The BMC 1800 'Landcrab' is Flawed Genius

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I don’t need to tell you lot that I  love an underdog, and today on Twin-Cam,   we have an underdog that absolutely should  have been a world beater. No doubt about it.   In the 1960s, BMC had the world at their feet.  They’d just pioneered a revolution in family car   design, but because of stubbornness  and a lack of market understanding,   the third piece in their puzzle  collapsed straight to the ground.  This is a Wolseley 18/85, a version of the  car affectionately known as the Landcrab. BMC, or the British Motor Corporation,  was the result of a merger between the two   traditional British motoring giants –  Austin and Morris – in 1952. The two   manufacturers brought with them  a variety of marques and models,   but through that decade, the models,  at least, were slowly rationalised.   And as the end of the decade neared, the need for  an all-new range of family cars became apparent. A single genius was put in charge of these  three projects, a man now synonymous with some   of the best cars Britain has ever produced – Alec  Issigonis. The first and smallest of these was ADO   15, and this became the most influential car in  history – the Austin and Morris Mini. The second   was ADO 16, and this one sat in the small family  car market, using the same concept as the Mini,   but with a bit more room, four doors,  and a gorgeous Pininfarina-styled body.   This car became known as the Austin and Morris  1100, and in terms of sales, this one was the   barnstormer. The Mini may have been iconic, but  the 1100 was the best-selling car in Britain   for every single year that it  was in full series production. Our brilliant pair were launched in 1959 and 1962,   respectively, but our new mid-sized  Austin for the ‘60s came along in ’64.   But before we get to the car itself,  let’s get a little bit of context and see   exactly where the Landcrab came from. But before  we do, a little message from this video’s sponsor. Three years now I’ve been doing this video-making  lark, and the maddening thing about it all is my   own change of perception in what I do. So at the  beginning, I was looking up towards people that   are doing wonderful things with this platform,  and it’s the gift that some creators have in   engaging and entertaining an audience, as well as  videography itself that I looked to learn from. And 36 months on, there are people that are  messaging me, asking for hints, tips, and   advice on doing a similar thing. And it’s amazing  that people find me semi-competent enough to ask   as part of their own story towards indulging  their inner nerd. But nobody knows everything.   We’re all sharing our knowledge and experience  with others, enabling each other to expand our   horizons and do something we love.  So I’ve teamed up with Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with  thousands of online classes and members across   150 countries, everyone coming together  to find inspiration, learn new skills,   and take the next step in their creative  journey. For example, I’ve finally started   exploring the art of photography. But outside of  my professional setting, Skillshare offer courses   across all kinds of fields, including drawing,  something I’ve always wanted to dabble in,   but now, thanks to Gabrielle Brickley’s  ‘Learn to Draw’, I’m on that journey,   and you could be too, with whatever you  have an interest in. But Skillshare isn’t   just about creating, but also building and  thriving. Finding your identity and growing. There are new classes launched every week,  so there’s always something new to discover,   and to start your journey, simply follow  the link in the description below,   where only the first 1000 people to join will be  treated to a one-month free trial of Skillshare. With that out of the way, we can  work our way back to the late 1950s,   when the Mini was in development, but the  Landcrab, ADO 17, was still some years off. BMC   had a working relationship with Pininfarina,  who had been employed to style a fair few of   the company’s cars – central of which were a  range of saloons that, for obvious reasons,   became known as the Farina saloons.  These were all largely the same car,   but with subtle differences to suit each BMC  marque. The two mainstream saloons were the   Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford, but these  were complemented by the sporting MG Magnette   and luxurious Wolseley 15/ and 16/60, as well as  the top-end Riley 4/Sixty Eight and 4/Seventy Two. Yes. It was a badge engineering  mess. But that’s BMC for you. The Farina saloons may have looked great, but  underneath were a set of very simple mechanicals.   A simple overhead valve four-cylinder engine,  driving the rear wheels, suspended on a set of   leaf springs. Now, that may have suited  some other manufacturers perfectly well,   but BMC wanted to modernise, so they shunned  decades of experience in favour of an all-new   car from the ground up, directly borrowing  its concept from the brilliant little Mini. Now I’m sure we all know the story of the Mini,  and if you'd like to see my video on it, then I'll   put a card up in the corner, but for now, here’s  a whistlestop tour of what made it so special. It was all about packaging – to get as  much interior room from teeny tiny external   dimensions – and Issigonis achieved this by  turning the engine through 90 degrees, mounting it   transversely, and driving the front wheels. Now,  neither of these things were new, a transverse   engine or front-wheel drive, but they’d never  been executed with such finesse by a mainstream   manufacturer. And by the 1980s, virtually every  family car was copying this basic concept. It was clear to virtually everyone at  BMC that this layout was the future,   so it was very natural for all three  new cars to use this transverse layout,   but while the Mini and 1100 used  the famous little Austin A-Series,   such a small power unit wouldn't cut the  mustard wben it came to the Landcrab. We’ll come back to this engine in a moment, but  for now, even as a principle, this point put   the Landcrab decades ahead of the competition.  