge fun. We used to have a ;little song, taken from 'Stingray'..."Marina, scrapyard Marina, why does my welding torch start to quiver whenever you're near!"
Doing the sill with gas welding kit (didn't have MIG back then), my mate set fire to the back seat. This in turn ignited the headlining, which melted all over the steering wheel. The first he knew about it was when the offside back window burst and went down the collar of his overalls.We got an interior from a scrapper (brown) and swapped it over, headlining included. Locals should've bought shares in clothespegs and Evo Stik but the the old tank served for several more years 'til Mum passed away.
The old bus's party trick involved finding a snow-covered car park to play on - huge fun. We used to have a ;little song, taken from 'Stingray'..."Marina, scrapyard Marina, why does my welding torch start to quiver whenever you're near!"
I owned a 73 Marina 1.3 in 1981, bit of a come down from the Rover 3500 I had to get rid of due to rot but it was reliable,economical, and did what I needed.
The most appaling car I ever owned was a mk1 Escort 1100, how anyone could live with one of those turds I will never know, no matter what what was done it was a b
d to start in cold weather was noisy inside and for something so slow drank fuel like it was going out of fashion.
Had a 75 Cortina estate which I liked though but like all Fords of the time it rotted away in no time.
The Marina was a mediocre car like many others but lazy stereotyping has unfairly condemed it and many other cars to redicule.
The most appaling car I ever owned was a mk1 Escort 1100, how anyone could live with one of those turds I will never know, no matter what what was done it was a b
d to start in cold weather was noisy inside and for something so slow drank fuel like it was going out of fashion.Had a 75 Cortina estate which I liked though but like all Fords of the time it rotted away in no time.
The Marina was a mediocre car like many others but lazy stereotyping has unfairly condemed it and many other cars to redicule.
1) There was a standard purple colour
2) There's a thread about Marinas here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
2) There's a thread about Marinas here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Bloke I worked with had this Marina Coupe as his daily (and only) car. He was a completely hatstand 30 year old eccentric; what impressed me was his commitment to running the piece of scrap year round, including regular return trips from Lincs to Oxford. He grew up on a narrowboat and had an encyclopedic knowledge of s
t 70s British cars despite having been born in 1990. It was tiny in comparison to modern cars, about the same length as my VX220. It did run OK and he was enormously proud that it was a 2 door. That said, one of the other lads at work had an Austin 7....
Ahhh, the Marina. I bought one once in a choice shade of dark blue. It cost me about £130 in around 1989 ish. I got it home to discover the door locks didn’t work, so logic dictated that rather than fanny about changing the locks, I popped to the local scrappy and picked up two doors in a lighter shade of blue with keys. Fitted them on the road outside my Gran’s house and voila, all good.
Then it developed an interesting habit of jumping out of fourth gear on a routine basis, to the extent that you had to drive physically holding the gear stick in place. Got fed up with that, so popped down the same scrappy and picked up a gearbox. Changed that in the car park of the college I was in at the time over about 3 hours or so and voila, all good.
It was nothing short of a huge pile of crap, but served a cheap purpose. Shortly after that I moved up in the world and had an Ital, complete with a (flapping) vinyl roof and a brown velour interior. True executive comfort. We took that on a road trip to Europe - which was a brave (stupid) thing to do.
Then I had an Austin Maestro…spanked it into the back of someone and cracked up the front bumper. Tied a rope to a tree and reversed the car about to pull it out a bit, filled the large holes with formica and filler with lots of screws and voila, all good.
My first car was a Vauxhall Viva 1275HC with a horizontal speedometer. Took it to a garage once for something minor and the mechanic shook his head and wondered out loud how the hell it was even working at all.
Since then, my taste in and experience with cars has improved quite significantly. It is difficult to imagine how it could have got worse. Happy Days.
Then it developed an interesting habit of jumping out of fourth gear on a routine basis, to the extent that you had to drive physically holding the gear stick in place. Got fed up with that, so popped down the same scrappy and picked up a gearbox. Changed that in the car park of the college I was in at the time over about 3 hours or so and voila, all good.
It was nothing short of a huge pile of crap, but served a cheap purpose. Shortly after that I moved up in the world and had an Ital, complete with a (flapping) vinyl roof and a brown velour interior. True executive comfort. We took that on a road trip to Europe - which was a brave (stupid) thing to do.
Then I had an Austin Maestro…spanked it into the back of someone and cracked up the front bumper. Tied a rope to a tree and reversed the car about to pull it out a bit, filled the large holes with formica and filler with lots of screws and voila, all good.
My first car was a Vauxhall Viva 1275HC with a horizontal speedometer. Took it to a garage once for something minor and the mechanic shook his head and wondered out loud how the hell it was even working at all.
Since then, my taste in and experience with cars has improved quite significantly. It is difficult to imagine how it could have got worse. Happy Days.
davhill said:
Ah, a man after my own heart - but you can't have it, I'm using it, I too had an HC Viva. A regular fix was to pull off the inlet pipe from the fuel pump and use a bike pump to blow down it. Bubbling in the petrol tank meant the rust and crap had been cleared from the pickup pipe.
They are quite something aren’t they?
This thread has taken a different direction than I thought it would.
Use of the Marina was just an example. Really I was aiming more along the lines of Mills quote “ better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” I didn’t realise it would unleash a torrent of Marina anecdotes!
Use of the Marina was just an example. Really I was aiming more along the lines of Mills quote “ better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” I didn’t realise it would unleash a torrent of Marina anecdotes!
There is a thread 17 pages long about the Marina elsewhere on PH if you want to peruse it. I know a youngster who turned up at a specialist classic and race shop and the owner was so impressed by the Marina the lad turned up in (and had restored himself) that he got the job on the spot. My experiences of two as company cars still bring be out in hot sweats at night. Drum brakes with no servo, wipers set up for LHD and a large unswept patch in front of the driver, crossply tyres. I'll stop there; I feel a cold sweat coming on.
Superleg48 said:
Ahhh, the Marina. I bought one once in a choice shade of dark blue. It cost me about £130 in around 1989 ish. I got it home to discover the door locks didn’t work, so logic dictated that rather than fanny about changing the locks, I popped to the local scrappy and picked up two doors in a lighter shade of blue with keys.
I applaud such behaviour!I once owned a skoda Felicia, the old one before vw bought them out. The locks on this also didn’t work from day one. In fact when trying to work out why I managed to push the barrel inside the door where it dropped, leaving a hole. In the year and a bit I owned it, it stayed like that, never locked it once and kept it on the street in a not so great neighbourhood. Theft proof by dint of being a Kermit green scud I guess!
They were only marginally worse than the competition; such exotic steeds as Vauxhall Vivas, Hillman Avengers and Ford Escorts also had wheezy engines, crap ventilation and rust as standard. The latter have attracted st Old Ford taxation levels that render them ridiculous to the non-lobotomised, the others have followings to an extent, why not Marinas too?
t Old Ford taxation levels that render them ridiculous to the non-lobotomised, the others have followings to an extent, why not Marinas too?Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff