Allegro - worth the aggro?

[iSore]

Saw this Bad Boy on another forum:

http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/200176/1979...


Yes, it's been retrofitted with a Quartic! But with prices of some old cars (Fords) bordering on insanity (8 grand for a 1300 Escort? Really?) this didn't look dear if it's as clean as it looks. Early Aggros could be dreadful rubbish but I recall later ones as being pretty well sorted and not bad to drive. Would we be surprised at the pleasant ride, amazing vision, snappy throttle response and sharp unassisted rack and pinion and be won over?
Given that modern small cars such as the Corsa are about as interesting as a trip to Ikea, who'd have an Allegro?

Edited by iSore on Thursday 21st September 08:06

[iSore]

I drove one about 10 years ago, a 1300 Super on a P plate - last of the Series 1 cars but with a round wheel. It wasn't bad. It went quite snappily, decent gearchange, rolled as bit but handled okay, bouncy ride quite unlike the 'sports tuned' nonsense of today. It would be terrible on the motorway but for buzzing around town, quite acceptable.

I don't think the E Series 1500/1750 versions were very good - the engine was always a bit of a boat anchor, very tall and heavy and the gear change pretty poor. If BL had stuck to the A Series only the styling would have been closer to that planned by Harris Mann.

Early 1750SS looks quite funky nearly 45 years on:

[iSore]

mac96 said:

He must have had a bad one! For the period they were not particularly rot prone. Now the 1100/1300 which preceded it- they might as well have been built with holes in the floor.

They were nowhere near as rot prone as the earlier Mark 1 Golf.

[iSore]

Think of the Allegro's competitors in (say) 1976:

Golf - great to drive, but surprisingly tinny and rusted badly and they used to piss oil out as well. Expensive.

Alfasud - even better, but rusted like you would not believe. Cheap to buy, surprisingly.

Escort - They were a lot of money for what they were. Reliable but dull, and rust was always an issue.

Viva - As above but cheap.

Citroen GS - a remarkable car, amazing to drive but very thirsty, rust prone and cost a fortune to maintain.

Datsun Cherry - probably the one to have. They did rust but they ran forever.

Honda Accord - that WAS the one to have, following on from the nifty Civic. You can't imagine how far ahead this was, a neat 3 door hatch with a turbine smooth 1300 OHC, faultless build quality and a great all rounder - far better than VW crap.


It was no better or worse than any of the others and it was - as someone said earlier - the most rust resistant of all the above. If only....they'd abandoned the E Series engine, given it a hatchback and built it better. An old dear in our village once had a late Y plate Allegro 1.0 (Metro 1000 engine) and it was surprisingly well assembled and sorted. Just as they were replacing it with the Maestro. Good old BL!

[iSore]

The 1977 Accord - you forget how neat these were. Poor old Allegro.

[iSore]

Welshbeef said:

My grandad has one from new think it was a 1.6 (?) Vanden plas

1500, but I think autos were the 1750.

[iSore]

You're right really. Hydragas was really a technological dead end that only suited bigger cars (long wheelbase, Maxi and Princess) and the Alfasud on steel coils rode and handled far better. That the Allegro only sold a quarter of what its predecessor did speaks volumes.
As well as the quality issues, BL made the same mistake that BMW/Rover made again with right bubble Rover 200 and 400 in 1995 - it was too expensive. Apparently, against all advice from sales, BL's chairman put the prices up by around 100 quid a car just before launch.
In 1978, anyone who chose a 1500 Allegro at any price over the 3 door Accord needed their heads testing.

The Maxi, whilst an object or derision now, was liked by the press and was a genuinely useful car that had a lot going for it. The Allegro had too many better cars to compete with.

[iSore]

So 40 years ago:

Allegro 1300 Super £2400
Alfasud 1200 5 speed £2600
Escort 1300 L £2410
Datsun 140J Violet £2380
Honda Accord 3dr £2895
Allegro 1500 Super £2815
Golf 1100L £2959
Viva E £2079
Renault 12L £2334
Fiat 128 1300CL £2200
GS Club 1220 £2700
Mazda 323 1300 £2223
BMW 633CSi £14999


So was the Allegro overpriced? At £1995 the 1300 would have sold rather better but at virtually no profit. The Golf was astonishingly overpriced but sold well.

[iSore]

Raygun said:

didn't they use a horrible Pierberg carb?

Jesus yes, how can I forget those......

[iSore]

Christ, I'm not buying it!

Just saw the ad and thought it looked quite funky. And it does.

[iSore]

lowdrag said:

My favourite from those days will always be the Jetta GLi though. A Golf GTi with a truly enormous boot.

I had a Mars red one on an X plate in 1986, was a rapid thing. Later on, a 1989 F reg Jetta GTi in Tornado red in 1994 that had done insane mileage. Worked like a charm.

[iSore]

Mike-tf3n0 said:

Got to join in this thread! I had a 1300 SDL? and remember it for having the noisiest gearbox of any car I have ever run, far worse than the 1300 before it. It was orange too, like the one at the start of this thread and I chose it because the alternative Marina 1300 was even less attractive. That said, it was reliable and got me too and fro. Later I had one of the first batch of 300 Golf GTis to come into the country, four speed gearbox and steel wheels - but what a revelation, fabulous little car! I followed that with a Jetta GLi which I loved perhaps even more, better trimmed, cavernous boot and I too thought better handling. Is it worth mentioning a Triumph Toledo, utterly gutless which exploded it's gearbox one dark night when I was doing a twelve car rally..........

I'll probably get shot down for this, but if anything was less reliable than the Austin Morris stuff it was Triumph. Apart from the 2000 saloon, everything seemed to have major issues. The Toledo at least had a simple engine but the gear ones were made from cheese - the Marina used the same box iirc.
The later Golf 1's were well sorted for rust and had arch liners in the front - at ten years old, Y and A plate ones were still fine.

The problem with BL was that they never learned from their mistakes. The Montego was a bloody terrible thing - not bad to drive but reliability was a joke. And the rust! At two years old most would be rusting away behind the bonded in glass.