But a transverse engine wasn’t the only key to   Issigonis’ packaging genius, as like the Mini and  1100 before it, the Landcrab shunned traditional   suspension systems, whether that be ancient  cart springs or even new-fangled struts,   because keeping these wheels on the ground is  Dr. Alex Moulton’s incredible Hydrolastic system. Taking its influence from Citroen’s  Hydropneumatics, Hydrolastic shuns traditional   springs in favour of four displacers, featuring  rubber springs and pressurised with a fluid,   linked through pipes front-to-back on each side,   but independently side-to-side. And  it’s designed to combine brilliant,   floaty comfort with surprising resistance  to roll and incredible handling as well. But unlike Citroen’s system, BMC’s rubber  and fluid suspension was simple and reliable,   and when slung underneath the  Landcrab, it was nothing short   of magnificent. To say the Landcrab was  ahead of its time would be an insult,   because compared to its contemporaries, barring  the Citroen DS, these things were spaceships. Before we actually get to the real driving,  I wanted to just put this little clip in,   because this is of me driving the Landcrab  down an incredibly rutted farm track. 2 or 3,   4 mph in first gear. Really slow, trying to  avoid all the massive potholes. But can you   see any evidence of that? I didn't think so.  Hydrolastic just dampens it all out perfectly. I have no idea how Hydrolastic suspension   did not become the norm because it is genius. It's  a very simple system. It's a very reliable system.   It's a very compact system as well, hence  why it went in the Mini and the 1100. But the whole car just bounces and glides and  it doesn't damp out the bumps especially well.   You can feel everything. But it glides over them.  There are no sharp hits of any bump. Everything   is very controlled and relaxed  and slightly wallowy, yes,   but that's all in the character of it  and it just suits it so very very well. This isn't a car that scoots along the road or  rides just slightly above the road, hovering   over it. Instead, it lollops down the road very  merrily, just going about its own business being   slightly bouncy but very, very comfortable.  In fact, scratch that. Impeccably comfortable.   This car is one of the comfiest cars I've ever  been in. Every single modern car manufacturer   could learn a hell of a lot from driving  one of these because it is just joyous. To just cruise about it it's such a relaxing  driving experience, and a few weeks ago on   Twin-Cam, I drove an R8 generation Rover 200. And  that car was so capable that I said that I don't   think cars have come as far in the past 30 years  as you might think they've done. But I've got news   for you. Because I don't think cars have come  anywhere near as far as you think they've done   in the past 60 years. Because this car is just  exceptional. It is so comfortable. It just glides. Who knew that ride quality  could be so entertaining? You can see from the camera, because you can  see on all of my videos where I drive the cars   there's a little bit of bounce in them. But I'm  sure in this one you can't see a thing because   it's so floaty and smooth and just a joy to  pedal about. I love Hydrolastic. I love it. So in addition to the suspension saving space  when compared to leaves or struts, Hydrolastic   also allowed a ride that waves over the road  surface. But we aren’t done with the packaging,   because the stance of the car plays a big  part in ensuring a practical interior,   with each road wheel moved as far into  each corner of the car as possible,   increasing the size of the doors, and  increasing physical passenger room. So let's stop faffing about talking about it  and actually look at what it gives us - starting   at the back - because it makes sense that way.  The boot. It's a saloon car from the 1960s - so   that's kind of what you're gonna get.  But it does have quite a low load lip   and that boot goes back a really long way.  It's not absolutely humongous by any stretch   of the imagination but that is far bigger  boot than you get on any equivalent car. But here's where things actually get dramatic.  Because this car is small. It looks big. People   think it's big. People thought it was big back  in the day. But it's actually quite short,   it's just the wheelbase is very long and the roof  line is quite low, so it kind of tricks you a bit   into thinking it's a big car, when actually  it isn't. But when you actually sit inside it,   you realize that there's a reason it doesn't have  to be that big. Because I have a huge amount of   room back here. Like ridiculous amount of room.  And despite it being a relatively low car,   I've got a little bit of headroom as well, and  these seats are incredibly comfortable. You just   sink into them. I've got an armrest here,  I've got an ashtray because it's the 1960s,   and I've got this brilliant view out as well,  and not just because there's no head restraints   on the front seats, but because the doors are so  huge and you sit very far back in the car. You   sit in line with this pillar really, so you  get a great sideways view out - and also... ...they've not been opened in quite some time,   but there are little pop-out  quarter windows in the back as well. So it just feels airy. It feels like a luxury  limousine back here. It feels like I should be   chauffeured about the place, meeting  dignitaries and stuff like that. It just feels   very very excessive in a very elegant way.  