www.fastmarinamagazine.com

I would be surprised if people who have been around this forum and Marinas for longer than I have, haven't already seen this, but I've just come across it on a Facebook post. I think I might have seen the real car in storage at Gaydon, but for some reason didn't fully appreciate the true horror! Probably it was packed in among other cars in storage. I think it is bright yellow (a safety colour, no doubt). I vaguely remember seeing pictures of an Austin 1100 with a similar front end and a sort of pedestrian catcher bar, in a mid-70s kids magazine called Speed and Power. I'm guessing this example has got to be a 1300, with a little radiator, and not a 1.8.

Yeah, I've seen that thing. I never did like the look of it, the front just doesn't suit it.
The 1100 version looks even worse, and with that catcher bar on the front ... what were they thinking? If I got hit by it I'd probably make myself comfy and tell the guy to keep going until it's my stop! ..maybe even scoop up a few more work mates along the way save on bus fare

The Car Of The Future..... maybe it did appear on Tomorrows World at some point? But it's obviously not some turbine powered self driving bubble top jet car cruIsing the highways of 1950s America - just an uglified BMC wagon with no proper headlights!

The idea of the low nose was to push pedestrians onto the bonnet, rather than a high or flat front, pushing pedestrians under the wheels, reducing the kill rate.

If you hit someone below the knees they will usually fall onto the bonnet, the exception being children where the ‘folding’ point below the knee is so low that they generally still get run over.

That’s why progressively lower speed limits in urban areas have been introduced to reduce the kill rate in child accidents.

Sorry if that sounds brutal, but that’s the facts.

Spooky that was reading earlier about them, on ar online. Have seen them all, apart the Austin 1800 one at Gaydon. Surprising thing is some 40 years later how much of this actual technology, has made it onto todays cars ! interlocking doors with door bars from 1800 virtually standard. impact absorbing bumpers. even the wide angle rear view mirrors from the MGB, in the form of cameras around the car. The pop up bonnet bar on the 1100 in the form op pop up bonnet. First seen on the Jaguar XK range to stop pedestrian head hitting engine in accident.
Dave

That's the thing. People just won't accept a car that looks like that so instead the roads have had to change.
BL was definitely forward thinking though I'll give them that.

Cars now are mainly horriblely ugly at the front to make them safer to humans, all curvy, lots of plastic, even bonnet airbags, BL were on the right Track really I think, even if it looks like a pig, fuel tank was in the middle too!

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

Yes, that's why cars look the way they do now. Not only does the body have to be safe it has to somehow fit around all the safety features under it! Cars are a lot "fatter" now to incorporate side impact bars, side air bags etc without compromising cabin space.

The current fashion seems to include headlamp clusters that finish halfway back along the front wing, such are the compound curves and swept back-ness. I've just bought a three year old Astra. Its fitted with parking sensors (my first). Basically it needs them. I've no idea where the front end finishes!

The Marina could have done with reverse sensors. It's impossible to tell where the overhang is hence not many Marinas left with straight rear bumpers!

With cars the Marina's shape, I never had a problem hanging out of the driver's door when backing up to something I couldn't see out of the back window. The corner of the back bumper is easy to see. These days you can't even see much to judge where the back is, hanging out of the door and looking backwards in a modern car. The bulging back wheel arch is usually all you can see. The glass area is also a lot smaller now on modern cars. Some rear windows verge on being tiny. From the outside they look a fair size, but there's 3-4" of black border for the adhesive, so the clear area is actually a lot smaller.

While the Marina was styled by the same bloke who did the Mk2 Cortina, I reckon the 4 door is having a shot at being the coke bottle shape, like the FD Victor and Mk3 Cortina, just not as pronounced. I learned to drive in a Mk3, and you don't get a great view out of the back of those either! The most astonishing rear view I had out of a big saloon was that Triumph 2500TC. You could see the edge of the back boot lid from the driver's seat. It was a glasshouse.

Best car I had for all round viability was a mk2 Escort estate. The estates only came in two door form and the rear side windows ran the whole length from B post to C post.

Nice black underseal line

Yes, the hight of the underseal line in my town indicated the rank you held on the road
I said that to one of the guys at work one day, he knew it was banter and complete bs so he said "What if you paint the whole car black" I said "That's ridiculous, no one ever held a rank that high"

Hmm...I used to walk to school past a Victor FD that appeared to have been painted entirely in 'something like' underseal! Either that, or it was covered with dark Hammerite applied with a trowel!