why does the Maxi escape from the flack?

[AMC Rebel]

Also BL infighting stopped some of the cars being better, apparently/allegedly.

[AMC Rebel]

  On 03/06/2018 at 18:50, I_am_Diesel said:

I find the comparisons to VW & VAG previously mentioned quite interesting.

Had BL got it right would they have followed the VAG business model of today?

Cheap range: BL could have used Morris as VAG use Skoda.

Mid range and mainstay: Austin as VAG use VW.

Luxury range: Rover as VAG use Audi.

Sports range: Triumph as VAG use Seat.

 

I know holes can be picked in this and it's just a thought I had.

 

With regards to the Maxi, I'm surprised no-one has mentioned John Lennon and his prang in Scotland.

 

I have often thought about this - people admire VAG and other German brands for the same stuff they used to ridicule BL for - BL was already doing this with MG, Wolsley and Riley for example.

 

People took the piss out of Rover for making the SD1 a hatchback but revered BMW for the brilliant idea of making the 5 series GT.

[Tamworthbay]

  On 18/09/2018 at 10:43, AMC Rebel said:

Also BL infighting stopped some of the cars being better, apparently/allegedly.

That old chestnut, the cars were not designed on the shop floor so the continued attempts to blame the workforce are more than a bit unfair. Build quality was no worse than the other major players of the time, Average life of cars back then was a put 6-8 years and just look at French and Italian offerings of the time. The big difference was style and that is where BL really failed in the late 60s/70s. And even then they survived the 70s as one of the biggest car makers in Europe.

[Tamworthbay]

  On 18/09/2018 at 10:49, AMC Rebel said:

I have often thought about this - people admire VAG and other German brands for the same stuff they used to ridicule BL for - BL was already doing this with MG, Wolsley and Riley for example.

 

People took the piss out of Rover for making the SD1 a hatchback but revered BMW for the brilliant idea of making the 5 series GT.

Fashion, and that a lot of people are just badge obsessed arseholes.

[Vin]

  On 18/09/2018 at 10:49, AMC Rebel said:

I have often thought about this - people admire VAG and other German brands for the same stuff they used to ridicule BL for - BL was already doing this with MG, Wolsley and Riley for example.

 

 

 

There is a difference between slapping a different grill and badge on the same car and a building a different car on the same floorpan...

[Tamworthbay]

  On 18/09/2018 at 10:57, Vin said:

There is a difference between slapping a different grill and badge on the same car and a building a different car on the same floorpan...

That was later though, they did a few decent ones like the Wolseley Hornet, but sadly the Bean counters killed those sorts of ideas. I know you need accountants but BL does seem to be a prime example of what can go wrong if they get too much power.

[dollywobbler]

  On 18/09/2018 at 11:01, Tamworthbay said:

That was later though, they did a few decent ones like the Wolseley Hornet, but sadly the Bean counters killed those sorts of ideas. I know you need accountants but BL does seem to be a prime example of what can go wrong if they get too much power.

 

That doesn't stack up. Ford is the absolute king of the accountant-designed motor car. Occasionally, being such tightwads bites them on the arse - Mk5 Escort for example. Ford always plays it safe, attempting nothing exciting in terms of engineering. It leaves that to everyone else. Look how long it took them to follow the trend for front-wheel drive! BMC went for exciting engineering, but Issigonis seems to have had contempt for the end user, thinking he knew better what they wanted than they did. Mix in a total disregard for the aesthetic (the Minor would have never been as successful without the last-minute widening) and it's no wonder BL had cars they couldn't sell. I often wonder what would have happened had the Allegro been more like Harris Mann's sketches, and less like a bloated facsimile interpreted by a five-year old.

[Tamworthbay]

  On 18/09/2018 at 11:09, dollywobbler said:

That doesn't stack up. Ford is the absolute king of the accountant-designed motor car. Occasionally, being such tightwads bites them on the arse - Mk5 Escort for example. Ford always plays it safe, attempting nothing exciting in terms of engineering. It leaves that to everyone else. Look how long it took them to follow the trend for front-wheel drive! BMC went for exciting engineering, but Issigonis seems to have had contempt for the end user, thinking he knew better what they wanted than they did. Mix in a total disregard for the aesthetic (the Minor would have never been as successful without the last-minute widening) and it's no wonder BL had cars they couldn't sell. I often wonder what would have happened had the Allegro been more like Harris Mann's sketches, and less like a bloated facsimile interpreted by a five-year old.

