(first posted 4/5/2014) What was BMC’s best car? Many people’s immediate answer to the question will be “the Mini”, and it’s fair to say that the Mini was the most technically, industrially and socially advanced car Britain ever produced. It also certainly ranks high among the most technically significant cars built since 1945, and made its creator Alec Issigonis famous. However, my belief is that the follow-on to the Mini, the ADO16, was even better. First introduced as the Morris 1100 of 1962, this new range of cars also included this MG 1100.
The Mini was an expedient reaction to the 1956 Suez Crisis, which cut off a vital supply of oil to Great Britain. It was the smallest conceivable way to seat four adults, but it really wasn’t family-friendly, a significant drawback during the great post-war baby boom. And dealers weren’t happy with the lack of profits selling the Mini, never mind BMC. The result was that the Mini’s success as a mass-market commodity was limited; it really found its calling as a sporty-specialty car.
Morris 1100
The ADO16 took the Mini concept and scaled it up to function as a viable family car, becoming the top choice in Britain over the decade following its introduction, regularly taking 12-15% of the total market, and selling over 200,000 a year for seven years; a genuine hit. To mark forty years since its retirement from the showroom frontline, a CC on the ADO16 is called for.
Austin A40
In 1962, the compact family car market in the UK was dominated by such conservative products such as the Morris Minor, Ford Anglia, Vauxhall Viva and Austin A40. Rootes did not really have a competitor at that level in the market – the Minx was a bit above and the (later) Imp was smaller. Triumph offered the Herald, though as a semi-premium product. European competition came from cars like the VW Beetle, Renault Dauphine, Fiat 1100 saloon and Opel Kadett. Technically, these cars were either very conservative or ploughing the rear engined furrow, a concept that was becoming increasingly dated by this time for this segment of the market.
Morris Minor
Compared with its competition, the Morris 1100 was the most significant step change in engineering and ability for the lower-mid market since the 1948 introduction of Issigonis’ first great success, the Minor.
image: aronline.co.uk
Work on what would become the ADO16 began around 1958, which is the date of this early prototype. It was what it looked like: a bigger Mini; stylistically as well as technically, except for the Hydrolastic suspension that the Mini was supposed to also have, but which wasn’t ready in time for its introduction.
The Morris 1100 arrived in 1962, with smart, modern Italian styling by Pininfarina, a Mini-based drive train of the transverse engine with the gearbox in the sump, an enlarged and more powerful A-series engine, and perhaps most significantly, the advanced and very effective Hydrolastic suspension. Introduced at a time when competitors were still using leaf springs, this was a car that even non-car people would have seen as significant, attractive and affordable.
This was also the last new Morris photographed with William Morris, Viscount Nuffield, before he died in 1963, aged 84. This photo may be less than perfect but I make no apologies for showing it as part of this story, and as one of the last photos of one of the greatest figures in British industrial history, and possibly the world’s greatest philanthropic industrialist. And one of my personal heroes.
Ironically, despite the fact the car was first produced in Cowley and initially sold only as a Morris, you are now much more likely in the UK to hear a reference to an Austin 1100 than a Morris.
Morris 1100 Mk1
Its advantage over the European competition (there was no Japanese competition then) was just as great, and it has to be considered Sir Alec Issigonis’ finest hour, a very strong candidate for the world-wide car of decade for the 1960s, and is my nominee for the most influential car of that decade. The next cars in this sector of the market to approach its levels, simultaneously, of modernity and effectiveness were the VW Golf of 1974, and the first Ford Focus in 1998–it was that significant and influential. (Fiat 128? – ED)
Morris 1100 Mk2
Significant also is the fact that by the time the ADO16 went out of production in 1974, Chrysler Europe, Renault, Peugeot, VW, Nissan and Fiat all had cars on sale (or about to go on sale) that directly mirrored the transverse engine and general size of the ADO16. Only the conservative American-owned manufacturers resisted, and then only until Ford followed in 1975, with the Fiesta.
Size-wise, this car is almost exactly the same wheelbase and length as the original Golf; or if you prefer a current yardstick, it’s virtually identical in overall length to the current MINI, although the ADO16 is four inches shorter in wheelbase. One could argue that the MG1100/1300 is the true inspiration for the MINI, until one looks into the back seat.
Yes, these cars are the exact same length, but no one would ever call the MINI “family-friendly”, especially in the back seat. Cars have been getting bigger for the last 50 years, but certainly not more space efficient.
Undoubtedly, the greatest missed opportunity with the ADO16 was the lack of a hatchback. If it had been given one, there’s no question as to it being the most influential car of the whole postwar era.
The 1964 Autobianchi Primula stole that crown from the ADO16, as well as being the first to have the modern side-by-side engine-transmission configuration that everyone else eventually adopted. Ironic too, since the Austin A40 had a hatch, and was quite popular because of it.
The Traveller wagon did join the ADO16 line-up in 1966, but that wasn’t quite the same. It certainly did pack a lot of room into a very small package (146.6″ overall length, same as the saloon), but BMC would only get on the hatchback bandwagon with the release of the ill-fated Maxi in 1969 (CC here).
There are some other points about the ADO16 that deserve a pause for thought. One is that Alec Issigonis objected to the use of front disc brakes. Issigonis was quoted as regarding disc brakes as: ‘…fashionable: the things to have. I was not particularly in favour of them’, and they were only fitted when Issigonis was overruled by Leonard Lord and George Harriman.
More significantly, Issigonis had originally intended the car to be fitted with an longitudinally-mounted V4 engine, in a front wheel drive installation not dissimilar to that of the 1966 Triumph 1300. This engine had been inspired by a Lancia engine with an unusual V-angle of 18 degrees and a shared central overhead camshaft driven by a toothed rubber belt, which would have been quite an innovative feature for 1962.
Issigonis is quoted as saying ‘it didn’t fit in with our design philosophy… Cars must be smaller but the ‘living room’ increased. When we started work on the V4 we were using north-south engines but since we have switched to east-west in our small cars the V4 no longer fits in with our concept because an inline engine takes up less room fitted in that way’. By comparison with the Mini and Austin – Morris 1800 (the Landcrab), the ADO16 had excellent engine access space under the bonnet – a consequence of the change from longitudinal to transverse engine installation.
