Jump to content

Allegro - a tale of build quality and limited budgets.


Dick Longbridge

Recommended Posts

Having driven a 1500 Special owned by @Andyrew at the weekend, the E series models certainly go pretty well, and the gear change is certainly a lot better than I remember (once I’d acclimatised to 3rd and 5th being basically next to the radio speaker grille at the bottom of the middle of the dash!).

Best bit about it was - common to a lot of 70s/early 80s cars - was that when you ordered blue seat trim, you got a VERY BLUE interior. Dashboard, seats, door trims, carpet, practically everything was blue - even the boot carpet had blue edging to it. 

This wasn’t just on the Special, a brown 1300 DL I had many years ago was equally BROWN inside. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, AnthonyG said:

Having driven a 1500 Special owned by @Andyrew at the weekend, the E series models certainly go pretty well, and the gear change is certainly a lot better than I remember (once I’d acclimatised to 3rd and 5th being basically next to the radio speaker grille at the bottom of the middle of the dash!).

Best bit about it was - common to a lot of 70s/early 80s cars - was that when you ordered blue seat trim, you got a VERY BLUE interior. Dashboard, seats, door trims, carpet, practically everything was blue - even the boot carpet had blue edging to it. 

This wasn’t just on the Special, a brown 1300 DL I had many years ago was equally BROWN inside. 

Vauxhall seemed to be one of the last manufacturers to offer colour coded interiors, my Dad's Green Mk2 Cavalier had quite a green interior.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

Vauxhall seemed to be one of the last manufacturers to offer colour coded interiors, my Dad's Green Mk2 Cavalier had quite a green interior.

My dad had a Y reg dangly mirror base 1.6 Sierra estate, in beige. 

Dash was mocha, most interior plastics were beige, or brown, the carpet was sandy, the seats light brown,  probably 50 shade of brown and beige.  IIRC even.the front seat belts were beige. 

Apart from the dashboard blanking plates. Where the stereo wasn't was a black plate.  

It didn't come with boot carpet, but as all the carpets in our house were brown a beige stripes, Axminster. (They still have a piece of it in a bed room, that had moved twice with them.and g it progressively smaller, over 40 years) 

So the boot became 7 shades of brown. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/18/2022 at 7:56 PM, Squire_Dawson said:

The usual misinformed bullshit peddled by the sizeable anti-British portion of the population. Excellent cars, very well built, the only criticisms from an engineer's view are the unsuitability of the exhaust manifold joint arrangement for a transverse layout (which was the same on other cars from the stable), and sliding yoke calipers. The windows never fell out and the shell never flexed; just the usual bunch of cunts knocking anything British.

The shell definitely flexed, back in the late ‘80s a friend had a mint Allegro and a very rusty VW.  Park it with one wheel on the kerb and when you get out you couldn’t shut the door again.

The VW, even with the sills totally rotten (it was 15 years older) was absolutely solid.

Signed, an Engineer but apparently also an anti-British cunt👍

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/22/2022 at 11:32 PM, Alusilber said:

At least the Allegro looked a lot more modern than the ADO16 - unsurprisingly, since the latter hadn't really changed much since 1962!

Total waste of money from a corporate perspective; the ADO16 was still a decent performer in its class for ride, handling and interior space. Spend the Allegro budget on a reskin, either the Pininfarina GSA lookalike or the Apache, remove Issigonis' rust traps and some effort directed toward making servicing and maintenance less of a ballache and it could have soldiered on to the end of the decade. Also a hatchback and a bigger donk like the Nomad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/26/2022 at 5:23 AM, somewhatfoolish said:

Total waste of money from a corporate perspective; the ADO16 was still a decent performer in its class for ride, handling and interior space. Spend the Allegro budget on a reskin, either the Pininfarina GSA lookalike or the Apache, remove Issigonis' rust traps and some effort directed toward making servicing and maintenance less of a ballache and it could have soldiered on to the end of the decade. Also a hatchback and a bigger donk like the Nomad.

It's worth remembering that between the ADO16 and the Allegro, BMC merged with Leyland. The AD016 (and any reskin thereof) was a victim of internal politics; Issigonis was out of favour, Harry Webster was in, and he took the opportunity to start with a clean sheet of paper.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/26/2022 at 7:05 AM, lesapandre said:

Also put some additional trim-level and engine options in. The Austin 1300GT was quite sought after when it came out - some further options (X, GX, GXL etc) would have helped. By the early 70's the Austin 1300 was very utility inside I remember. 

BMC tended to have different brands rather than trim levels though. 

I'm not sure they needed more engines, you wouldn't want a smaller engine than 1098cc and the 1275 with twin carbs was plenty quick enough.  Quite glad they didn't try the B series diesel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, catsinthewelder said:

BMC tended to have different brands rather than trim levels though. 

I'm not sure they needed more engines, you wouldn't want a smaller engine than 1098cc and the 1275 with twin carbs was plenty quick enough.  Quite glad they didn't try the B series diesel.

In about 1990, my dad was busy so he sent his mate to pick me up from school. He rocked up in a filthy but unusually rust-free B-series dieselled 1979-ish series 3 Marina estate. Bloody hell, the racket that thing made compared to many kids' other parents' CVH-powered Orions and Family-engined Cavs was shockingly embarrassing. I don't think I've ever seen another Marina diesel before or since. I can see why. He also owned a Series 2 Land Rover 88 van. That would've been quieter even.

Anyway, back to BMC ADO16's and Allegros..... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, MantaGTE85 said:

In about 1990, my dad was busy so he sent his mate to pick me up from school. He rocked up in a filthy but unusually rust-free B-series dieselled 1979-ish series 3 Marina estate. Bloody hell, the racket that thing made compared to many kids' other parents' CVH-powered Orions and Family-engined Cavs was shockingly embarrassing. I don't think I've ever seen another Marina diesel before or since. I can see why. He also owned a Series 2 Land Rover 88 van. That would've been quieter even.

Anyway, back to BMC ADO16's and Allegros..... 

When I was in school we had a B Series cutaway diesel engine in our physics lab.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had lots of them, best was a 1500, used to tow car trailers quite well.

Reason I had lots was no one wanted them, so they were very cheap.

Drivers seat often punched it's way through the floor, had to be careful jacking them up, square steering wheel was a big mistake.

My wife once spun one 360 degrees on ice and hit nothing.

I loved them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...