HOW BAD WAS THE MARINA?

[AustinMarina]

To be honest even though I own 2 Marinas, they arnt great cars, but, they have a decent look, strong personality, and compared to other cars of the same status I think the Marinas are much better. If British Leyland waited a bit and made better quality control on the car before it hit the road history would treat the Marina much butter. Thats my humble opinion

[marinabrian]

Having owned every single variant of marina in my driving life, including an early 1800 which had missed the recall on the kingpin/trunnions,I would say I'm suitably qualified to say they are vile to drive, even compared to say, a Mk 2 escort, however on saying that, they were only supposed to have a production run of 5 years, & considering they were a bread & butter car aimed at the fleet market, much of the production found it's way into private ownership. Easy to fix when they broke down, they found a place in my heart. Now the build quality problems which were inherent, when the marina was in production, had not been addressed certainly in the late '80s, when I spent my working days repairing factory automation equipment, the Cowley plant in particular at the time were building maestros, using Italian steel, & German rustproofing all lobbed together by disillusioned workers!.
The British car industry only had itself to blame for being deserted by the buying public, having assumed they would put up with any old shoddily built product.
All this said & done I wouldn't be parted from my fleet of marinas, because I love their little idiosyncrasies, each one different to the rest!

Merry Christmas to one and all

Best Wishes

Brian.

[The original northen boy]

I remember the day when we went there i was disgusted when we were told of the Italian steel body panels,and the German rust proofing that was used on all the Austin Rover small /mid-range cars at that time,( not sure if the bigger models were made with this **** they more than likely will have been) no wonder they have almost all rotted away, typical all down to the cheapest short term solution and profits,in the long term the new models gets a bad name and won't sell because of the previous models,therefore showing short term profit but long term losses.. the once great British car industry RIP,gone but not forgotten .....

[Clan Chieftain]

8) egg on face time. i was thinking of the later cavvy.i had a 76 cavalier 1900. what a cracking motor. always remember it ksb 128p. still got photos somewhere.
to paul.....hate the word gay and anything or anyone associated with it. the telly is full of them. turns my stomach it does.

[Clan Chieftain]

8) its ok paul....would love to ram my marina up a moggys a..e though

[The original northen boy]

According one of my clients who was the transport mananger for one of the large Sheffield steel works during the 1960/70's ,"NOT BAD AT ALL" during his time in that position the company ran Rootes group,Ford,and British Leyland, The cars were kept 3 years then replaced (with whoever was giving the best deal at the time) it wasn't unknown for the reps cars to clock up over 200,000 miles in that period (around 1300 miles a week)
he went on to say that the Marina 1800 was great for this type of millage,very few engine problems,and popular with the reps,what he didn't like was the amount of lever arm units they went through but as a car "a good-un",when asked about the worst ones he simply said anything less than a 1600cc,the reps just thrashed them to death,"oh and the Avenger"