The styling was all Pininfarina, with none the back-sliding BMC adjustments seen on the later Landcrab. These are pictures of an early Pininfarina proposal from 1959. Obviously, further development was still in the works before it was finalized.
There is no doubt that the end result came out just about exactly right, a key factor to the quick acceptance of the car by the conservative British market. Incidentally, when Sergio Pininfarina first saw the Mini, he joked to Issigonis: “Why didn’t you style it a bit?” to which Issigonis quickly replied “It’ll still be fashionable when I’m dead and gone”. How right he was!
Riley Kestrel
The original intention, believe it or not, was for the marketing of the car to bring BMC’s policy of badge engineering to its logical conclusion. This may have been to the preference of Leonard Lord, BMC’s dominant Chairman, but it also highlighted a political situation that had been brewing between the competing dealer networks (formerly linked to Austin or the Nuffield Organization, the Morris brands) since the practice had begun after the 1952 merger. Lord had entered semi-retirement, to be replaced by the much more emollient, and frankly complacent, George Harriman, just before the launch of ADO16. By this time, the marketing situation had descended into a slanging match between the competing networks and the situation was getting worse rather than better.
The first of the six differently badged ADO16 cars (after the Morris 1100) was the MG 1100, arriving in October of 1962, just two months after the Morris. It was the only ADO16 exported to the US until the ill-fated Austin America replaced it in 1968.
The MG 1100 engine (12G295) had a new cylinder head with better breathing, and generated 55hp vs 48 hp for the standard 1100 engine. It was sold in the US starting that year, as a 1963 model. US prices for the MG were in the $1850-$1998 range, some $300 less than a VW Beetle, for both the two door and four door. Of course, the MG 1100 exceeded the Beetle’s capabilities in every conceivable way, except when it came to reliability, as the more complex ADO16 quickly presented a challenge for the small British import dealers, particularly because of its Hydrolastic suspension.
The MG 1100 was of course nicely trimmed, and starting in 1967, it received the larger 1275 cc engine, and became the MG1300. The new four-speed automatic gearbox was also available as of 1968. The 1300 upped power to 65hp, which was actually more than the MG Midget 1300’s 62 hp.
The MG 1100/1300 was a delightful car for those who could fully appreciate its charms. There was really nothing remotely like it on the American market, and although it sold in quite modest numbers, it endeared itself to those that had the pleasure of spending time behind its rather bus-like steering wheel.
After the Austin 1100, which went into production in September of 1963, the next variant was the upscale Vanden Plas Princess 1100, in 1964. Featuring top-level traditional British interior appointments, the Princess was also sold in the US as the MG Princess, for the princessly sum of $3016.
Wolseley 1100
The mid-range Riley Kestrel and Wolseley 1100 both arrived in September of 1965, the last versions to round out the full range. Consider them the Olds and Buick versions.
Ford Cortina Mk1
In the UK, the mass-market Austin and Morris 1100 sold initially against the Cortina Mk1,which was of course a very conventional car, but in many ways quite appealing too, especially when it received a 1500cc engine in 1963. That was the beginning of Ford’s clever move to make the Cortina increasingly larger and more powerful (as with the Mk2 version), and as such, ever more competitive. With Ford’s release of its smaller Escort in 1968, the ADO16 really began to feel the squeeze from above and below, marking the beginning of the end.
As was typical for BMC, the car received precious little development over its life, with great delay and birthing pains accompanying each change. Just getting the critically-needed larger 1275cc engine into full production became a boondoggle, and began to show the profound limitations of the BMC organization, as compared to the nimbler and more profitable Leyland Motors, never mind Ford and Vauxhall. When compared to the changes Ford made to the Cortina between 1962 and 1974, it was easy to see how static the ADO16 programme had become.
1970 Morris brochure
Crucially, as with the Mini, BMC did not replace any existing product with the ADO16. The Morris Minor and Austin A40 both continued in production, until 1970 and 1968 respectively. BMC’s confused range was getting more so, not less.
Rather than tackling these issues head-on – something that really should have been done years previously whilst BMC had the market share to manage such a transition – Harriman acceded to the wishes of the Nuffield dealers, and agreed to release the ADO16 just as a Morris model initially. An Austin version would appear only after a significant delay. This sop to the dealers may have seemed like an expedient way to appease a particularly vocal source of dissension, but it undoubtedly cost BMC sales by giving the ADO16 a slower start in life than would otherwise have been the case. However, from a production view, there was a benefit to this, as the new car came in one basic form, initially from one factory (Cowley in Oxford, which historically belonged to Morris), thus helping the familiarisation process a bit, and simplifying the handling of the initial teething troubles.
Longbridge
The ADO16 became Britain’s bestseller very quickly, and kept that slot for a number of years, taking up to 15% of the entire UK market. By autumn 1963, BMC were building 5500 a week, at Longbridge and Cowley, of which 40% were exported. In the first 18 months, over 220,000 had been built.
The international view of the ADO16 is also fascinating – it was assembled in many countries around the world and sold under many names and combination of features from the home market variants, including as the Morris Marina in Denmark.
Morris 1500 Nomad
The Australian built Morris 1500 was an ADO16 saloon fitted with the E series engine and 5 speed gearbox from the Maxi, covered by an ugly raised bonnet. This was later developed into the Morris Nomad, which resembled the Maxi in concept and in proportions, and was produced until 1974 when it was replaced by a locally assembled Morris Marina.
The Apache and Victoria were South African and Spanish variants, respectively and essentially the same–the central section of the original car was retained but with a very Triumph Dolomite-like front and a rear styled by Michelotti grafted on. The taillights were actually the items used on the Triumph 2000 MK2, another Michelotti design. The resulting car may have been more elegant but with the additional length lost some of the ADO16’s legendary packaging efficiency. The Apache was produced in Blackheath on the Cape, partly from CKD (completely knocked down) kits shipped from the UK.