Excessive in terms of space. Fabulous thing. And in the front, things get even better, because  we're blessed with just as much space as we do in   the back. In fact, it's a proper reach down to  get to any of the controls, and we'll get back   to that point in a bit, but the interior just  feels so spacious. I cannot emphasize enough   just how well Issigonis and his team managed to  engineer in space to this car. It's absolutely   phenomenal. People always look at the Mini  and think it's an absolute packaging marvel,   and it is, taking nothing away from it, but just  having that little bit more room just- this is too   much. There's so much space. You just do not need  this kind of room in a family car. It's excessive. But the Landcrab didn’t just blatantly reuse  the engineering already in place for the Mini   and 1100, because as with Hydrolastic, they kept  moving the game on just a little bit. And with the   advent of a bigger engine, the weaknesses  of the in-sump gearbox could be addressed   by strengthening everything up, improving  lubrication, and moving the gearbox back,   relative to the engine, making this car’s  gearbox much more bulletproof than the one   in the A-Series. And additionally, it pioneered  the use of cables to operate the gear change,   something now seen as universal. But  even more work went on with the chassis. One of Issigonis’ dreams was to build a car  so strong that it didn’t need any subframes   to mount the engine and suspension, but with  the Mini and 1100, they ran out of time,   so for the Landcrab, it was engineered with this  in mind right from the start. So this engine   bolts directly to the monocoque of the car,   and the suspension units are mounted horizontally,  within this tube mounted to the bulkhead. As a result, these things are tremendously  rigid and rather over-engineered, but this   paid dividends in terms of refinement and made the  Landcrab become an unlikely favourite in rallying. So now we do have to come to performance. Because  of course the Mini, which this car is- I was going   to say based on. It wasn't based on but the  Mini - it lent its philosophy to the Landcrab.   And the Mini is a phenomenal car to drive.  It handles supremely. There is nothing that   drives quite like a Mini, and that's why it was so  successful as a racing car, but in the Landcrab it   does have little bits of that Mini philosophy  in it. But unlike a Mini that's very bouncy,   very raw, rorty in its character - it's attitude -  the Mini is a car full of attitude. This is a car   full of character in a much more serene manner. So  it doesn't have the dartiness of the Mini at all.   Not an ounce of it. But what it does have  is brilliant road holding. This car feels so   precise and exact to drive. I have no inclinations  in this car to go and throw it round some bend   somewhere. Instead i want to just guide  it and then it will do the work for me.   The Mini is raw and it's like a bit of a terrier.  You want to grab hold of it and and really show it   who's boss and throw it around some corners.  Whereas with the Landcrab, you're working   with the car and you're very gently guiding  it towards its destination. It is magnificent. Thanks to the power steering  in this one, the steering   does feel suitably dead. But  then again I am doing that   and there is still a fair amount of movement. It's  just that the suspension is so soft and cosseting   that you don't really notice it, but I'm sure that  if I go and chuck this car around a bend - not   that I'm going to because it's not mine. It is  an antique - then it would respond magnificently.   And thanks to the wheel being at each corner and  a little bit because of the Hydrolastic and the   rack and pinion steering, it feels very agile  too. It doesn't drive like a barge. It feels   like a barge to sit in and it feels like a barge  to ride in because of the brilliant ride quality,   but it to steer it doesn't. To steer, it  still has, despite the power steering,   a bit of dartiness to it. A bit of an ability  to get you out of a really tricky situation.   And I will say that having a massively  oversized wheel like this - completely   unnecessary because there's power steering,  so why didn't they put a smaller wheel on it? So far in this video, all we’ve  heard is good. The Landcrab   is fantastically engineered  and is incredibly practical.   So did it follow on from its little sisters and  become a runaway success? No. Of course it didn’t. I’m sure a lot of you will already have  clocked the main issue – the styling.   It's not everybody’s idea of a good-looking  car. The stance is just ungainly. It's not an   elegant-looking car. It's not a rakish-looking  car either. It's just kind of a bit blobby. But there's a very good reason for that, and  it's actually again the Issigonis philosophy,   because with the Mini and 1100, one of the ways in  which they majored on practicality was by shoving   the wheels right into each corner of the car. And  on a small car, that works fine. It's a small car.   But when you translate that over to a big saloon  car, the proportions just completely fall apart. But the Landcrab isn't just a relatively long  car, but it's also a relatively wide car,   and it's this ungainly stance that gave the  car that nickname, and so synonymous it’s   become with the car that even the owners club is  called the Landcrab Owners Club International. So here’s where we need to  address the badge engineering,   because much like the Farinas, the  Landcrab came in multiple flavours.   