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Styled in Italy, built in Britain - The story of the blue Ital Van


trigger

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I drove a Marina 1300 estate and that gearbox hated to be rushed, if you did, it would point blank not let you have 3rd, it's very old school, no weight in the back will make it tail happy, just take it nice & steady, this is so full of win it's unreal, it broke the 'win-o-meter', and get Woollarding it!

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I think this is brilliant.  Well done Trig for finding it and keeping an eye on it until you could get your hands on it!  And extremely well done on the restoration!  FWIW I've had a bunch of Marinas and the gearboxes are not much better than you describe.  IIRC they were taken from the Triumph parts list and mated to the ancient Austin A and B series engines, which they were never designed to work with.  So it's a miracle they worked at all!  I wonder how a Marina would be with an A40 box?  Or a Dolly Sprint engine?

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Sounds just like my Ledbury Maestro inside which if it weren't for having to concentrate so hard on keeping the momentum up and not having to use gears it would be annoying.  Childhood nostalgia flashback too from that video of you blatting down an almost empty road with all the various old car noises and wind rushing past and a radio you can only just hear.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I managed to get out today in this and see my dad in Colchester to plyline the back out, this job didn't go completely to plan due to time restrictions (there was a Renault Clio inbedded in the armco on the A12 which caused a long tailback to get through) and dad didn't have enough ply after all, whilst i was there i also went to see the chap i bought the van off, he was impressed! I took some photos whilst at his barn.

 

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He also still has the Orion that I'm buying in the back of his barn, again I've known the car since 1993 and used to spend my Saturdays whilst at school washing it and we often went to shows and track days in it during the 90's, It's been sat in the barn since 2003 and has still only covered 35000 miles. From what i can see under the dust one arch will need work now and the boot won't stay open anymore although the spoiler doesn't help. The biggest problem is that its so buried that it could be a while before it can be got too!

 

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and this was about as far as me and dad got with the plying, on the plus side the speakers sound much better! I plan on covering the ply with black felt and carpeting the back. I also need to change both rear half shalf oil seals as they have started pissing out oil which is really annoying.

 

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