The Victoria was assembled alongside the more traditional ADO16 variants and the Mini at a plant in Pamplona, owned by BMC’s Spanish affiliate Authi (formally known as Automoviles de Turismo Hispano Ingleses). Authi was established in 1964 as a way of avoiding Spanish import duties on completed cars and the engine and gearbox for the Spanish cars were manufactured locally, by NMQ, BMC’s Spanish partner in Authi, with body pressings coming from BMC. BL withdrew from Spain in 1975, selling the plant to SEAT, (then government controlled) who used it to assemble various Fiat-derived products under license, and which today makes SEAT Ibizas and VW Polos under Wolfsburg’s ownership.
Innocenti 1100
In Italy, the Innocenti company also assembled the ADO16 in a form tailored very handsomely to the local market, with a modified interior, revised front end and headlights and, on later models, a universal joint in the steering column allowing a more upright steering wheel angle, a change not adopted in UK production.
To find a curbside ADO16 in 2014 is not easy. Curiously enough (or not) the featured car was found in the epicentre of the CC, Eugene, Oregon, just two blocks from Paul Niedermeyer’s home, and is an MG1100, from around 1965 or so. It’s been sitting in the driveway of this house for almost twenty years, and the owner is finally getting around to doing a bit of work on it. I suspect the interior colours and trims are factory standard, though possibly renewed at some point.
When the ADO16 went out of (UK) production in 1974, BL had to provide two cars, the front wheel drive Austin Allegro and the rear drive, slightly larger Morris Marina, to replace it, and failed. Partly this was because the centre of gravity of the market had moved upwards, a trend Ford spotted (and led) but which BL missed completely. And partly because both the Allegro and Marina were nowhere near good enough.
But, when someone tells you British car buyers are conservative, remind them that the best selling car in Britain in the 1960s was a technically innovative, front wheel drive, fluid suspended car styled by an Italian and engineered by a Turkish Greek, which was quickly and widely copied across Europe.
It is without doubt the best car BMC ever made, quite possibly the best small car of the 1960s and arguably the first modern family car.
Related reading Austin Allegro Ford Cortina VW Golf Hillman Minx
Another car from growing up in the 60s,thanks Roger for another great read.My Latin teachers a husband and wife Mr & Mrs Hurst both had these cars one a dark blue and the other a horrid pea soup green colour,also Mr Atkins one of my French teachers had a maroon one.Anyone remember the Michigan Madman building an electric drag car from one?I can’t see these cars without laughing remembering Basil Fawlty giving his a damn good thrashing!
And the reason you never see them anymore is that they were probably rusting even in the showroom, sadly.
The AU market cars didn’t seem rust prone- they mostly seemed to die from Hydrolastic failure. It was pretty common to see them sagging on one side beside the road.
I think these were a greatest hit and deadly sin, like the Mini, BMC made almost no money on them and no profit meant no development funds. Pretty good vehicle overall for the time.
Some neighbours bought a used 1100. I felt sorry for the car. They were big people, to be polite, but after a week the suspension had collapsed on the passenger’s side.
Exactly, I had a 1967 in 1972, jacked it up, the jack went through the body. Why the fuck, did they not do something about the rust. Saw a bunch of bare steel 1100’s on a car carrier, why???? Bare steel???
They were a pleasant car to drive. The 1098cc long stroke engine was torquey, and the handling was safe. Having said that it wasn’t a patch on the ’62 Cortina 1198cc four door saloon which was downright ‘sporty’ by comparison. I drove both these vehicles of that era and my opinion comes from practical experience of both.
The MG version was fitted with two SU HS2 carbs which gave it the performance lift over it’s plain jane Morris and Austin cousin 1100’s, Neither version of the 1098 was really what you would call a ‘free-revver’, unlike the first Cortina which also had delightful balanced handling for the time. The Cortina was an over-square engine that loved revs.
The hydrolastic suspension felt ‘soggy’ and soft and it kind of wallowed like a marshmellow on wheels when you pushed it really hard around corners, however it was intrinsically safe handling that wouldn’t really get you into too much trouble even if you were pretty much a complete idiot with it. They only had 12″ wheels, whereas the Cortina rode on 13 inchers. And the Cortina on the other hand had a very ‘lively’ rear end that was HUGE FUN to play around with.
Thus spake a 15 year old boy who took everything around on wheels in those days to the absolute limit, and beyond on occasions.. whenever possible!
Now the rubber donutted Mini …THAT was a different story altogether (nothing could touch them for cornering, bar none, at the time) …it was a true sensation!
you said: ” it kind of wallowed like a marshmellow on wheels”
With all due respect that is completely untrue. A basic characteristic of the suspension is that it cornered virtually completely flat, almost zero body roll.
Now, it IS true that in some situations the body can be made to rock front-to-back but this only becomes really noticeable when starting or stopping on hills. In normal “over-the-road” driving the body stays well planted for the most part.
I learned to drive on an MG 1100 and then later owned its’ big brother, a Wolseley 18/85 “landcrab” that had the exact same traits.
@Roger;
With regard to the interior, unless things were changed for the North American market I would say the interior upholstery is quite heavily modified. At least, the seats and door trim is quite different to what I remember of British versions.
Roger, I used to utterly thrash these vehicles back then as you would if you were on a modern day rally today. We lived out of town a bit and I had the use of largely empty tar sealed and metalled country roads and the policing was zilch.. and i was a diehard petrolhead even then. I had my far share of accidents and close shaves with hedges, posts, and picket fences, etc ..however, I did get to learn early on how these cross-ply tyred vehicles handled on the road at and beyond their limits back then and the BMC1100 I am sorry to re-state (with respect) was not a sporty machine.. I couldn’t get the red mud brown Morris 1100 rental my old man came home with one night to ‘power drift’ controllably on the throttle as I could an early Cortina or the Zephyr ..it just lurched on hard fast 90 degree cornering and exhibited ploughing understeer right across the tar seal and onto the grass on the other side of the road (hence the ‘marshmellow’ reference), sorry if I have offended you but I am just telling it how I found it. I had expected it to be much more ‘Mini-like’, but the Mini I was used to was not hydrolastic. The early Mini was the fastest cornering thing on wheels in those days.
Yeah 4 people in a ADO 16 and they wheelspin on gravel the suspension may give a reasonable ride but it isnt load friendly and the resulting weight transfer is a menace on rural roads.
