Marina Shite - Another Wreck Rescued

[MarinaJosh]

Hopefully it will polish up reasonably well.

Here are some screenshots from the advert of the Ital. Both had Paprika interiors.

Applejack is a glorious colour! I'm aware of three 2.0 HLS estates and one 2.0 SLX estate which was one of the cars developed for the Chinese Chengdu.

[lesapandre]

Was the Black Tulip perhaps a Motor Show car - or for dealer display or BL company use? Wonder if it had a bit more attention on the product line?

Lovely thread - fascinating details and info here. Thanks for posting.

[MarinaJosh]

I suspect it was more likely because it was an undesirable spec so hung around at a dealer for a long time. Sadly, there's no history with it. The white 1.8 Deluxe I owned was built in February 1972 but wasn't registered until February 1973! 

[lesapandre]

I wonder how they commissioned these various permutations?

Did the dealers choose or was it the BL marketing department who allocated so many of this or that type regardless?

They were not built to order I assume?

And on the production line - did they came down in batches - or trim was stored and the individual permutations done one by one depending on what was on order - or indeed what parts were available in the factory or from outside.

I wonder how many different bits made up a HLS as opposed to a HLX etc?

When Longbridge or Cowley was before banging out Austin Somersets or Morris Minors there was a lot less to worry about.

Logics is a key component of a successful car.

[quicksilver]

38 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

I wonder how they commissioned these various permutations?

Did the dealers choose or was it the BL marketing department who allocated so many of this or that type regardless?

They were not built to order I assume?

And on the production line - did they came down in batches - or trim was stored and the individual permutations done one by one depending on what was on order - or indeed what parts were available in the factory or from outside.

I wonder how many different bits made up a HLS as opposed to a HLX etc?

When Longbridge or Cowley was before banging out Austin Somersets or Morris Minors there was a lot less to worry about.

Logics is a key component of a successful car.

Just look at the colour and trim chart on the club website (https://morrismarina.org.uk/colour-trim/). There's a bewildering assortment of different combinations that seemed to change every year or two. It's a wonder they ever made two exactly the same.

[MarinaJosh]

As far as I'm aware unless you were a fleet buyer, they were never made to order. It appears they were shipped out to dealers and it could be pot luck what you received. Of course, if a customer wanted a particular colour/spec the dealer could then order one in, if one was available. A friend has a Limeflower 1.3 coupé which he bought from the original owner. They didn't want a Limeflower coupé but it was all the dealer had in stock and there was a waiting list of several months for anything else (this was early on when they struggled to keep up with demand, they eventually caught up in late 1971 by adding another work shift).

There are big gaps in the database as no build records survive, but from the data and pictures we have it appears they were built in colour batches.

Yes, the colour range changed every couple of years and was broadly (but not always) consistent with the rest of the Austin/Morris range. Weirdly, for some markets certain trim colours carried on being produced when they were no longer an option in this country.

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, MarinaJosh said:

I suspect it was more likely because it was an undesirable spec so hung around at a dealer for a long time. Sadly, there's no history with it. The white 1.8 Deluxe I owned was built in February 1972 but wasn't registered until February 1973! 

XEV671L is an Essex registration mark, their old vehicle registers are fully intact so you should be able to see who the very first registered keeper or registering dealer was at least  

https://www.essexarchivesonline.co.uk/result_details.aspx?DocID=148647

(also bonus points as it shares a registration series with a block of Invacar Model 70's XEV401L-XEV500L  )

[MarinaJosh]

That's brilliant, thank you! The record office is only an hour away from me. Let me know if you'd like any Invacar details whilst I'm looking at it!

[lesapandre]

1 hour ago, MarinaJosh said:

As far as I'm aware unless you were a fleet buyer, they were never made to order. It appears they were shipped out to dealers and it could be pot luck what you received. Of course, if a customer wanted a particular colour/spec the dealer could then order one in, if one was available. A friend has a Limeflower 1.3 coupé which he bought from the original owner. They didn't want a Limeflower coupé but it was all the dealer had in stock and there was a waiting list of several months for anything else (this was early on when they struggled to keep up with demand, they eventually caught up in late 1971 by adding another work shift).

There are big gaps in the database as no build records survive, but from the data and pictures we have it appears they were built in colour batches.

Yes, the colour range changed every couple of years and was broadly (but not always) consistent with the rest of the Austin/Morris range. Weirdly, for some markets certain trim colours carried on being produced when they were no longer an option in this country.

The only other thing is they possibly swapped cars between dealers - in big multi-dealerships quite easy - otherwise it would be a lot of phoning about and haggling?

What's less know these days  - is how long waiting lists were to get a particular car - weeks and months - add in a few strikes and it could be even longer.

Really popular models like the XJ6 could stretch into years. 

But on the other hand really oddly specced pre-built cars must have been more difficult to shift.

So sometimes folk just bought what was available or paid above list for a car that was pre-owned.

These days it would all be by computer...dear old BL always fascinating.

