Fast Marina Magazine

were all the Works - BL cars coupes? if so how come they never used the saloon?

Hi Masterbodger, yes all the works cars were coupes with the exception of a one-off V8 pick up, this practice was common in most cases with rally cars because the coupe bodyshell is inherently stronger than the saloon, having only 2 doors they were easier to modify and lighter.
There were officially only about 6 Rally prepped cars in total, by the Special Tuning Dept at Abingdon and as far as we know only 2 survive to this day one in the UK and one in New Zealand, although it is possible the other New Zealand car has surfaced recently as well, so there could be 3

was there any reason why they didn't venture in to making a 2 door saloon? i suppose they'd got the coupe for that though. i was just thinking as the escort mk2 and the marina saloon are quite similar in style i wondered if they'd thought of a copy cat idea.

wasn't the marina designed by defected ford designers? or am i totally wrong :shock:

Strictly speaking the coupé is a two door saloon as 'coupé' means 'cut short', which the Marina is not. There was a design study done in making a four-door Marina with the fastback body, as well as one for a true sports coupé which was codenamed Condor.

Yes, BL poached Roy Haynes, who had been responsible for the Cortina II, the UK's best selling car at the time.

About the ST rally cars

I have created links below to the first two pages of the RAC Homologation papers for the 1.3 Marina. Several things of interest for this conversation.

1. Basil Wales registered 80 cars as manufactured in December 1970 - do any 1970 cars still exist? Basil did this as the Group 1 rules said that they had to have manufactured 5000 to register in Group 1

2. For the 1.3 and 1.8 Coupes & Saloons were registered, under evolution rules they later registered Mk2 anti-roll bars . For comparison, the registered weights were 1.3 Coupe 832.33 Kgs and 1.3 Saloons 923.89 Kgs - so 90 kgs lighter for the Coupe (i.e. 14 stone).

Front page

next page

MarinaCoupe wrote:About the ST rally cars

I have created links below to the first two pages of the RAC Homologation papers for the 1.3 Marina. Several things of interest for this conversation.

1. Basil Wales registered 80 cars as manufactured in December 1970 - do any 1970 cars still exist? Basil did this as the Group 1 rules said that they had to have manufactured 5000 to register in Group 1

2. For the 1.3 and 1.8 Coupes & Saloons were registered, under evolution rules they later registered Mk2 anti-roll bars . For comparison, the registered weights were 1.3 Coupe 832.33 Kgs and 1.3 Saloons 923.89 Kgs - so 90 kgs lighter for the Coupe (i.e. 14 stone).

Front page

next page

When I was editing the Club mag back in the early 90's, someone found an 'H' reg Marina in a scrappy in the North West - by the time they'd sussed what it was the row had been crushed.....

i may decide to make my car in to a vague resemblance to a rally car, its the right colour for starters. i thought of Mgf minilights 4 8" spot lights some mud flaps and the rally markings as much as possible.

about 2" lower and seeing how that looks, ive seen some wide arch kits that may suit.

but i can dream for now i suppose :roll:

Marinanut wrote:
When I was editing the Club mag back in the early 90's, someone found an 'H' reg Marina in a scrappy in the North West - by the time they'd sussed what it was the row had been crushed.....

I heard about it from Andy Morris at the time. I asked him what colour it was and he said he would have to get back to me on that and never did.........but he probably remembers who saw it there........

Uncle Frank wrote:There were officially only about 6 Rally prepped cars in total, by the Special Tuning Dept at Abingdon and as far as we know only 2 survive to this day one in the UK and one in New Zealand, although it is possible the other New Zealand car has surfaced recently as well, so there could be 3

The NZ cars are mentioned here and herein stories about the Mini Clubman GTs that also came to NZ for the 1973 Heatway International rally.

Photo of one the Heatway Marinas here