Was the Marina a good rally car?

[1GMARINA]

Admittedly it was no Escort in rallies of the day, but then the Escort did more or less have things all its own way for many years, but all things considered was the Marina a good choice by BL to use as a works rally car?

Steve

[minispeedstar]

If Brian Culcheth took one to a class win of the 1000 lakes rally, I think that speaks for itself Infact it won most class wins they entered..

[Marinanut]

Considering Ford pumped squillions of £ into developing the 'Scrote, BL had no motorsports division after MG closed and it was done via the BBC predecessor to Top Gear and proceeds from Special Tuning's sales, the Marina was bloody successful - moreso than when the rest of the management woke up and decided to ditch it for the Dolly Sprint, which was a disaster. If the Marina had been given the £ required and the 16V Sprint engine, we would have seen a good fight out on the stages, but this was never to be because of managerial in-fighting. Morris wasn't a 'sporting' marque... Triumph was, so that was the end of that.

[MarinaCoupe]

The Marina performed well as a 1300 and I think with some money spent on development would have grown into a useful car. Lack of a high performance 1800/2000 engine meant that it could never challenge for overall wins, so they concentrated on winning their class.

[crashbang]

we still run one and get good times out of it, got second on the mad dog the other day but the engine is going on it so was thinking of puting in the 2L from the sd1 but then we can't enter the historic rallys so may stick with the 1.3L

[tigon20]

if you think about it they did miracles on pennies, compared to the others and yes ut was sacrificed to anothe r marque, but then what else wasnt at bl????

[1GMARINA]

the Marina was bloody successful - moreso than when the rest of the management woke up and decided to ditch it for the Dolly Sprint, which was a disaster.

The Dolomite Sprint never was a great rally car, retirements were all too frequent and it was pretty heavy to boot, but it was a very good race track car and could have been better still with real financial backing. The Sprint did have some minor success in rallies but it's real potential lay on the race track.

Steve