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Austin Maxi


keef

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2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

 

Isn't that a landcrab rather than a Maxi?

I've not seen that one before. It does look far too much like a slightly shrunken Landcrab so if it was launched in that form it would have flopped even more than the production Maxi. The other one above it appears to have a conventional bootlid so the hatchback must have been added later in its development.

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My parents lived opposite a house with a steep drive, and the owner of the house had a Maxi (TOL 954H) . In early 1978 it rolled off of the drive and smacked into the side of my brothers newly acquired Renault 8. Wrote the 8 off (it folded like a crisp bag). Maxi last taxed up to 1984.

20200110_152440.png

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43 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

My parents lived opposite a house with a steep drive, and the owner of the house had a Maxi (TOL 954H) . In early 1978 it rolled off of the drive and smacked into the side of my brothers newly acquired Renault 8. Wrote the 8 off (it folded like a crisp bag). Maxi last taxed up to 1984.

20200110_152440.png

That would have been a cable changer. I fancy one of those. All of mine are the later wood-dashed rod changers.

As you say, that one lasted till Feb 84. :-

 

 

TOL 954H

✗ Untaxed

Tax due: 
23 February 1984
Incorrect tax status?

MOT

No results returned
Incorrect MOT status?

 

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48 minutes ago, Cavcraft said:

Not on DVLA, so assume long gone, but my dad had OFO 9M (an orange 1750) as a company car for two years when it was new.

Very similar reg on a white one. :-

 

 

OPP 9M 

✗ Untaxed

Tax due: 
1 September 1983
Incorrect tax status?

MOT

No results returned
Incorrect MOT status?
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1 hour ago, JeeExEll said:

Ok, the quality of this is shockingly poor, apologies for that, but it's better than nothing at all. If you zoom in it's readable.

It's a 1973 road test of a Downton Engineering Stage 2 1750.

Bny0WB8.jpg

 

t6pOxfb.jpg

0-60 similar to Golf GTI Mk1 - economy similar too. Top speed 13mph slower - but with a 'longer top' would it have gone up?

Golf 810kg - Maxi 976kg - but it is a bigger car than the Mk1 Golf.

Remember the Golf GTI was 1975 so a newer design.

I have not crunched the numbers but would have been significantly more than Maxi in '75.

VW hot a hatchback and create a new 'sector'.

Meanwhile BLMC ignores Maxi...

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2 hours ago, JeeExEll said:

Ok, the quality of this is shockingly poor, apologies for that, but it's better than nothing at all. If you zoom in it's readable.

It's a 1973 road test of a Downton Engineering Stage 2 1750.

Bny0WB8.jpg

 

t6pOxfb.jpg

Really does illustrate how easy it would have been for BL to produce a performance version. Something that would have done it's image the world of good.

It really is a shame. When you read contemporary  road tests the main thing that crops up is that the car was falling behind the times mainly in easy to fix areas such as noise & switch-gear, not that it was bad. It was a good car & an advanced car but BL just didn't update it enough, a few upgrades & a GT model would have kept it fresh.  It took them years to even put a wash wipe column stalk on it when bizarrely they had ones in their own parts bin they could use !

It was almost as if they deliberately ignored the poor bloody thing. Crazy when BL needed money & had a car capable of competing head on with it's competitors. The Maxi had serious potential, it's just a pity the management at BL didn't capitalise on it.

 

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