That was what I said earlier, the bean counter comment was regarding the brand identity that they did when they acquired new makes. They could have had clear VAG style identity within the same company and did with examples like the Hornet, but the later ‘grill and wheel trim’ efforts were purely bean counter driven. Putting lipstick on a pig. And as I said earlier Ford’s strength was their designs they made cars that people wanted to own and that weren’t a risk either for the owners or the company. There is a lot of skill in catching the feel of the times and that certainly doesn’t come from the accountants office.

[dollywobbler]

I bet the accountants ensured there was no budget for anything as fancy as coil spring rear suspension well into the 1980s. Ford excelled at 'boringly safe.' I'm not sure there was that much skill in it, just a reluctance to take too much risk. In generally conservative Britain, that went down a treat. 

 

With the Maxi, it's worth remembering that the front end was styled by a Ford designer. I think it's the car's most appealing aspect. It's the rear where it gets very clumsy, not helped by those Landcrab doors removing any flexibility in the style. 

 

Also worth having a look at the VAG range today. Some Skodas and Seats are very, very clearly just old Audi designs. They don't always go for vast changes in metalwork. Badge engineering can work well if you do it right. I cite the 1980s and 2000s MG ranges as good examples. If they'd actually bothered to make the Farina Magnette's handle well, badge-engineering might have been more fondly remembered.

[AMC Rebel]

  On 18/09/2018 at 10:51, Tamworthbay said:

That old chestnut, the cars were not designed on the shop floor so the continued attempts to blame the workforce are more than a bit unfair. Build quality was no worse than the other major players of the time, Average life of cars back then was a put 6-8 years and just look at French and Italian offerings of the time. The big difference was style and that is where BL really failed in the late 60s/70s. And even then they survived the 70s as one of the biggest car makers in Europe.

 Sorry - I wasn't trying to blame the shop-floor workers at all, but I confess I didn't explain it.  I meant stuff like the alleged move at Triumph to design the Stag so that the Rover V8 wouldn't fit so they could make one of their own.  Brands within BL apparently wanted to try to protect their own fiefdoms - that's what I meant (assuming it's true).

 

I agree about build quality - and even if you thought (which I don't) that the Germans had better engineering, their cars still rotted with all the vigour of the rest of the world's.

[AMC Rebel]

  On 18/09/2018 at 11:41, dollywobbler said:

I bet the accountants ensured there was no budget for anything as fancy as coil spring rear suspension well into the 1980s. Ford excelled at 'boringly safe.' I'm not sure there was that much skill in it, just a reluctance to take too much risk. In generally conservative Britain, that went down a treat. 

 

With the Maxi, it's worth remembering that the front end was styled by a Ford designer. I think it's the car's most appealing aspect. It's the rear where it gets very clumsy, not helped by those Landcrab doors removing any flexibility in the style. 

 

Also worth having a look at the VAG range today. Some Skodas and Seats are very, very clearly just old Audi designs. They don't always go for vast changes in metalwork. Badge engineering can work well if you do it right. I cite the 1980s and 2000s MG ranges as good examples. If they'd actually bothered to make the Farina Magnette's handle well, badge-engineering might have been more fondly remembered.

 

Agreed - as I mentioned above, the interior of the first Maxi looked looked like a straight lift from the MK3 Cortina - not a coincidence given the designer, even the next model aped the later MK3 Cortina. 

 

It's such a shame - BL had some brilliant innovations but they didn't "stick" somehow - I still miss Hyrdolastic/Hydrogas.

[Tamworthbay]

  On 18/09/2018 at 11:55, AMC Rebel said:

Sorry - I wasn't trying to blame the shop-floor workers at all, but I confess I didn't explain it. I meant stuff like the alleged move at Triumph to design the Stag so that the Rover V8 wouldn't fit so they could make one of their own. Brands within BL apparently wanted to try to protect their own fiefdoms - that's what I meant (assuming it's true).

 

I agree about build quality - and even if you thought (which I don't) that the Germans had better engineering, their cars still rotted with all the vigour of the rest of the world's.

