The Allegro was supposed to be a fresh start
for Austin after being starved of resources in the 1960s. It replaced the highly successful Austin/Morris
1100 and 1300, and was a well-funded project to take on the might of Ford in the UK, and
European car manufacturers on the continent. So, why was the Allegro nicknamed “All Aggro”
by some, and the “flying pig” by others? This is the Austin Allegro Story. (music) Sir Alec Issigonis had been lauded for the
Mini, and his follow-up, the larger Austin/Morris 1100 was also warmly received when it launched
in 1962. Sales took off, and it soon became the best-selling
car in prosperous 1960s Britain. This, along with the successful Mini, should
have meant owner British Motor Corporation should be successful, but management blunders
meant the company was actually losing money, despite launching the more popular 1300 version
in 1967. It would all end in 1968 when the company
was forced to sell to Leyland Motors, forming the amalgamated British Leyland. Leyland were keen to capitalise on the 1100
and 1300’s success but were shocked to find that after 6 years in production, no work
had been done on a replacement. Work had begun on a restyle of the existing
car, codenamed ADO22. Along with the updated looks, the team was
simplifying manufacturing – essential for a company who’s costs were too high. But even this was only in the early stages. Austin was fitting the new E-Series engine
from the upcoming Austin Maxi, with a goal of selling it in the Australian market, where
larger engines were king. This car would eventually appear down under
as the Morris 1500, and eventually as the practical hatchbacked Morris Nomad. But these updates were small changes. Leyland probably correctly realised the mass-market
1100 and 1300 needed a complete update for the 1970s to compete with the American onslaught
of the new Escort and Cortina, so work began on project ADO67. And rather than Austin and Morris sharing
essentially the same car, Morris would have its own model – the hastily assembled Marina. The first decision to be made on Austin’s
new mid-size car was the shape. 4 or 5 designs were shown to British Leyland
management including this one from Paul Hughes, but they immediately gravitated to Harris
Mann’s swooping design. Gone were the fussy fins at the back that
didn’t add any practical value, to be replaced with a simpler, wedge-shaped look similar
to the Princess, also designed by Harris Mann. The car looked like it was a hatchback, but
maybe because the Morris Nomad had gone down in Australia like a warm beer on a summers’
day, the team chose to make it a saloon. There was also a desire to have the Austin
Maxi as the only hatchback to help funnel sales to this car. With the 70s being dominated by hatchbacks,
but Brits preferring saloons, we’ll never know if this was the right choice or not! The style wasn’t meant to be fashionable,
in that it wasn’t designed to follow the fashion of the day. This was to be a timeless classic that took
some of the 1100 and 1300’s popular shape and modernised it. The underpinnings would be largely the same
as the front wheel drive 1100 and 1300, which was seen as one of the car’s best attributes. But improvements could still be made. Even before Leyland’s takeover, work had
begun on improving the cars Citroën-inspired Hydrolastic suspension that was getting beaten
by its conventionally-suspended competition. The previous system had used rubber to cushion
the ride. The new Hydragas system would ride on compressed
nitrogen. Like the previous system, front and rear displacer
units were linked with fluid, so when a front wheel hit a bump, fluid moved to the rear
and lowered the rear wheel, lifting the rear of the car and minimising pitch associated
with the bump. <British Leyland documentary>
“In road holding, in resistance to rolling and pitching and in ironing out the roughest surfaces,
Hydragas is superlative, and throughout its development, nothing was left to chance.” It was an elegant system designed by Britain’s
boffins, and the new simpler Hydragas system had the potential to perform even better than
the old system. ADO67 would use the familiar A-series engine
from the previous car. Some might think this was a little long in
the tooth – it had first appeared on the 1951 Austin A30, but British Leyland would
go on to prove there was plenty of life left in it when it was used to great effect almost
a decade later in the Austin Metro. It would be joined with the new, larger E-series
engine from the upcoming Austin Maxi that also -allowed it to have a 5-speed gearbox. This would give the new car a fully-rounded
range of engines. But the original Harris Mann shape wasn’t
designed to incorporate such a large engine – something Mann should have anticipated,
especially as it had been shoe-horned into the previous car as the Antipodean Morris
1500. This, and the bulky heating system from the
upcoming Morris Marina ballooned the bonnet and shrank the windscreen. The team also felt the car needed a bigger
boot, and all these changes gave the car a “pregnant” look, especially with the small
wheels that made the body look like an oversize suit. Harris Mann would go on to describe the final
design as “disappointing”. Fellow designer Roy Haynes had been hired
away from Ford in 1967 after designing the successful mk2 Ford Cortina. He pushed British Leyland to do what Ford
was doing – take a chassis from a family car and reclothe it as a sports car. Ford would do that to great effect with the
Capri, and to BL’s credit they made mock-ups of sporty versions of the Marina, Maxi and
Allegro, but from the looks of the designs, it’s probably best these weren’t offered
to customers! David Bache was Rover’s star designer, who
