British Leyland

[Badjelly]

Try a Lada Niva...

We had one as a work vehicle. It idled at any speed it damn-well chose. The rev counter was a bonus, in theory, in such a modest vehicle but it tended to work in a sort of a bounce mode that was a bit hard to interpret quantitatively. Anyway, you could tell the revs were approaching 60% of maximum by the rattling noise from the top end.

[Badjelly]

BL was sinking in a swamp of militant unionism, and an appalling attitude to quality control.

Like BSA-Triumph?

[Indiana_Jones]

Have you learnt to drive yet?

One step at a time now

-Indy

[phred]

Nice one Big Dave. Tears in my eyes.

[Motu]

... an XJ6 of about a 1983 model, it wasn't very old at the time months not years, and the paint work was fading fast.

I heard that nearly every P76 had to be repainted before sale....or so I was told by a painter from Motorcorp.But this is not a reflection on Motorcorp,but on the NZ paint industry of the time.Our paint was crap in those days,particually the metallics.And not just British cars - remember scab rust? Toyota,Honda and maybe others were still doing full repaints under warranty into the '90's.

[KiWiP]

Could it have been the Leyland Marina Six running the E-series 2600cc? If so it would be worth a fortune 'cos there are not a lot of them around.

Ah I got all excited there that I had a special car but looked at engine on wikipedia and it wasn't it. Mine was absolutely shoehorned in and lateral not transverse. It was most definitely a bodgit job.

Seat were awesome though. Mmmmhhh sweet memories LOL

[cs363]

- remember scab rust? Toyota,Honda and maybe others were still doing full repaints under warranty into the '90's.

Oh yes! Makes the current Toyota Prius and Honda Jazz issues look like small change (at least as far as NZ is concerned) - just shows how quickly consumers forget.

[geoffm]

I leant to drive on a P5B Rover - the one with the 3.5l V8. A damn fast car - i beleive they were called the "Cat Catchers" in the UK when the UK cops used them as they were the only thing to keep up with the Jags. Not really a learners car... My mother had it for 20 years before some scum in Tuakau stole it and trashed it and rammed it into a tree. it was never the same after it was fixed and was sold to a Rover collector who had a lot of them.
Folks also had a series of Range Rovers from 1975 onwards. Gas was cheap then.... The '75 was a very reliable vehicle - did a lot of miles in it and it eas pretty flogged out and rusty when it was sold with unknown miles (Odo died years before). The replacement was not as reliable and more Lucas parts.

Other car I learnt on and did a lot of miles was a P76 - a damn good under rated car. There were a lot of them in Puke at the time as the dealer must have been a good salesman. Haven't seen one for years.

Not a BL product, but equally crap was the CF Bedford van i bought to carry bikes (like this one and blue like this one http://www.bedford-cf.co.uk/br/br1.htm. Pretty much the first car I bought - it came from teh auction for $800, needed a new clutch, was 10 years old and a collection of rust traveling in formation. All CFs rusted out behind the back wheels, due to a brilliant design feature that was there for the 20 years they made them. The floorpan, rear and side of the van didn't quite meet leaving a T shaped slot, which collected the water kicked up from the back wheels and channeled it inside the rear wing and under the doors. The underpowered 2.3l motor drank big quantities of oil and petrol like an alky locked into a distillery, combined with a petrol guage that was wildly optimistic about the contents of the tank...
I did a lot of miles in it and moved home a couple of times with it, but the Hiace Jumbo that replaced it was a much, much better van. It was no surprise the British car industry died.

[Ixion]

Company I worked for had about a dozen Marina 1700s . All of them, without exception, killed their gearboxes at an early mileage. Several killed the second gearbox, one killed the third, before they were disposed of (at normal "corporate get rid off" ages)

I owned two (non company) Marina 1700s, did about 50000 km in each, and they had between 50000 and 80000 on them when I bought them. No gearbox issues at all. Perfect. Go figure

But I have always been very easy on gearboxes.

(my conclusion is that sales reps should not beentrusted with ANY form of powered transport)

[Motu]

sales reps should not beentrusted with ANY form of powered transport)

Fleet use shows up faults in any vehicle...and the Marina was a bad fleet vehicle.The HQ Holden got it's legendary reputation from being a fleet vehicle,not because it was a great car.Another good example was the TK Bedford and D series Fords - the D cab Ford was crap in a Fleet,but was a really good truck as an only driver or owner driver.The shitty TK Beddy was a great fleet truck,able to take abuse from multiple drivers.

[Indiana_Jones]

-Indy

[Edbear]

-Indy

Their chassis could handle a V8, their suspensions and bodies couldn't handle NZ roads. Made a great platform for kit cars, of course. Good little engines, though...

[madmal64]

-Indy

1964 English assembled one in my collection. Time for a restoration. I have promised it to my oldest daughter for her 21st present. Been in the family since new. Imported for my grandparents by my father when he worked at Amuri Motors.

[martybabe]

I lived and worked in the shadow of British leyland/Rover/Morris /Bmc/MG all my life, almost everyone I knew had someone working? at that place. As a Fireman I regularly attended major incidents down there or practised traffic accident situations by cutting up the reject car shells. If it wasn't for the fact that it employed half of the people in Britain's second city, I think we would have done the world a favour if we'd just sat back and watched the place burn to the ground.

It was a standing joke in Birmingham, as the first post points out, a hammer was indeed known as a Birmingham screwdriver, most of the workers turned up for work in foreign cars despite a buy a car cheap scheme for the workers and I distinctly remember one of the big wigs proudly announcing that quality control was done by the public i.e. they produced a new car then sold them to the world and waited for the feed back to find out what was wrong with them.

The place was a total disaster with inept management, disillusioned workers, corrupt unions and a crap product, sad as it was to see thousands of people thrown in the dole queues it was always going to happen, it's the fact that they got away with it for so long that amazes me.

I visited last year and all you can see for miles is big empty industrial lots for sale, the only hard evidence that it ever existed is a few photographs on the wall of the local supermarket. It was very sad to see such decimation of a huge industry and the effect of it's closure will linger on for years for the families of those involved but the truth is, the cars they made are better off as nostalgic links to the past than they ever were on the road. Gone and not forgotten but you can only fool the world for so long. If people hadn't bought "British" in a patriotic effort to keep British jobs and a car industry of our own, the entire thing would have collapsed in the late sixties/early seventies, whenever it was that Mr Toyota and his mates came knocking on the door.

Once the industrial centre of the world from whence came BSA, Triumph, Rover,Austin,Morgan,Jensen, Aston martin? Jaguar, spitfires, Land Rovers And hundreds of other marques, Most of them nothing but memories now, blardy sad.

[Indiana_Jones]

They're crap yet somewhat popular,

It boggles the mind lol

I guess it's novel as most people in my age group, in this country, mainly only know Jap shit.

-Indy