The Full English: Austin Allegro

It must have been a moment of madness that resulted in my suggesting to my Hagerty editor that I write a column about the Austin Allegro. What on earth was I thinking of? Indeed, is there much more to add to the screeds of words produced on what is generally seen as a 52-year-old joke of British motor making?

This was a medium-sized family car code-named ADO67, which missed targets, hopes, and deadlines with the comic inefficiency of the home guard of Walmington-on-Sea depicted in the Dad’s Army sit-com. Dad’s Army was first broadcast in 1968, the year that chief executive engineer Harry Webster joined Leyland Motors (later BLMC) from Triumph. 

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On checking the plan chest, Webster, a talented engineer, found it empty. At Triumph, Webster had been responsible for the development of the Triumph TR series, the Herald/Vitesse, and Spitfire/GT6, and for bringing in Italian stylist Giovanni Michelotti to add vim to the cars. Webster was later awarded a CBE for his services to the motor industry. In other words, he knew his onions, and the moths that flew out of the BLMC product plan file as well as the history of cancelled models and stop-start-stop projects must have left him flabbergasted. 

This was five years before the 1973 launch of the Allegro and on the eve of the ’68 BMC/Leyland merger. But more importantly, it was six years after the 1962 launch of ADO16, which as the Austin 1100 and Morris 1100 had been world-beating best-sellers. Based on the front-drive A-series engine plans devised by Alec Issigonis for the Mini, in a 12-year production run, more than 2.1 million 1100s were sold. Over half of them were sold in the UK despite the little car’s propensity to recycle itself as rust within a few short years. Forget the wonders of Ford’s conservative rear-drive engineering in the Cortina, ADO16 was an amazing little jalopy sold with not just Austin and Morris badges, but also Riley, Vanden Plas, Wolseley, and MG on the front. 

My great grandmother Laura, a formidable driver and pretty handy mechanic, had one, and after her Rover P3, it must have seemed like a space shuttle, albeit one with a bouncy ride thanks to its Hydrolastic suspension. Her comment on the little car’s frugality was this: “The petrol gauge must be broken as it doesn’t appear to move at all.” 

So what on earth had been going on at Austin in the time it should have been getting on with an 1100 replacement? Certainly, there was a planned facelift, ADO22, devised under the leadership of Roy Haynes, who was newly hired out of Ford and working out of the studio at Pressed Steel Fisher in Cowley. There was even an Antipodean design with a full tailgate, YDO9, which was going to be a Morris 1500 and Nomad. As ace Rover watcher Keith Adams puts it in ARonline: “It is entirely reasonable to assume that a combination of the ADO22 and YDO9 design could have kept the basic ADO16 at the top of the sales charts with minimal outlay.” 

And at the same time, it could have got on with a full replacement for the Mini and ADO16, which under Haynes’s plan would have shared a floorpan. 

Events, however, changed all that and BMC was hit hard by the first post-World War Two monetary crisis, which resulted in a credit crunch as governments restricted the interest rates that banks and building societies could offer to lenders. BMC posted a £7.5 million loss in the first six months of 1967, and in 1968 Harold Wilson’s new Labour Government, heavily influenced by newspapers and pundits, helped sponsor a merger between what had been renamed to British Motor Holdings and Leyland Motor Corporation. 

An ageing car lineup, parlous industrial relations, competing dealer networks, clashing management visions (and in cases some pretty lacklustre management overall), and a few truly mad decisions marked out the merger. ADO22 was scrapped as Leyland’s stretched resources worked on the Marina, the fleet answer to Ford’s Cortina Mark II. The irony here is that when the 1.3 version of ADO16 was launched in 1968, it knocked the Cortina out of the sales park. 

And slowly in tobacco-stained drawing offices, the Allegro took shape. Inspired by a sleek drawing from Harris Mann, the talented stylist poached from Ford in 1968, the Allegro when it appeared looked a lot different. 