created the P5, the P6 and helped refine the Range Rover. He would go on to create the gorgeous SD1. But every designer has at least one skeleton
in their closet, and his was the quartic steering wheel. He’d designed it for the Rover P8 that never
came to be, and so proposed it for the upcoming Austin, now called the Allegro. The reasoning for such a strange shape went
thus. Drivers preferred a smaller steering wheel,
but larger wheels were needed before power steering was common. By cutting off the corners, the driver could
use the edges when turning the wheel at low speeds, but by squaring the circle it would
be easier to see the instruments and would allow the driver to get in and out more easily. Plus, it fed into Austin’s reputation of
pushing the boundaries with cutting edge features. Surely the Allegro was a trend setter, and
in ten years’ time every car would have quartic steering wheel? As the 1973 launch neared, British Leyland
offered the press a sneak peak, allowing them to suggest changes before the car launched. BL were probably expecting small refinements
to be suggested, but the changes proposed were larger, and more worrying, such as getting
rid of that weird square steering wheel, or even changing the car’s shape! The fact that BL didn’t act on the suggestions,
at least before launch, created anger that the press weren’t being listened to, which meant
the whole media schmoozing campaign backfired. <rock music> There was great optimism when the new Austin
Allegro was launched in 1973. 10,000 cars were readied for immediate sale,
and BL claimed the first two years of production had already been sold. But the marketing glitz could only last so
long, and as soon as motoring journalists got their hands on it, they weren’t kind. They didn’t like the styling, which got
the nickname as the “flying pig”, and the public gave the fashionable brown version
an even ruder name! The Allegro’s doppelganger, the Alfa Romeo
Alfasud, released one year earlier, showed maybe how the Allegro’s shape could have
been done, although to achieve this Alfa had designed a custom low-profile engine to keep
the bonnet line low. Suspension was supposed to have been improved,
but reviewers couldn’t see much of a change. These were early days for the Hydragas system
and the team clearly didn’t get it right, but the system had potential – it was used
to great effect in the mid-90s for the MGF roadster. Journalists were also non-plussed about the
larger E-Series engines. The gearbox wasn’t anything to write home
about – one reviewer likened it to “stirring a bag of marbles with a knitting needle”. The 1750 SS model in particular should have
had much more poke, but compared to the competition it was slow. To make matters worse, the new car was slower
than the outgoing car, and more expensive. Although the Allegro was longer, rear legroom
was no better. Teething problems when it launched meant the
boot let in water, wheels would fall off because of the design of the wheel bearing, and it
was banned from the Mersey tunnel because it couldn’t be towed without the car supposedly
bending in the middle. Some of these problems were of course exaggerations,
and the real problems would be solved, but the damage to the Allegro’s reputation had
been done. BL had hoped it would compete with Ford’s
Cortina, but the Cortina mk3 had grown, so it was more logical to compare it to the Escort. It held its own in performance tests, but
the Escort would get an updated shape a year later that the Allegro would have a hard time
competing with. With the UK entering the Common Market the
year the Allegro launched, there were hopes BL could take market share abroad. It would have a tough time though, going up
against new rivals such as the Renault 5 and Volkswagen’s new Golf. The Allegro was sold in many countries, but
they already had a foothold in Italy that they hoped to capitalise on. The Italian company Innocenti had made much
of its money in the 1960s building rebadged Austin’s. By 1972 British Leyland had purchased the
company, which of course meant there would be an Innocenti version of the Allegro. But it wouldn’t use the Allegro name, despite
Allegro being Italian for happy or cheerful, as the word could also mean “drunk”, so
the Allegro would be known in Italy as the “Regent”. It was launched with this bizarre advert,
but it couldn’t hold a candle to Italy’s own Alfasud. Sales were even worse than in the UK, with
just over 11,000 produced before the plug was pulled after only 18 months. Ever since 1964 the Austin/Morris 1100 had
been sold as a luxury “Vanden Plas” model. BL hoped to take the Allegro upmarket with
the new Vanden Plas 1500 Automatic, an Allegro with a big nose! “Listen, I’m only telling the truth, you
have got a very big nose.” Oddly, BL didn’t install the larger 1750
engine for more power and refinement. They may have been concerned about fuel consumption
figures after the 1973 oil shock. The car was aimed firmly at the retired executive
who was looking to trade down from a Jaguar, and who could afford the price that was almost
double that of a basic Allegro! As maybe a sign of the sub-par fit and finish
on the regular Austin Allegro, the Vanden Plas team gave the body a once-over: <TV Journalist>
“then the whole thing is given very rigorous checking. Here for instance they’re checking the doors,
to make sure the doors really do fit!” Like the previous car, it would get leather
seats, wall-to-wall carpet and a burr walnut dashboard. Gone was the quartic steering wheel though. The whole car was filled with sound deadening
felt to ensure a quiet ride for occupants. In the rear, trays made of walnut on the rear
