MarinaJosh

The original Trico washer pumps can often be resurrected by running some WD40 through them. I have got quite a few going by using that trick. I guess it does 'something' to the impeller. They're rare/expensive these days, so definitely don't bin it. If the impeller has had it, but the motor is good, one good one can be made out of two (done that plenty of times as well!). Also fitted to Stags, some series Landies and early Marinas.

The place opposite had quite a few Marinas in at one stage too. A friend of mine once spoke to the owner, apparently Marinas were the only car that his mum would use/get in. Didn't mention anything about the Maestros.

Whilst we're on the subject of Gary Numan, this was his first car

Just realised, it's all your fault. Your spotted photo from 2013 is what made me aware of this car, I even commented on the picture 11 years ago....!

Yes, it's very solid. Original sills, arches etc. I don't think it's going to require any welding which makes a nice change. Interior is mostly in the boot! Dashboard is completely shot but fortunately I have a good spare. Uncracked brown dashboards are very rare. They always seem to survive worse than black ones. If there are any missing trim bits I should have them in my stash. At some stage they can then be painted to match. The original trim colour would have been Autumn Leaf- it would have been the same as the pic of my saloon's interior. It's a mighty 1.3.

Some unexpected fleet changes have occured! You may have seen I popped the engine-less Ital up for sale as I had far too many cars and was running out of space. I also advertised it in the Club magazine and was contacted by a local member who was interested. By this time a Marina appeared for sale that I had wanted for a long time. I mentioned to the chap who was coming to look at the red Ital that I would also be selling my white Ital. He ended up buying them both, leaving with me with 2 spaces and 2 money, ready for the new arrival which appeared today. It's another early Marina in Bedouin, so it will go nicely with my saloon. The plan is this one will be for regular use whilst the saloon will continue to be the show car. Surprisingly, it actually has less miles on it. It appears to have been stored somewhere dry (very original with hardly any signs of welding) but with lots of UV as the original interior was completely shot. The seller managed to track down replacement trim, but it's multi-coloured! Two out one in is a start but sadly I am going to be selling my Traveller soon. To be honest, with the choice of two early Marinas (my number one passion) I can't see an occasion where I would choose to drive it. Plus they're not exactly rare so if I wanted another one I could go out tomorrow and get one which isn't the case with an early Marina.

Clarke and Simpson in Suffolk, in their bygones sale on the 10th Feb. Had a look in the catalogue and there's also a 1930s Wolseley (complete with pipe holder) in the same auction.

Popped to the local auction house and these two beauties were outside ready to go in the next sale

Yes, he still owns it, although I think it only comes out on high days and holidays. Management had a part to play but we can't ignore the build quality either. I'll defend the principle behind it, but I'd be the first to say the execution was not always great. When my first Marina was delivered new to its owner it went back to the dealership about four times because loads of rubber trim bits were missing, each time the job sheet was marked 'no stock'. Can only assume somebody was on strike... Still, that whole workers vs management and who killed BL debate has been done to death now, and we all know industrial relations were poor in just about every car factory in the country (and parts of Europe) at the time. Whether any old car was good or not when new doesn't really matter these days. Nobody buys a 50 year old car because it's objectively better than anything else. You buy them because you like them, that's all that matters.

Thanks for your kind words. Great to hear your memories, even if that one met an unfortunate end!

They were a cheap basic car and did exactly what they were intended to do- be stacked high and sold cheap. They were never meant to be a technical revolution or a super car. It was adequate for the job intended- adequate comfort, adequate performance, adequate economy, adequate styling. For this reason I can understand why it may have been a disappointment to the motoring press. There they were, expecting the first new car from British Leyland, still a relatively new company. What was Britain's biggest car manufacturer going to produce to take us into the new world of the 1970s? Oh, it's a re-hashed Triumph Herald with an A or B series engine in it. However, from BL's point of view, they needed something that would be simple to develop and sell in big numbers. Just imagine walking into a BL showroom pre-April 1971 and still seeing Morris Minors and Morris Oxfords in there whilst the Ford showroom over the road was offering MK3 Cortinas and MK1 Escorts. BL were proved right by the buying public. The waiting list for Marinas at launch was huge, and extra shifts were added at Cowley to try and catch up with demand. It was also one of the few cars that actually made money for BL whereas most others were a bit of a flop. It kept the company going whilst other ranges made a loss. Even the Ital still sold well, particularly in commercial form- it was basic and cheap. I have driven plenty of older cars and can never understand why people get so worked up about Marinas and Itals, they drive just like any other 70s saloon (better than some others in fact!). I've never had any problems driving them. I passed my test in 2011 and have done thousands of miles in them all over the country. I suspect a lot of it comes from because they were designed as cheap basic cars, they got neglected quickly. I hear many tales of them bought as cheap secondhand runabouts in the 80s, as first cars etc, and run into the ground. When you run a cheap car on a shoestring it's not surprising that things go wrong. 'I had one in 1986, bought for £20, never serviced it and it broke down, rubbish car' etc.

River Blue I believe, looking it up as it does need a new wing due to the usual rust trap foam!

