Morris Marina Development Part 1

Development of the fabulous morris marina

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• morris
• marina
• ital
• development

[themaneatingchimp]

The worst car in the world eh?

So how do you rate these then? FSO,Wartburgh,Daicia,Moskovich­,Skoda,and Lada products,the 70's offerings from Fiat,Lancia,and Alfa Romeo,all French cars,Talbot and Simca,Magnifique! Vauxhall,Hillman and the Ford cars from the same period?

Simple the lot were rubbish,and some more than others,the Marina was well on par with all the stuff of the time and although not great was far better than many,oh and the Japanese products of the time,one word four letters RUST.

[BLHeritageFilms]

well cars like Wartburg, Moskvitch Lada etc were good in their designated markets, most are still around today.

but most cars in the 70's were rustbyckets :D

[themaneatingchimp]

@mtpylkka11 Yet were they any worse than the products from the other car manufactures of the time? Cars from the 70's are by todays standards mostly poor the're very few cars from that period that stand out.

French cars= poor reliability/ bad build quality ,Italian cars=poor reliability/rust,rust and more rust,German cars=slightly better reliability,build quality but more expensive,Scandinavin cars=see German,Ford= on a par with BL,Vauxhall= see Ford but add extra rusting,Japanese cars=RUST!

[MrWeekendoff]

ah, the well known phrase at 3:40 - 'you've got a pretty big job on your plate'.

[Speedster083]

@BLHeritageFilms come to Malta and see which is the only surviving car of the 70s! beleive it or not it's the Morris Marina :)

[81broncoman]

The Cortina and Escort were wonderful, the Marina and Ital were shit barely superior to soviet products. Japanese cars of the time were far superior, in 1970 you could get a Datsun 1200 with disk brakes, MacPherson struts, assembled by a real worker instead of a pension-sucking communist. You could also get a BMW 2002 which was a magnificent car. Keep in mind that just 745 Marinas are still on the road 30 years after production stopped, out of 875,000 sold. It's shit.

[TheVx490]

@themaneatingchimp well i wouldn,t have minded the 1,7 slx in its day

[themaneatingchimp]

@TheVx490 The Ital is not for really me either (a step back in design perhaps, but the "MARINA" that really does drive nicely indeed how the car should have drove from new)

Maybe the money spent to spruce up the Marina was better spent than you might think in Ital form the car lasted an other 4 years and this kept it often in the top ten sellers in the UK .

The worst thing about the Ital is the re-worked inner wings that are just pure rust traps (a stupid thing to change them and for what?)

[themaneatingchimp]

Respond to this video... (cont 2) the reason that both the Cortina and Escort were No1 and No2 in the top sellers list .

And as said a lot of the motoring press hated the Ital (how much of this was just following what was said before them is unsure but re-sale price were fell victim to this)

Strangely for a car so disliked by many, the entire tooling and rights were sold to China to make their own version of the car and even more strangely some were even built.

Thanks for your comments

[themaneatingchimp]

@TheVx490 Hi there, yeah quite true the Ital was really one "MARINA" too many but it did sell in pretty good numbers (and made a profit) although long in the tooth by this stage it was priced very competitvely and appealed to a buyer wanting that bit more for their money and not too bothered about image....it was cheap for what you were getting (Lada pitched the same way)

I honestly think most 70's cars are all pretty poor by todays standards,but perhaps Ford were just that bit better hence,

[TheVx490]

for all you marina fans out there the ital got its name by italy giving the marina a facelift at a tune of 2 million pounds in the 70s which cost BL dearly.not money well spent.there is a book liisting all cars designed in italy.nowhere does it list the ital.food for thought eh?

[TheVx490]

@themaneatingchimp you stated in early comments that ford were crap like vauxhall,but they were holding the 1st & 2nd place iin sales for the 70s,not saying the marina was bad though,but by the time the ital came it was much out of date then in refinements and the ital was hated in the motor trade.i think they suffered very high depreciation from new

[themaneatingchimp]

@justas525 Well said that man!