Talk:Morris Marina
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My father was a Visiting Professor in England from 1977-1978; we thought we knew how bad automotive junk could be since GM was near its nadir -- until we got to know the Morris Marina. Aside from the many other negative attributes listed in the article, its awful manual transmission and underpowered engine meant it literally could not get up steep hills with all five of us on board, so many times everybody but the driver had to get out and walk up the hill. Once a colleague borrowed the car for a short errand, and when he returned he told my father that was the worst gearshift he had ever used. I've not had the pleasure of driving a Yugo, so I dunno which was worse -- I do recall I was in grad school at Duke when Hurricane Hugo came through NC, and the Car Talk guys on NPR joked about "driving through Hugo in a Yugo" as the ultimate automotive hell. 71.235.75.86 (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
An anonymous editor completely replaced the page text with this. I'm reverting, but we should see if there are any facts in here that should be inserted. —Morven 21:42, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)
AUSTIN/MORRIS/LEYLAND MARINA (1971-1980)
The first new car launch by British Leyland was the Morris Marina, which replaced the classic Minor early in 1971. Although it used a larger, more spacious and comfortable body, the Marina used much of the Minor's running gear which had been around for more than 20 years.
British Leyland sold the Morris Marina as a three-door coupe, four-door saloon and five-door estate. The base engine was a lethargic but economical 1.3 unit from the Austin 1300. In 1972 a 1.8 twin-carburettor engine from the Austin 1800 was added to the Marina range, giving more in the way of refinement and performance. Prices were also reasonable.
But the Marina was never a class-leader and this was down its uninspired design and suspect quality. British Leyland was now marketing Morris as its 'conventionally engineered' marque and few cars could have been more conventional than the rear-drive Marina.
In spite of these weaknesses, British Leyland had some success in producing versions of the Marina for foreign markets. The Morris Marina was sold as an Austin in the USA and a Leyland in Australia.
By the end of the 1970's the Morris Marina was looking very dated and in need of a replacement.
MORRIS ITAL (1980-1984)
British Leyland turned to Giugiaro's ItalDesign studio for a restyle of the ageing Marina. The result was an updated version of the original car which looked quite different on the outside and had a new dashboard on the inside, but when the car came back it changed very little underneath. It had a new name - the Morris Ital. It was slightly more modern than the Marina, but still nowhere near as good as the new Vauxhall Cavalier and Ford Sierra. And the car's roots from 1971 were still showing up strongly.
In a bid to boost sales, British Leyland extended the Ital range to a 2.0 engined model in 1982. The new engine was sourced from the larger Rover SD1 and gave very good levels of refinement and performance. But the rest of the car was nowhere near the top of the large-medium sector in terms of competency and production ceased in August 1984.
The end of Ital also meant the end of the Morris marque after 72 years. British Leyland soon disbanded to become Austin-Rover.
[edit] Design inaccuracies
It is commonly believed that the Morris Marina carried over it's suspension etc from the Morris Minor. This is not the case.
Starting at the front, none of the suspension or braking is exchangeable with the Minor directly, although the Morris Minor modders use the Marina suspension legs and brakes with modifications. The similarities are that they both have torsion bars and trunnions - but you could equally argue that they are in fact sharing suspension with the Jaguar E type and the MGC. The unconfirmed suggestions is that there was a McPherson strut front end originally designed which was not used, but turned up later on the TR7. Having compared the bodywork around the front wheel arches of both - I for one believe the story. The TR& shares front wheel bearings with the Marina.
The disc brakes share ther Girling calipers with the Ford Cortina MK2 and a host of other late 60s early 70s UK cars of all manufacturing groups.
The rear suspension is leaf sprung, which also shares its dimensions (2" wide) and rubber bushes with those of the Ford Capri - who was that designer again? The Capri base was taken from the Cortina Mk2.
The steering ball joints are shared with the Hillman Avenger and Talbot Sunbeam.
The rear axle is the same as the Triumph Dolomite and the 4 speed TR7, but with different brackets. However as both of these came later, it is more correct to say that they use Marina axles and it's nothing like the Morris Minor.
The 1.8 B series engine became the 1.7 & 2.0 'O' series, which is really an overhead cam B series - they share the same sump and engine mounts for example, the cam shaft was moved from low on the side, onto the top. The even more recent 'M16' & 'T16' engines can be said to be 'O' series with twin cams as the block is almost identical.
The gearbox is used in the Triumph Spitfire 1500 & Dolomite 1500/1850 and some Sherpa vans.
Really the Marina was a bitsa with input from throughout the UK motoring industry. As it was a volume car (1.3 million all told), many other vehicles used parts originally designed for the Marina as it created good economies of scale.
Chris Weedon
[edit] strange number
I read in a Classic car magazine that the 745 figure is in actual fact for the Morris Ital which was only in production for a couple of years (and was highly unpopular) i'd guess that there are about Three to Four thousand Marinas left on the road (and probably many more in garages waiting to be brought back to life)