Some recent fleet changes. My trusty Peugeot 206 died just before Christmas. On my way to work one morning it started misfiring and went into limp mode. Just a few days before I had agreed to buy a Golf off a mate of mine so I was faced with either repairing the car and then trying to sell it or scrapping it. In the end I was offered £217 in scrap which beat the prospect of spending time and money on a car to only sell it for £300 or so, let alone the joys of trying to sell a cheap car! I paid £130 for it back in 2019 (it was due to be scrapped then) and got over 30k miles out of it, so it did me proud. For the first time in 12 years I am Peugeot-less. I picked the Golf up at the weekend. It was owned by my friend's parents from new, he bought it off them when they bought another Golf in 2016. They have just bought another brand new one, so he has ended up with their old one. A chain of Golfs! I have done a bit of work on MK5s and they always seemed like a solid, well built car. Marina-wise there isn't a huge amount to update on. The Practical Classics Marina left here recently and has gone back to Danny after being fitted with correct early front suspension and drum brakes. He is now going to attend to the cosmetics and the paint. We have also had a visit from a local club member who owns a base model MK3 saloon which needed a new diff and a general check over. Pic is from a couple of years ago when it last came to visit for some bits and pieces. The current struggle is getting the white Ital to run properly. It's either too lean and backfires when revving, or fouling up at idle. Maybe putting an HS6 onto an O series wasn't a good idea after all. We're now experimenting with the correct HIF carb...

Going back a few years I remember seeing them sell for £300 or so which makes that one seem comparatively cheap! I have a built one, appeared on eBay for £20 as a buy it now. It even came with an engine donor!

Took the Traveller for a spin yesterday, ended up behind this for a while Haven't seen a Robin in a while, looked interesting with a wide front wheel! Plus a Series Landy coming the other way shortly after Sadly the day didn't end well, with some clutch issues...

I heard the Marina ended up as a display piece in a pub, but have no idea where or if it's still there. It's conceivable they may have been bought for spares/panel cuts as where they haven't been cut through they are usually like new, but that would be a shame if so.

Various cutaways were sold by Gaydon in 2003, pic pinched from this AROnline article: https://www.aronline.co.uk/events/events-gaydon-sale-of-cars/ This Ital estate lives in the Morris Motors Museum section of the Oxford Bus Museum

The Marina/Ital dash thing came about as part of a safety research project, when BL produced the SRV2 (Safety Research Vehicle) in 1974. It was concluded that things like radios were a distraction for drivers and it would be better if they were operated by the passenger, so the new dashboard was introduced on the Marina MK2 in 1975. Great idea, but only if you have a passenger... Pet hates: Pug 306 (and probably others) door locking pins- exactly where you want to put your elbow Vauxhall's weird indicator system. Not sure what it's called but the indicators on my girlfriend's Corsa don't latch into place like normal indicators, so when you go to switch them off you invariably end up indicating the other way.

Sadly looks were deceptive. I bought it sight unseen from Glasgow. Despite having been restored twice, it has all needed doing again. I suspect mostly because it was used for rallying for a while, there was a lot of mud in the wings/arches! So far it's had new wings, headlamp panels, front valance, repairs to inner valance, complete A posts (that was scary!), repairs to front floors/inner sills and doors. Still needs rear arches, boot wells and backs of sills... The slots are one of the reasons I bought it, not that they came with it!

In and out: Morris Ital 1.7 HLS. A mate and I bought this early in the year as we liked the look of it. Got it back on the road, used it daily for most of the summer, went to North Wales for the Marina Club annual weekend. Had our fun, but overstocked on Itals.. Out: Waved goodbye to my 405 which I had owned since 2017. Loved this car dearly, but I hadn't really used it in four years. It was a waste to leave it parked up gathering dust. Genuinely shed a tear when it went, but it's found a good home. In: Back in April I took loan of this Ford Model Y through the Classic Car Loan Project. Sadly I haven't had time to use it quite as much as hoped, my loan has been extended so hopefully more adventures next year. In May I acquired this Ital as a rolling shell from a mate of mine. It hit the road in October. In May I also ticked off a car I have always wanted, a Triumph Herald. Not been touched yet and won't be for a while yet! In September I bought my Bedouin Marina 1.3 saloon In October I took delivery of another rolling shell Ital which was too good to be scrapped Non-movers: The oldest surviving* Marina is still awaiting restoration, awaiting a date for it to go in for bodywork as it's beyond our skills! My Limeflower Marina, my dream Marina, now owned for 8 years and I have still never driven it. Hopefully 2024 will see it finished off and back on the road, if I stop being distracted by other cars... The black Ital, a joint project. Should be back on the road next year. The Traveller, which has been in semi-regular use going to work and we went on holiday in it back in May There's also the DGAF 206, although despite four years of ownership I'm not sure I have a proper photo of it... you can see a bit of it behind the Herald. It keeps doing what it was designed to do. Not sure what else 2024 will bring. I really have too many, the rolling shell red Ital will probably be the first to go. Toying with selling the Traveller, I don't really want to but it would be one less car, and would probably pay for a respray on the Limeflower Marina. Decisions...

The white heap is now back on the road. Had a few teething issues with alternators (including a brand new one which was faulty out of the box) and fuel mixture causing the plugs to foul up whilst idling but I think we're getting there now. Given it has been put together from a pile of bits into a shell which hasn't seen the road for 20 years I think we have got off fairly lightly. There was a fresh arrival yesterday- the shell of a 1.7 SLX. This was the running gear donor for the white heap. Somebody was interested in it but turned out to be a timewaster. I was then offered it for £notalot. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but it's a pretty good shell so I couldn't see it go to scrap. Has an interesting history- bought new by a lady in Nottingham after she traded in her MK2 Marina 1.3 for it. She owned it until her death in 2022 by which time she had clocked up over 260,000 miles in it. If anybody fancies an Ital project let me know!

I recently wrote an article on police Marinas for the Club mag. Unearthed quite a few pictures, apologies some have undoubtedly appeared before.

Quite a lot of Minors restored in the 80s/90s with 1275 A series engines (often paired with a Ford Type 9 'box) are reaching the stage where they are falling to bits again so it may be worth keeping an eye out for a rotten Minor with one in. My Traveller was bought for this reason by the previous owner and in the time I have had it I have seen quite a few others, so well worth joining the various Minor groups on Facebook.

As far as I know, all BX TDs used the 1.7 version of the engine. Same story for the Pug 205, 309 and early 405.