Speaking to Martin Buckley for The Daily Telegraph in 2015, the then-70-year-old Mann recalled: “Looking at what they [BMC] were making, it seemed a godsend of an opportunity, because there was so much to sort out.” 

Under Donald Stokes’ master plan while Morris would be a fleet car maker to compete with Ford, Austin would be a technology and design leader. Stokes told the dealer body as much in 1968, but wow, they took their time. And even then, the sharing of components stymied Mann’s sleek design, with bulky engine-over-transmission layouts and oversized shared heaters raising the bonnet height. 

“The heater made the scuttle higher, then when the twin-carb engine went in it made the thing sky high,” Stokes said. “As time went on it was getting loaded with all kinds of safety requirements that the 1100/1300 had never had to deal with. And then they wanted to make it more luxurious looking, with big, fat seats that robbed the knee room.” 

Turns out the infamous Quartic steering wheel was engineering’s way of giving a clear view of the instruments while allowing more leg room in those fat seats. 

Yet when you see an Allegro on the road today (rarely, I will admit), it is compact, just 3861mm long, 1600mm wide, and 1397mm high, on a wheelbase of 2438mm. All of which give it quite pleasing proportions as well as nifty agility on today’s roads, where massive SUVs of about twice the size bully everything else. 

A-series engines, first launched in 1951 in the A30 saloon, formed the backbone of the range, in 1.0-, 1.1-, and 1.3-litre displacement, with four-speed gearboxes. The other option was the overhead-camshaft E-series in 1.5- and 1.7-litre displacement, with optional five-speed transmissions. Both power units, however, had gearboxes under the engine which forced up the bonnet lines. 

Autocar magazine’s test of the three-door 1.3-litre Super model wasn’t entirely complimentary, with comments about the snatchy and baulking gear change as well as the pitch and dive of the Hydragas rubber-and-fluid suspension, but the testers thought the PVC-upholstered seats were comfortable and cornering was roll free. The verdict was that the Allegro was a step on from the 1300 and would sell well.

Bill Boddy at Motor Sport magazine tested the 100mph 1750 HL model in 1975, concluding: “I feel that it stands up well against comparisons with Continental and Japanese products and that those wanting a quietly-appointed, very accelerative four-door package might well invest in this Allegro HL, which will cost you a matter of £1,881.”

But the buying public preferred the brash space of the Cortina, or Giugiaro’s folded-paper design for the VW Golf, which hid some very ordinary components. 

Prelaunch dealer brochures for the Allegro billed it as “a new driving force from Austin,” but that proved to be hubris in the purest form. Just 642,350 were made during its decade-long production life, which was far short of the plan. Even worse, most were sold in the home markets rather than what was hoped to be appreciative world markets.

In the UK, the Allegro bobbed around between seventh and fourth in the sales charts throughout the 1970s. The 1975 Allegro 2 answered a number of the niggling faults of the original. The 1979 Allegro 3 was a pretty good car, well built with decent reliability, but it was too little too late. British Leyland had collapsed in 1975, and the company was nationalised, renamed the Rover Group in 1986 and sold to British Aerospace in 1988. The Allegro became a source of national car-making shame, unfairly carrying the blame for a lot of things gone wrong which it could have had no effect on. 

I was at school when the Allegro was launched and did several driving lessons in a late Allegro 3 model. I can attest to the baulking gear change, scourge of nervous hill starts and three-point turns, but otherwise it was easy to drive, the seats were comfortable, and it was a good-looking little car for the time. 

Though they didn’t rust too badly, the stressed inner front wings, subframe-based suspension, and poor heater draining meant many have since succumbed. If you fancy a dip into Allegro ownership, pick the best you can afford, as spares, particularly body panels and trim, are rare as spectacles for donkeys. 

At the time of writing there’s a pristine-looking Vanden Plas 1500 model on sale at a dealer in Nottingham at £8,500. Rather a lot, but a classic nevertheless.