“I probably suffer from a chronic affection for underdogs and wallflowers.” Cornelis Kit brings up a car that he might have been better off keeping for himself. Another product from British Leyland: the Morris Marina.
In the mid-1970s, one of my uncles drove a company Morris Marina. His employer was next to the local BL dealer, that’s why. So my nephew and I were regularly taken to the swimming pool by Morris. Those rides – bouncing from bend to bend – are still vivid in my memory, just like the bags of licorice that my uncle had on the parcel shelf under the dashboard. Oh, and the slightly too soft backseat where my cousin and I sat: initially it was a leatherette-covered one in a two-door coupe, later followed by a nylon-covered variant in the back of a four-door sedan. Regardless of the body style, the Marina had my sympathy at the time.
Everything wrong with Morris Marina
In those years I had no idea that in the Marina almost everything that British Leyland did wrong came together. Unimaginable in a world of economies of scale, but in 1968 the brand new BL management wisely decided to give Morris and Austin each their own model to replace the extremely popular Glider family; that was absolutely remarkable for a company that managed to elevate badge engineering to an art. The Austin (later we got to know it as the front-wheel drive Allegro) had to serve private customers and the Morris had to capture a serious share of the business market. To reduce costs and thus please the fleet owners, all progressive technology was thrown overboard – dictated by accountants; front wheel drive, hydrolastic suspension system, get rid of it.
Morris Marina had a chassis from 1948, in 1971!
Based on the Moris Minor chassis dating from 1948(!), a rear-wheel drive vehicle was quickly created to compete against the Escorts and Taunussen: the Morris Marina, nothing more than a barely fully developed mishmash of existing technology. And this did not end the misery: when the Marina was declared ready for production in 1971, it turned out that the staff along the assembly line were doing more strikes than building cars. There was absolutely no motivation to make the best of it. In short, all the trouble you could get between two bumpers came together in the Marina. Anyway, whether it was that bag of licorice, the trips to the swimming pool or because the Marina came from Cowley – the factory where my Rover 800 was built – he still has my sympathy. I probably suffer from a chronic affection for underdogs and wallflowers.
Classic Cars & Youngtimers Guilty Pleasure