Top notch, Roger. Love the prototypes, that prePF is a beauty so to speak. Saw a 1500 the other day, did a double take and nearly had an accident.
I’ve read that the Mini actually lost money for BMC, although it was long ago and can’t remember if the source was trustworthy. Can you shed any light on that?
We’ve tossed that around here once or twice. Ford took a Mini apart and based on their cost analysis of it, said there was no way BMC could be making a profit on it. BMC claimed otherwise, but the inescapable reality was that if there was any profit, it might have been a tuppence. Obviously, over the longer haul, and especially with higher trimmed version that became more popular later on, BMC undoubtedly made some profit, except perhaps the most basic models. In any case, it was another financial coffin nail in BMC, as not generating a profit on a main model means there’s no money for developing its successor, which is of course one of the problems that ensued.
Thanks Paul.
It was particularly bad because while the Mini sold briskly during and following the OPEC embargo, the Mini was about the only thing BLMC was selling in any numbers at that point.
The result, as Paul says, is that it took 20 years for BL to launch a real Mini successor — the Metro — and even that was essentially the Mini running gear repackaged in a modern shell designed to be less expensive to assemble. The Mini was many things, but “cost-engineered” wasn’t one of them.
Was it cost or non-fully-developed technology that prevented the Mini from being launched with Hydrolastic? Would they have dared use the Bertone Innocenti body? NIH.
Not ready. Just as well, as the rubber-spring Minis handled like stink, and were much less trouble to boot.
Those rubber cones are still in use…
The Metro was another BL Deadly Sin,yet another car that was a warmed over old model desperately trying to be sold as new and not as good as it’s predecessor and lacking it’s attractive qualities.Hastily developed due to a constant lack of cash for R & D and rushed into production with shoddy build quality(this was the Red Robbo period) it was sold alongside the Mini.By 1980 the opposition from Europe and Japan was making good value,attractive and reliable cars that were often cheaper.The Mini outlasted it’s replacement.
Hi Paul,
Ford’s analysis, led by Terry Beckett, father fo the Cortina, was that BMC were losing £30 (say 5% of retail value) on each car and that this cost could have been taken out of the car relatively quickly and easily without reducing the sales appeal.
£30, over 300,000 cars a year adds up……
Thanks Roger. My understanding of the US car industry is that the great efforts taken to ‘shave off a few cents’ would suggest to me that 30 pounds is a considerable amount of material/componentry to lose on a car. Different economies of scale though.
Ford was about to release their 105E Anglia as competition fot the Mini but could not price it with the Mini and could not figure out why until they dismantled and anaylysed a Mini and discovered it cost more than it was selling for they priced the Anglia so it gave some profit unlike BMC.
Ford claimed that BMC were losing 10pounds a car but I read that was just a myth as even BMC could cost out correctly.. You didn’t mention the MGs replacement the 1300GT..Popular 1st sporty car choice for new drivers in the early 80s,.
These cars always remind me of the story that’s always told of Alec Issigonis taking four kitchen chairs and arranging them to try to figure out what the minimum amount of space that was required to carry four adults in comfort and building the car around that.
I thought that story related to the Mini?
This is a wonderful write-up and an obvious labor of love. A great selection of images, too. One of my favorite Matchbox cars when I was small was the green MG, and that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw your lead photo. Thanks for all the information on the real-life car. I took a bit of a detour in the middle, by reading the Wikipedia article on Viscount Nuffield, a man I’ll admit I never heard of before today. What an impressive fellow, and what a life!
iirc, the MG 1100s had very short gearing, turning something like 4 grand at 60mph. I saw one on the road around 1980, screaming to maintain 45.
That would have been par for the course back then for cars in this general class, as well as small sports cars; they all pretty much did that. When your top speed is about 80, than at 60 the engine is turning about 75% of redline. The only way around that is an overdrive, which was very uncommon then.
Overdrive was available on nearly any British car aftermarket or as an upgrade but not on FWD BMC cars. There is simply nowhere to put one, the Aussies developed the 5speed that ended up in the Maxi that was the Nomad 1500 but that needed the bigger engine to pull the higher gearing.
OD was available on Vauxhall Viva? I’m quite sure not. Cortina? Escort? Not that I remember.
Anyway, I wasn’t limiting my comment to Brit small cars. On the continent, OD was extremely unusual, especially so on small cars. I’d be hard pressed to think of any. Same goes for Japanese cars.
It really was a substantial issue in the US, considering that speed limits were high back then (70-75 mph), and all the little import cars really were straining to keep that up, all day long, year in-year out. Another reason Japanese cars found favor, as they were early adopters of five speeds.
Ford offered overdrive on the bigger Consul/Zephyr/Zodiac, but never on the RWD Escort and not on the Capri or Mk1/Mk2/Mk3 Cortina or Taunus. I don’t think Ford had a five-speed until the early ’80s, barring the ZF unit on some of the Escort and Capri competition cars (which wasn’t available to civilians unless you wanted to install it yourself).
Overdrive was a common option on Rootes and Standard-Triumph cars, and some RWD BMC cars, such as the Farina.
I don’t recall it on Fords; I know the Vauxhall Victor FD was available with a column shift and I think in some cases a 3 speed box!
1500 but that needed the bigger engine to pull the higher gearing.
One of my favorite clips, an ADO16, in Austin America trim, that does not appear to be power limited.
It isnt anywhere near stock either the ADO16 1300 GT could pull 100mph in standard form with driver only. Nice how it rides on very smooth roads very different on normal roads.
That was one of the dilemmas of the Mini layout with the transmission in the sump — only four speeds and no room for the overdrive units so popular on rear-drive British cars, so you had the tradeoff of either gearing for low-speed acceleration or cruising ability (not that the smaller engines would have pulled a tall overdrive with any vigor anyway). Even on the much later Metro, I don’t think BL was never able to incorporate a five-speed, which started to become a pretty significant competitive handicap.
The Metro with the A series and box in the sump was always 4 speed; there was a 5 speed option on the later K series version
Great piece, Roger. I so enjoy getting the British perspective on this very influential British car. While I would not consider this as a stylish or beautiful car, there is something very endearing about the shape and the way the whole thing is pulled together.