Very true, BL’s history seems littered with more ‘if onlys ‘ than almost any company ever. They had the potential to do so much but seemed so short sighted. I also think that the British public were a lot less partisan than some other countries when it comes to car buying. When I went to France and Italy and in the late 80s/ early 90s all you saw were that countries cars. We seemed much more happy to experiment which is a good thing but not so much for the likes of BL. And sadly as a teenager in the 80s, BLs range had nothing for except the superb mini. I wanted a Capri, an RS turbo, an Astra GTE, a Lotus Sunbeam, a Renault 5 turbo. There was nothing to make me want BL/ Rover products at that time sadly. If I had turned up with a sporty Maestro my mates would have taken the piss for eternity. Where was the new midget? The MGB? The stag?

 

And no skill in working out what people will think is cool and want to buy? Wow DL, we will have to agree to disagree on that one. I think it’s the cornerstone of successful business to know what people want and more importantly what they will want in a few years time. History shows us that the best often does not equate to most successful, whether that be Betamax or a Maxi. Ford took a basic drivetrain and repeatedly put party frocks on it and made it last nearly 40 years. That really takes skill to pull off. I think as car nerds we often forget that most people aren’t bothered by the sorts of details we love, they are far more affected by fashion and what their neighbours have. However recently Ford seem to have been a victim of their own success and they aren’t the cornerstone of the British driveway as they once were. Nobody is safe, todays AUDI could be tomorrow’s 80s Skoda.

[Cleon-Fonte]

  On 18/09/2018 at 11:19, Tamworthbay said:

And as I said earlier Ford’s strength was their designs they made cars that people wanted to own and that weren’t a risk either for the owners or the company. There is a lot of skill in catching the feel of the times and that certainly doesn’t come from the accountants office.

 

It's more accurate to say that Ford's strength was designing cars that fleet managers wanted to own, which in 1970s/80s Britain where the majority of new cars were sold to fleets was a successful strategy. When it came to people buying cars with their own money BMC/BL largely had the market to themselves until the importers showed up.

 

Of course this was anathema to the Leyland people when they took charge, despite having a substantial share of the UK market to themselves and a range of cars which could easily have sold in large numbers on the continent when the market was finally open to them, they decided their main priority must be to crack the relatively small, specialised British fleet market. Every attempt at this, from the Marina to the Maestego, was an unmitigated disaster and it's no wonder they ultimately gave up and started Roverising Hondas instead.

[AMC Rebel]

  On 18/09/2018 at 10:57, Vin said:

There is a difference between slapping a different grill and badge on the same car and a building a different car on the same floorpan...

There is - but VAG stuff is surprisingly similar.

 

Considering the price premium, it was instructive to see that I could (and did) fit a Skoda EGR valve (identical) and a Golf rear wiper motor (due to their hewn from granite "German Engineering") to my ALDI A3.

 

The interiors (and exteriors) look different, but there's a massive amount of commonality.

[theorganist]

In my experience of Maxi ownership they do get quite a lot of flack, and anything by BL gets flack from the hard of thinking on many internet car groups who salivate over a mark 2 Escort. I would choose an Allegro over one of those any day.

 

I think Maxi's were mainly loved for their practicality and were maybe more valued as family cars.

 

It has always been fashion in this country to mock our products, not helped by Mr Clarkson, then the same people moan we "don't make anything anymore".

[AMC Rebel]

  On 18/09/2018 at 12:04, Tamworthbay said:

When I went to France and Italy and in the late 80s/ early 90s all you saw were that countries cars. 

 

This is not insignificant - I have spoken to a lot of French people who genuinely feel their cars are vastly superior.  We could probably argue all day long about the reality of that - but certainly in the 80s it wasn't trendy to have a foreign car in France - whereas the people I worked with would ridicule you for driving anything British made.

[Rocket88]

BMC and BL were riven with so much infighting it's a wonder that anything ever got out of the factory gates at all...............the workforce couldn't give a toss, the quality control was abysmal, management /accountants were constantly trying to cut corners, and Issigonis just kept wanting to design bigger and bigger versions of the Mini..............

[RRT22R]

As a child of the 70's, I'm fairly surprised that none of my friends or family had a Maxi when I was growing up. I don't think I've even ever travelled in one.