seats were maybe more useful for picnicking, because it wasn’t likely anyone was going
to be chauffeured around in this car! Normally, the amount of strike action from
British Leyland workers would cause major supply issues for a new car. There weren’t any such problems for the
Allegro, because the demand simply wasn’t there. Austin’s 1969 Maxi had poor sales, and the
Allegro seemed to be following its lead. This wasn’t part of the game plan. The Allegro was supposed to knock Ford off
their perch, but the Cortina and Escort were number 1 and 2 sellers in the UK sales charts. As early as April 1974 BL started trimming
the Allegro range from 12 models to 9. In 1975 BL shuttered their 2-year-old painting
factory in Longbridge due to lack of demand. If detractors didn’t like the shape of the Allegro,
they weren’t going to like the Allegro Estate! Like Alfa Romeo’s Alfasud Estate that would
be launched around the same time, this offered vast amounts of space, but no rear doors which
made rear access difficult. Unfortunately, the rear suspension wasn’t
beefed up sufficiently, so a heavy load would lead to a car with the front sticking up in
the air. Despite the Allegro now getting the supposedly
inferior Morris Marina round steering wheel, customers could still see the instruments,
and get in and out without a problem. Maybe as a sign of the confusion at British
Leyland that would lead to its bankruptcy in 1975, just over 3 months after the Allegro Estate
launched, the mk2 Allegro and Allegro Estate launched. So, if you’d bought a brand-new Allegro
Estate, just three months later it was out of date! Assembly of Allegro kits had started in New
Zealand, and a similar thing also happened there. The rushed launch of the update was all to
try to reverse failing sales, but it all seemed a little chaotic. The interior was updated, along with more
rear leg room, and the equipment levels improved. That wayward Hydragas suspension was tamed
– somewhat, and the brakes were updated. What didn’t change was the outside styling
– a bankrupt BL had no money for such extravagances. But with all the changes it was still a car
that didn’t really do any one thing well, it was all rather mediocre. And that wasn’t going to allow it to compete
against increasingly well-made competition from abroad. It was Ford that continued to dominate the
British car sales, and by 1978 even the new Fiesta was outselling the Allegro. By 1976 BL was in talks with trade unions
to switch Allegro production from Longbridge in the UK to their factory in Belgium, that
was already assembling the Allegro from knock-down kits. The reason was to free up UK capacity for
a Mini replacement. But the Mini replacement was cancelled, and
it would be 4 years until the Austin Metro arrived, so Allegro production soldiered on
in the UK. BL tried to put some GTI zing into the Allegro
range with the 1.7L Equipe in 1978. Alloy wheels and “Starsky and Hutch” style
stripes on this 3-door special version of the 1750HL made the Allegro look like it was
going through a mid-life crisis, but it did get to 60 in 10 seconds. Not many of these special-order only versions
were ever put on the road, but today they’re quite a collector's item. The last update appeared in 1979 as the “Allegro
3”. With no money for this unloved model, there
was no major styling update, the main changes outside were larger wrap-around bumpers, wheel
covers, a front airdam, new grille and quad headlamps on some models. The Allegro would get to try out the improved
A-Series engine that would appear on the upcoming Metro, its main benefit being slightly improved
fuel economy. Inside, the steering wheel and dashboard got
an update, but it would be hard going against an updated mk3 Ford Escort, and the new Vauxhall
Astra / Opel Kadett, both of which were hatchbacks that the public now craved. It was all too little, too late. British Leyland was marking time until they
could launch the Allegro’s replacement, the Austin Maestro. Sales would take a further hit when BL launched
the Honda Ballade-based Triumph Acclaim in 1981. The Austin Metro launched in 1980 and this
meant that the Mini Clubman ended production. The Allegro was now the only car using the
1.1L version of the A-Series engine, so BL quietly replaced the Allegro’s 1.1L for a 1.0L. Production of the Allegro ended in 1982 after
selling 667,000 cars. The Allegro had been a big disappointment
for British Leyland, and a poor showing compared to the 1100 and 1300 it had replaced. It was even outsold by BL’s own 1959 Mini! It would take 12 months until dealers could
stock its replacement, the Austin Maestro, and when it arrived it also failed to set
the world on fire. The Allegro was a clean sheet design, given
the funding to become the class-leading mainstream car for the 1970s, taking the baton from the
strong-selling Austin 1100 and 1300. Designing an underperforming successor showed
that British Leyland wasn’t up to task, and the Allegro seemed to be a car that epitomised
the British car industry. This, and the Morris Marina were supposed
to be Cortina-killers, but by the time they launched the Cortina had grown to a size the
British public wanted, and BL was left scrapping with the Escort, and losing. But the “timeless” looks of the Allegro
stand out and bring a smile on the rare occasion you might see one of the few left on the road
today. There was a fair bit of “British Leyland”
bashing in the early 1970s, and the Allegro’s quartic steering wheel came in for particular
criticism. But it wasn’t the first carmaker to introduce
a wheel like this - American cars had used them in the 1960s, and it wouldn’t be the
last –Aston Martin did something similar on the Vanquish in 2012 without an outcry
from the British motoring press!