This has to be one of the oldest stories in the car business – a modern and influential car that slowly ages without significant updates until it becomes irrelevant. It’s not always about money, as Henry Ford proved with the Model T.
I remember seeing these occasionally in the central U.S. when I was a kid, and believe that I had the same Matchbox toy that Mike spoke of. I also think I remember a larger Corgi version. Unfortunately, while the UK could sell all kinds of sports cars over here, it did very poorly over most of the postwar period when it came to regular family cars. Other than Jaguar and Rolls, I’m not sure any English sedan (saloon) ever really made it over here.
In my youth, I was a British care fanatic. I owned a couple of Minis, an Austin 1100, bought new in 1967. An MG 1100, an Austin America, and to top it off a Fiat 128, also bought new. The Fiat finally moved me away from BMC products. In with all the BMC products, I also bought new a Ford Cortina. Contrary to expectations, the Fiat was the most reliable of all the early cars of my youth. Most of the other Fiats that I owned were crap, but they all were used when I got them. Cars of today are so much more capable and reliable, but the cars of yesterday were so much more fun. Maybe the youth part made them more fun. Buying used cars for fifty to one hundred dollars made it easy to modify them. I can not imagine cutting the roof off a car to make an open car with any new car of today. But, we did that with a Corvair that had been rolled. I guess that the point is that life is just more fun when you are young. For you young people, remember that, and enjoy your youth, it goes away much too fast.
Wonderful article, thanks for taking the trouble to do such a comprehensive overview of this car. These had become somewhat unfashionable by the time I started taking an interest – I think the endlessly repeated “Don’t mix crossply and radials” TV advert may have had something to do with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrRz_ItWWDw
I have to agree with the unfashionable bit for me too- when I became interested in cars these were the equivalent of a 15 year old Hyundai Excel.
It’s only in the last few years that I’ve learnt to appreciate the technical innovation and pretty lines of the 1100.
BMC/BL cars were the cars you hoped your parents would never buy.They came in drab colours and were staid compared to Ford,Vauxhall and Rootes/Chrysler cars.The teachers I mentioned having them were all approaching retirement age.They were a better car than the Allegro which followed.
The 1300s came in bright colours but these cars were mainly sold to elderly or near retirement women,no-one else seemed interested in them, they might have been a big seller in England but not really that popular elsewhere they had all the mechanical disadvantages and problems of the Mini but with more passenger space.
Issigonis was a brilliant engineer, but he loathed marketing people, stylists, and cost accountants, and that was the result. By contrast, Ford and Vauxhall were seldom that mechanically interesting, but Ford in particular really developed a knack for hitting the right marketing buttons in a way that reeled in the punters.
You’re right – the back story of the decline of BMC/BLMC from 1960 to, say, 1980, was of Ford’s product planning and marketing against BMC/Issgonis’s innovation.
By the 1990s, it was of BLMC/Rover’s inability to achieve true semi-premium status against the onward march of the premium marques (BMW, Audi, Mercedes) or to keep up wth the perceived rise of VW, Volvo and even Skoda.
..skipping back to ’67 the new-comer on the block was just the coolest machine ever… the Rootes Group’s Hillman Hunter ..the zero to 80kph time was a blistering (for then) 9.3 seconds.. the lowered bonnet line (thanks to the slant high compression 1725cc four) was nice to look at ..it had a very nice exhaust note ..and the whole car looked balanced and modern and pretty..and comparatively it went hard ! ..the Singer Gazelle equivalent was the wood dash cousin but retained the same mechanicals ..the other thing that was nice about them was that they were ALL floor change, at a time when the Cortina’s still largely had the arm-wrestling four-on-the-tree..
..this at a time when you would want to drop dead if your parents came home with a new BMC product (excluding ..EXCLUDINNNNG …THE MINI COOPER ! ! )
Another car from my schooldays,a Maths teacher who’s name I can’t remember had the first one I saw at Junior school.Mr Watkins my music teacher was an elegant and dapper character with his cravats and swept back fair hair(he looked a lot like Michael Hesseltine) who bought a GLS in a lovely orangey red with a black vinyl roof in 1973.It suited him much more than his previous maroon Wolsley 1500.The Hunter range of cars had everything from miser’s specials to posh sedans and wagons,tyre burners and a sporty coupe.I had a lemon of a Sunbeam Rapier but on the whole they were good looking reliable cars and a step up from the Land Crab.
Bench seat with column change was an option on the Cortina, but they came as standard with a floor shift.
In my country (NZ) all the early CKD Mk 1 Cortina’s were imported and assembled by FoMoCo Seaview Lower Hutt with column change gearshift only.
Only once did I encounter a floor change version which had been imported fully built-up from overseas. It was a two door which were never sold here a new vehicle. I used it for a while delivering spare parts from John Andrew Ford Glen Innes to the outlying garages. I recall it being a long ‘springy’ lever as they all tended to be in those days (the Mini’s particularly).
That was another delightful 1967 Hillman Hunter feature …a centre console and a shortish direct gear lever .. LOVELY ! 🙂
Nice article Roger I hadnt seen the South African/South American versions before. I did see a Morris Nomad last weekend though. As you say after the popularity of the Farina the hatch could have been popular ahead of the Renault 16.
Runnin for 12 years without much change says a lot about BMC at the time. What were the issues with the 1275?
Finally I remember a story from some guys I knew that had an 1100 paddock bomb that they discovered matched the width of the local railway line, so they put on some bare rims and drove it onto he tracks. They were rolling along merrily until they saw the headlight of a train behind them! They thought they would have to abandon ship and jump for safety, until they came to a level crossing and were able to drive off the tracks.
A truly great car. I learnt to drive in one of these. My aunt had a Morris 1100 in neutral grey with a blue interior. I always loved it, but she traded it in 1984 when I wasn’t looking. Apparently nobody in town wanted to work on it any more.
Oh 10YTAH41977, where are you now?