[LightBulbFun]

2 minutes ago, MarinaJosh said:

That's brilliant, thank you! The record office is only an hour away from me. Let me know if you'd like any Invacar details whilst I'm looking at it!

haha thats a very dangerous thing to ask! as the answer to that question is "yes, everything please"  so to that end one of my plans has always been go there myself, perhaps with Stuart and a couple others in tow, and see if we can get the whole set of records (from about 1950 onwards) to ourselves for the entire day, so we can go over everything with a fine tooth comb  (I dont have a picture of an XEV block Model 70, so have one of a XOO_L block car ) 

[AnthonyG]

I’m surprised to hear of these cars sitting in dealers so long, 1972 was a boom year for car sales and I wouldn’t have thought a 1.8 deluxe was that unsellable - maybe people really didn’t like the colour.

Most popular British models had waiting lists when launched, a recent read of a December 1977 Autocar long term test on a Cortina Mk4 mentions 4 months between order and delivery for theirs and they considered themselves lucky, as anecdotally it was now at least a 6 months wait for one.

The ads at the back of the same magazine have Rover 3500s with a few thousand miles on them being offered ‘at list’ i.e. it might be technically second hand, but it’s available now, and so there’s no discount. Considering a news item mentions a year’s wait for an SDI at current rates of production I’d reckon those cars found buyers. 

One of the reasons the Japanese (and others such as Fiat, Citroen and Renault) did so well from the mid 70s onwards was that they had cars in stock, rather than 3-6 months away….

[MarinaJosh]

As always I have been hopeless at updating this. However, the most exciting recent news was the discovery of another J reg Marina which, for a refreshing change, was actually local to me!

It took a bit of tracking down to find. A couple of photos appeared on a Facebook group but the poster wouldn't shed any further light on it. @trigger stepped into the breach and after a bit of sleuthing worked out that it was sitting behind a garage on an industrial estate. I rang the garage and they confirmed it was related to them and that they had recovered it locally for a customer who wanted it gone as they were clearing some land that belongs to the family. There is a little more to it than that, but it's a bit of a sad story, so I won't go into it here.

Initially they asked for it to be taken to the scrapyard, but the garage suggested somebody might want to do something with it. I said I'd pop along for a look and made an offer on it. I definitely don't need another project, let alone another collapsed J reg, but when one turns up on your doorstep it has to be done!

After a bit of a wait, and a bit of haggling which meant I paid far far more than what it's worth, it was mine, so I went over to get it rolling in readiness for collection. One wheel turned, one front brake free'd up whilst attempting to remove the brake drum, the other two drums came off successfully. The other issue was the engine. The driver's side front inner wing has completely disappeared meaning the engine mount on that side was not connected to anything. A length of timber was laid diagonally across the top of the engine bay and the engine was ratchet strapped to that. I popped a set of wheels on that held air and contacted my trailer owning mate. The inner wing did cause some issues as all the suspension mounting points aren't where they should be and as a result the steering only works on the passenger side. We got there eventually low.

A little bit of history- it was registered on launch day to an estate agents in Chelmsford. They are still trading from the same address and were actually founded in 1971, so it was probably one of their first company vehicles. I doubt it will come to anything but I will get in contact with them to see if they know anything about it! The chassis number is just over 4000, so it's towards the upper end of the 5000 or so cars built before launch and it was originally Flame Red. The V5 which came with it and dates from the 1970s shows it as purple. The tins of paint are still in the footwell, so it looks like it was painted a long time ago, but possibly not long before it came off the road. Another engine came with it, which is actually the original. This is a blessing as it has clearly been stored in better conditions and still turns over, so will be a much easier prospect to rebuild than the one in the car.

It's a massive project, but I can't bring myself to break up a pre-launch Marina, so it will now sit tucked away in the dry in the hope one day something will happen with it. The upper body, which is the complicated bit, is actually quite sound and doesn't show signs of previous bodging. The front inner wing and chassis rail is all one panel, so it is feasible to rebuild. The other chassis rails on the driver's side front have also all disintegrated but they are just box sections so again, it is possible.

[N Dentressangle]

Wow, that's rough!

Sounds like it's found the right home though 😎

[danthecapriman]

That’s awesome! Incredible that it’s actually still here really looking at that rot. 
Easy for me to say of course, but definitely would be a shame to break up an early car despite its condition. I suppose a later car could be a donor to save it though.

[junkyarddog]

Have you considered therapy at all?

Be much cheaper in the long run.

[High Jetter]

Jeez, that's a vast amount of work you just dragged home. Well saved!

[MarinaJosh]

1 hour ago, danthecapriman said:

That’s awesome! Incredible that it’s actually still here really looking at that rot. 
Easy for me to say of course, but definitely would be a shame to break up an early car despite its condition. I suppose a later car could be a donor to save it though.

I followed the trailer home and was expecting it to drop on that front corner! It was definitely lower after unloading than when it was put on the trailer. The front tie bar mount, which should be at the bottom of the front valance, is half way up the front grille! The main sticking point might be the A post as they are hard to come by. Got a little while before needing to worry about that though.

[Matty]

2 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

Have you considered therapy at all?

Be much cheaper in the long run.

All members take a ticket and form an orderly queue please 😁