The local wet fishmonger did have a metallic brown (Reynard?) Princess 2200 Auto, that made an interesting 'woo-woo' sound like an owl trapped in a slow moving revolving door.

[Cardinal Wolseley]

Ah getting misty eyed here about the beloved Maxi, my dad had a J plate 1750 in white, bought second-hand from Tolley's of Ash when around a year or so old. We loved that car, though he didn't love the gear change!. We had moved up from a Mini so it seemed enormous and had that luxurious wood effect dash, wafted along and just felt so secure. We made many trips to Europe as my Mum was Swiss we used to made the trip to Zurich by road, only having a problem once when second gear was lost somewhere in France! We still made it there and back though. Dad eventually traded it in at Wadham Stringer in Aldershot by which time it had turned from white to a clotted cream sort of colour, replaced by a sand Allegro and yes we loved that car too.

[Rod/b]

  On 18/09/2018 at 03:03, keef said:

Nothing wrong with a Maxi!

 

Here's my latest find. 20 years in a dry South East London garage. The owner hadn't even opened the garage door in all that time!

Number plate roulette, anyone?

[alcyonecorporation]

Do diesel engines run on fla[c]k?

 

Asking for a friend*.

[plasticvandan]

I don't think build quality can have been much worse than anything else of the period,you see much more BL stuff surviving than anything rootes,vauxhall,or possibly ford,in this country at least.and that's not including the mini.

[quicksilver]

I guess another reason for the Maxi's failure was simply very bad timing. It was developed almost to launch by BMC, then all of a sudden found itself part of British Leyland with a completely new management team who didn't embrace it and treated it as an unwanted step-child. It was too far down the line to cancel and they clearly didn't want it in their range but didn't have any choice. Had it already been put on the market by an independent BMC and established itself before the merger things might have been different. Things might also have been different had Austin had a strong and forceful manager like William Lyons, who was able to really make his presence felt on the board and usually got his own way.

[theorganist]

  On 19/09/2018 at 08:49, quicksilver said:

I guess another reason for the Maxi's failure was simply very bad timing. It was developed almost to launch by BMC, then all of a sudden found itself part of British Leyland with a completely new management team who didn't embrace it and treated it as an unwanted step-child. It was too far down the line to cancel and they clearly didn't want it in their range but didn't have any choice. Had it already been put on the market by an independent BMC and established itself before the merger things might have been different. Things might also have been different had Austin had a strong and forceful manager like William Lyons, who was able to really make his presence felt on the board and usually got his own way.

 

Yet it remained in production for 12 years!

[doubleyeller]

Back in the early 1990s these were being given away with MOT for free! I've still got the classifieds from the local rag dated March 1992 lining a drawer. No mention of any diesels, but I believe other BL card of the time could be had with a diesel engine....

[John F]

They failed because they looked, sounded and felt dated, passé, stale, old-fashioned - just like the mainstream British car industry of the era.

 

New, sharply-styled European competitors were available, as were lavishly-equipped cars from the Far East.

 

Why would anyone under 50 want a Maxi in 1980?

[Datsuncog]

  On 19/09/2018 at 11:46, John F said:

Why would anyone under 50 want a Maxi in 1980?

Expand  

 

If only dogging had been a thing in the early '80s - Austin Rover could have really filled a hole in the niche market, as it were.

Massive glass area, and wipe-clean vinyl upholstery, too. Streets ahead of any velour-clad Renault 18, that's for sure.

Ah, the missed opportunities...

[Asimo]

  On 19/09/2018 at 11:46, John F said:

They failed because they looked, sounded and felt dated, passé, stale, old-fashioned - just like the mainstream British car industry of the era.

 

New, sharply-styled European competitors were available, as were lavishly-equipped cars from the Far East.

 

Why would anyone under 50 want a Maxi in 1980?

 

I don't understand why the Maxi would be considered a failure. It was in production for more than ten years and sold about a thousand a week for that time.

They didn't compete in the weird British "company car" sector dominated by Ford, they were bought privately and introduced the hatchback idea to many.

 I knew several Maxi owning families in those days, they were well liked and often replaced with another Maxi.

[doubleyeller]

Did these actually get exported?

[adw1977]

  On 19/09/2018 at 12:44, doubleyeller said:

Did these actually get exported?

Yes, including all the way to New Zealand!

There seem to be a few Dutch ones knocking around.