Friends drove a grey 1100 all over Australia and that was one of the problems, finding a garage that would touch it, I did an engine swap for them and took it to a local guy for final tune up, he pointed to a VW on the hoist and said those things are Hitlers revenge, you just brought in Churchills revenge, but he set the SU up so the engine sang, that car had a bench front seat a unique Australian 1100 feature, but Dieter and Wendy got nearly 7 years out of their $500 Morris with one $100 replacemet used engine not bad for car with a bad rep.
There were two ubiquitous car types when I was growing up in the 60s: the Company Car, bought and paid for by your employer, either as a simple status symbol or a salesman’s wheels, and the privately-bought car.
The former was epitomised by the Ford Cortina, with sundry Vauxhalls, Hillmans and (for the rising exec) Rovers and Triumphs, the latter by the ubiquitous ADO16, the “1100”.
Plenty of major roads in the UK were still single-carriageway at this time – eg most of the truck route from Southampton to Birmingham. You never got stuck behind a company car, as they were driven vigorously (regardless of the capability of car or driver), but boy, did we groan when we came up behind an 1100, which would be driven carefully, on the crest of the road (to discourage overtaking), well within the speed limit. They were popular, but despite the mildly-warmed MG, never a car for the enthusiast.
So it’s only later in life that I’ve come to appreciate their qualities. Another world-beater turned into a BMC/BLMC own-goal.
I’ve said it before, but the Autobianchi was not the first side-by-side front wheel drive car. The Trabant did it in 57. Engine on the right side, inline with the transmission on the driver side, and the enclosed differential set to the rear with unequal half shaft axles. The photo is of a Trabant with an electric motor in place of the engine that shows it pretty well.
Hi Matt,
do you have any more details on this? Sounds fascinating
I guess Issigonis can claim the first 4 cylinder transverse engine FWD configuration?
Wow, that’s incredible – I had always assumed the Trabant used a north-south layout because of its ties to DKW. I’m guessing pretty much everyone else outside of East Germany did as well, because the Primula is credited as being the first pretty much everywhere.
Now that I’m reading up on this, it seems as if the original Saab 92 (another DKW derivative) also used a side-by-side layout in 1949 prior to Saab going to a longitudinal mounting on subsequent models. Why is the Autobianchi always credited as being the first?
Interesting.. is it true to say that the Light 15 was the first volume production family saloon with FWD? (north/south layout)
Yes, it’s a well know fact that others used it earlier; Saab 92 back in 1949, for instance. What Roger left out was “four cylinder”; that’s the key issue here. A two cylinder two-stroke is a tiny and very short engine, and it was easy to mount the engine and transmission side-by-side.
There would not have been room for a side-by-side arrangement in the Mini, which rather forced the issue of a shorter approach (in the sump). Once it was developed for the Mini, BMC stuck with it, for better or for worse.
Most likely, a side-by-side arrangement would have fit in the ADO16; certainly in the larger BMC fwd cars. But you know how it is once a pattern is established with a manufacturer.
The Primula happened to be the first to use the side-by-side with a four cylinder. I don’t know if anyone had considered that before, but there weren’t a whole lot of new FWD cars coming on the market at that time. The French were committed to their old-school N-S layout, with the engine behind the axle line.Why DKW and Saab went to a N-S layout when they adopted triples is a good question, but they did. And Ford went with a N-S layout with their new M12/Cardinal; I suppose they could have pioneered the side-by-side if they’d thought of it.
While you’re right that they never put a 4 cylinder in a Trabant, the 2 stroke engine is not particularly short. People put modern Fiat 4 cylinder engines in without much problem. The Trabant is also a very small car at 59″ wide, so with a wider car it would be very easy to package any engine in this way.
I found a delicious red MG1100 last year in my post https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/car-show-classic/car-show-classics-curbside-in-cambridge-part-i-the-swapmeet/ It was new here in September 1964.
I mentioned on a previous Austin post, but these ADO16s were everywhere in NZ when I was growing up. With Dad being at the local BL dealer I probably saw more than my fair share of them. Despite that, I find them impossible to like. Definitely technologically interesting for the time, but ADO16 looked like meh. It wasn’t ugly, it just wasn’t anything. The Innocenti version isn’t much better, but at least it’s trying to say something. The Apache/Victoria are vast improvements, but still look like the rejected first prototype for the Triumph Dolomite.
And yet, and yet…we got all variants new here, including the Princess (last saw a Princess version a year ago), and it’s actually nice to see a few still around, reminding us of a time when motoring was different; when BMC was willing to take a risk; when BMC/BL et al was still alive. Regardless of how I feel about ADO16, I really enjoyed the write up Roger, thank you. 🙂
I remember these cars because Matchbox offered a bright green MG 1100, complete with a driver and a dog sitting in the back seat. The overall design has really held up well over the years, although I’d take the Morris version for its cleaner front styling.
Ive never really liked any of the BMC cars. I think the reason is that their origins lie in a period when British manufacturers produced the cars they felt the customer ought to drive. Rather than, as has been mentioned, finding out what the customers actually desired. BMCs products always seem rather patronising. Never big enough or fast or stylish or luxurious enough, very much at odds with our modern consumer culture, which says ‘you too can have this lifestyle’. I have a rather visceral reaction towards Issigonis because of this, not the kind of people I feel comfortable around.
…I think thats why the smaller, cheaper cars worked. The philosophy fitted the product. The larger cars were faliures because attempts at marketing a luxury product (especially the Austin 3 litre) were so obviously at odds with the nature of the nationalised company producing them. If the Landcrab and 3 Litre had been prettier and a better driving experience it would have helped but never made them big sellers.
Sorry I’m late once again, but I just wanted to say this is a really outstanding article and I enjoyed the hell out of reading it!!
I’m a sucker for all these BMC cars and without any context, I’d never have guessed they were viewed as pedestrian and boring rides for the majority of their production run. I wasn’t around when they were new (not that they were ever common in the US anyway) and I would have assumed that the shape and drivetrain/suspension were so remarkably different that it would have stayed fresh for several years even without significant updates. I guess you had to be there, but from the text and the comments, I can understand why a Cortina was seen as something more desirable than this – not that I would have felt the same way (although I do love the Cortina as well).
I guess I may not really have the best taste when it comes to British cars. I love this, I love the Landcrab and I love the Princess. I even kinda like the Allegro. Short overhangs and fastback/hatchback sedan styling rules. I know few people agree – well, most of us can probably agree that the Rover SD1 is a great looking car – but I really admire the chances BMC was willing to take on styling and their whole approach to what a practical car should be during the Issigoniss era.
I’m also very glad to see the MG in Eugene is getting fixed up!
I honestly think the Morris Marina summed up the totality of the British Leyland product of the time.. it was like a lumping together of all the bits and pieces of the worst aspects of the previous BMC motoring products.. the ‘1100’ had been designed with the village vicar and little old ladies of the church sewing group in mind (it wasn’t horrible to drive or anything but everything it did was ‘measured’ and ‘gradual’ ..it would have been impossible to rally a vehicle like that) ..the Mk 1 Cortina on the other hand seemed to have been designed with enthusiastic driving in mind, although this didn’t apply to the Mk 2, with the exceptional Mk 3 the Cortina was right back on track with a vengeance however with a truly potent for the time 2 litre OHC power plant under the hood and superb live rear axle handling characteristics…
Back to the Marina .. it was like the ‘1100’ on “anti-steroids” if there were ever such a thing possible … everything it did was now as if aimed for the ‘octogenarian and over’ motoring market segment.. now, even the ‘1100’ seemed darned nippy and good fun by comparison .. lol
So what was it that killed the joy in the ‘1100’??
The Mini was fantastic …just amazing fantastic fun to drive..
Well, I think you had to look at the hydrolastic suspension first of all ..as a sedate carriage it was fine ..but that was all it could do ….the rest of the car had to follow that limitation, and that was that
Perhaps an ‘1100’ on rubber donuts would have been interesting to try .. .. .. and with the 1275 GT engine .. perhaps it would have been VERY interesting
Never drove a Marina but it would superior to a 1100, being based on the Mini which I consider the most overrated car of the 20th century.
I kinda like the Allegro’s styling as well. Sort of like mating a Rover P6 (which I also like) with the ADO16. I’m in the minority on the SD1, don’t like it. It’s been said in these pages many times before, but if BLMC had taken up Pininfarina’s fastback sharpnose concept…
They took chances, just the wrong ones.
Dad had a new Allegro which was a lemon.badly painted with orange peel effect,leaky wind screen and radiator,oil leaks it also needed topping up with electricity,and splitting stitching on the seats made sure this was his first and last BL car.My sister refused to go to school in it,my brother declined the use of it as he had a Ford Anglia and a Triumph 350,I went to school in my boyfriends Mk2 Cortina with peeling silver paint.
My ex BIL had a Marina which was terminally rusted out at 5 years old.The sad thing about BL cars was that each one wasn’t as good as the replacement,the Allegro was worse than the 11/1300,the Marina worse than the Triumph Herald,the Metro worse than the Mini etc
I do have a disturbing interest in the Australian Leyland cars especially the 6 cylinder Marina and the P76 despite Bryce’s warnings!
You know BL Australia produced an interesting variant on the Rover 3.5 in the form of a rather nice all aluminium 4.4 litre V8 with dark blue rocker covers.. it has been made good use of in numerous jet boats and homebuilts over the years ..and seems to have been a darned good engine! 🙂
The Marina with an aluminium 2.6 litre OHC inline six sitting in there transversely under the hood made for an interesting sight actually …the ‘262’ ..zero to 100 kmph in under 10 seconds!! 🙂 A quickish Marina ..
Hi
are you sure this 6 was transverse in a Marina?
Roger, I apologise, brain fade…I was thinking of a distant memory of a ‘big land crab variant’ with this engine crammed in it sideways up front …from further distant memory it was physically the same OHC engine block but internally down-sized to 2.2 litres (was it a ‘Princess’ land crab version?)
But you are right the Marina was RWD and the engine would of course have been longitudinally mounted.. 🙂
There was a white 262 sitting in an Onehunga BL dealership back then ..no-one wanted it ..it sat there for many months ..brand new and having a 2.6 litre six in it appealed to me as stupid young hoon, but there was no way my father would buy it ..nothing on earth was going to persuade him to get that as a shopping basket for my mother who was driving an early Honda Civic (auto) at the time ..probably just as well .. ?? but it would have been great fun (I think) ..mm ..maybe not tho’ ..will never know
You’re probably thinking of the Austin/Morris Tasman/Kimberley Craig. 🙂 And yes, there was a 2200cc 6-cylinder Princess.
Aahhh …yes yes yes ! 🙂 lol
There’s two types of vehicle I like. A short list of those which I’d own, and a much much longer list of cars, trucks etc that I like the look of. I really like the look of the P76, but I’d never own one.
Other philosophy I have is that pretty much any vehicle can be made driveable, regardless of how it came out of the factory. Maybe it takes a little work, maybe it needs a lot. With that in mind, and knowing how hard it would be to pull the wool over your eyes, Gem, I’d say go for the P76. With Bon on the stereo, I’ll come for a spin.
Thanks but the P76 is a rare beast in the UK,I’ve never seen one in the metal.The P76 is a car I’d never own but interests me a lot.
You’d have loved the classic car show here in my town last weekend Gem, the P76 owners club was there en masse. Some very nice examples present. I’ll be posting an article on the show in the next few weeks, I promise a P76 photo or two for you!
Woohoo!
Thanks I’m a big fan of Aussie iron
The Innocenti 1100 looks so much more elegant than the original to my eye. A tidy up of the front end, some fine chrome detailing and vented wheels makes all the difference.
Were these produced in South America? Last year, I saw quite a few of these around Arequipa, Peru. According to an article in Automobile magazine from a few years back, there was local production of the Mini in Chile.
Great article, thanks. I was an expert (by necessity) in these cars when I was young. I had four Austin 1800s down under when I was young in the late 70s early 80s including a rare “ute”. Ah, memories of limping into the local Leyland dealer to be pumped up after I had replaced a suspension bag. They were cheap and I was poor but once you had driven one, you were hooked and after I while there was nothing I could not do on the side of a road if necessary, including replacing the CV joints. I bought the ute some years later as a hobby car just because I loved it. I still regret selling it later. They are as rare as rocking horse shit today. I used to do the 1000 km drive from Brisbane to Sydney in my 1800s non stop and that big long stroke 1800 engine would feel like it was barely spinning. And after that I had a Tasman and a Kimberly, the later model with the east-west 2.2 six on the same chassis. Nice to drive but by then they had become all plastic inside and lacked the charm of the earlier BMC cars.
I was an apprentice at Longbridge when the 1100 came out and as I remember it, Izzy was responsible for the Mini and Charlie Griffin did most of the work on the 1100.
Does anyone else remember?
Road & Track used to have the occasional “after the new wears off” article based on one owner’s experience with a particular car, told in the first person by the owner. At some point in the mid-60s there was such an article on an MG 1100 sedan owned by a guy in Los Angeles.
1964 MG 1100, purchased new by my father in 1964; traded in 1974 for an Opel GT (see Opel GT entry). Seat covers made by my mother.
I’m very late to the party but I saw the need to correct the article. There were a few MG 1275s sold in the US in 1967. 1275 twin -carb engine with manual transmissions. I’ve seen at least one at British cars shows. As I remember the story,it was rumored to be only three cars were sent over. One white,one blue and a red one. It could be that only three were sent to our local MG dealer.
About 1/2 the way down the comments, there’s a post from the likely new owner of the red car.
http://justbritish.com/mg1100/memories.htm
This Mystique hatchback conversion below is one missed opportunity for ADO16, another would be the necessity of it (and the 1800/2200 ADO17) featuring in-sump instead of end-on gearboxes as well as earlier 1300-1600cc engines.
Would have been great if ADO16 was basically a composite of the above together with the Morris Nomad, a Pininfarina Peugeot-inspired version of the Mitchelotti-styled Austin Apache / Victoria, Innocenti IM3 / I4 / I5 and unbuilt ADO22 (followed by Hydragas variants).
I presume that is the hatch from an MGB GT that they used. It looks nice, but cutting a big hole in the back takes away some of the rigidity from the shell.
Had BMC developed it themselves a Mystqiue-like ADO16 hatchback would probably be a similar case to the Marples Mini hatchback conversion where similar concern was expressed over rigidity (by Issigonis), with the Marples Mini conversion designer John Sheppard managing to improve upon the ordinary Mini’s structural rigidity and strength with the hatchback.
More likely BMC would have been concerned by potential resemblance with the MGB GT even if would have made sense for a production Mystique ADO16 hatchback to be sold in sportier MG form, with the more practical Nomad hatchback layout being used on other ADO16 variants.
” the greatest missed opportunity with the ADO16 was the lack of a hatchback. ”
Today we are once again having “hatchback-looking” FWD cars that are actually sedans. The more things change …
The Austin/Morris 1100 is one of my favourite cars of that era. These cars were everywhere in Britain in the 1960’s, and in my memory were driven harder and faster than almost everything else on the road at the time.
It’s sad that such a technically advanced and (IMO) very attractive amalgam British and European design did not translate into longterm (or even medium term) success for BMC. The considerable expenditure of energy to create so many somewhat silly badge-engineered versions of a truly modern and competent car suggests that BMC management didn’t fully recognize the gift they’d been given, and the need to run with it – fast.
It may be unkind, but to my eye those MG & Wolseley versions with their bizarre 1950’s front end transplants project the image of a company willfully ignoring the nature of the challenges coming up the road behind them, and choosing to stop for tea instead.
In the summer of 1972 I was walking around Boulder, Colorado, and I came to a garage with several British cars, including a couple of Austin Americas, in front of it. I was planning to buy a car in the next few months. The America wasn’t really on the shortlist, but in the spirit of leaving no stone unturned, I asked one of the mechanics if it was any good.
He said, “It’s a piece of shit. If someone gave you the car and threw in $100, you’d lose.”
I ended up getting a Fiat 128, which wasn’t so great either.
I see the ADO16 Wolseley shown has a NZ numberplate it must have come from the cohort I shot that at the local New World supermarket the found out it lived in my street, gone now its been sold but friends who have many Wolseleys have a pale green 1300 automatic example hidden in a shed.
I’ve often thought that the US-market MG 1100 “Sports Sedan” should’ve had a different grille that would fit in the standard Austin-Morris front sheetmetal; the pig snout to fit the neoclassic grille did the car’s styling no favors and wasn’t needed here for brand differentiation if it was the only nameplate sold.
Roger, I had to smile at your description of George Harriman as ’emollient’. From what I’ve read of him, I think the word you want is ‘ebullient’. ‘Emollient’ would be a very punny way of saying he was a slimy, greasy sort. A ‘dad joke’, as my daughter would say….
Joke aside, a great article on a fantastic car. We had two 1100s and a 1500 in my wider family at one time, and I was amazed at the room inside them. By the time I got to drive them, I found the 1500 motor gave the car the performance it needed, but what a shame Leyland Australia didn’t give it the Apache/Victoria front and rear. By 1970 a proper-looking sedan with the 1500’s performance and road manners would have been a winner – if somebody else had assembled it.
Wait…what?
Excellent write-up. I have a great deal of affection for these as I learned to drive on an MG 1100 which was in the family of most of its life from new. At 14 years old there were large rust holes in the sills with plenty of rust elsewhere and it had to go. The car in the video higher up the comments must have a mega-tuned engine. The standard 1100 and 1300 were great for low end torque (this is relative, obviously nothing like a V8) and fuel economy but hated revs. The transmission whined tremendously too, especially in second gear and this can be heard in the video. The comfortable cruising speed was 55mph. The gearbox was always reluctant to engage first gear and it soon became a habit to engage second gear, then ram it into first as it would slide in more easily.
It was a really spacious car and rode like a big luxury saloon. The Pininfarina design was quite pleasant and inoffensive. However it had the sex appeal of a dead wombat and depreciated like a stone, because of rust and expensive subfame mounting and hydrolastic repairs.
The 1300 with twin carbs went well and could be driven enthusiastically with relative safety as the back wheels just followed wherever you pointed the front ones, as we found out with my mate’s mum’s car. Note though, this was a mum’s car. A safe inoffensive car for people who live life on the mild side.