The first to launch was the Austin 1800, followed  by the Morris 1800 in ‘66, which was much the same   car just with different badges. But in 1967,  this Wolseley 18/85 came on to the market.   As the posh, upstanding member of the ADO 17  range, the Wolseley has its traditional grille and   light-up badge, as well as a full wood dashboard,  traditional instruments, and leather seating. And in terms of the styling, I think this  particular spec in this shade of grey   shows the best of the Landcrab’s shape. Because  this one seems stately and not too awkward in   its dimensions like an Austin or Morris in  a brighter colour. Because there are some   fine details, like the subtle fins at each side  of the boot, the lip at the back of the roof,   the flowing side repeaters, the  inset, chrome-rimmed headlamps,   and the sculpted bonnet with its  intake scoop for the cabin ventilation. But it's when we work our way out that it becomes  awkward. Because the centre section is far too   long, relative to the bonnet and boot. It’s  unbalanced. The front windows, for example,   are far smaller than the rears for seemingly  no reason. And the angle of the rear glass   accentuates its truncated style. But it’s not  as though BMC couldn’t have done anything,   as later in the decade, Pininfarina built a  concept that was a reclothing of the Landcrab   in an ultra-modern, aerodynamic style.  It bears a shocking resemblance to the   Citroen CX that was still nearly a decade  away at the time. But it was never to be. But speaking of Pininfarina, they had a hand  in this shape. Issigonis and his team dictated   the centre section of the car, but the front  and rear ends were tidied up by the Italians,   not that they improved much. The sheer width  of the car made it look like a monster,   and the comically large, smiling grilles of the  Austin and Morris gave it a pained expression. So the styling didn’t do it many favours,  especially considering how good the Mini   and 1100 looked, but this wasn’t the  primary reason for this car's failure.   Because in the UK, it’s this market segment  that traditionally was the most competitive,   so manufacturers had to make sure that their cars  were laser-focused on meeting their buyer's needs. The car people usually associate with  success here is the Ford Cortina,   which came onto the market in 1962, when the  Farinas were still BMC’s mainstream offering.   The Cortina took Britain by storm, becoming  the default family car for millions,   dominating this market segment all  the way through to the early 1980s. And in comparison, I’d forgive you for thinking  that the Cortina was in the class below the   Landcrab. Because it looks petite and very  carefully considered in its proportions and   dimensions. Plus, it was available as  a two-door, a four-door, and an estate,   while the Landcrab was only ever a four-door  saloon. But don’t let perception trick you. The   Mk1 Cortina was actually longer than the Landcrab.  It just wasn’t anywhere near as well engineered. But in actual fact, the Landcrab was shorter  than the Farinas. But thanks to Issigonis,   its wheelbase was six inches longer, and  although we’ve mentioned that throwing off   the proportions, but it did quite a lot more when  it came to people’s perception of the Landcrab.   Because a lot of people saw this car's wheelbase  and practicality and thought it was too big for   them. That it was outside of their intended market  segment, even if, in reality, it's really quite   compact. And here’s where we come back to the  engine, because BMC weren’t helping themselves. One step up from the A-Series was the B-Series,  and this conventional but tough overhead valve   lump had already been used in BMC cars for years,  and in 1600cc form, this was the same powerplant   that found a home in the Farinas. But in 1962,  an 1800cc variant was engineered for the MG B,   and when the Landcrab came around, BMC decided  the new car deserved a bump up to 1.8-litres. But it seems that nobody did any market  research, as only 5% of cars sold in 1960   had an engine around that size, and the  Cortina had a range of power units, from   1200 to 1600cc. And in that range was where I’d  estimate that a third of 1960’s sales belonged.   So in one fell swoop, BMC had pushed the Landcrab  up into a no man’s land in the British car market.   Below the executives and above the family cars. But looking inwards for a moment, the  B-Series was available here with either   single or twin SU carburettors, in this standard  form or sporting ‘S’ form, producing either 85 or   95 bhp, giving the Landcrab a decent turn  of pace, despite its heavy kerb weight. Now I've never driven a car  with the B-Series engine before,   and of course it's in loads of BMC and BL  cars, and everything through to the Marina   even, had the B-Series, all the way back  through the '50s, and so there are stacks   of stacks of cars with this engine, most famously  the MG B. But this one is exceptionally smooth.   You just can't hear it. It's just like turbine  in front of me just powering us forward,   and with the 85 bhp of this in quite a light car  (relative to modern cars) it really motors along. It's really really easy just to gain speed in  this. The throttle pedal is very light and so   you just very effortlessly just ease a little more  power on and at any speed it really comes alive,   because it's an old-fashioned overhead valve  engine, and it means it's very torquey. And so with this four-speed gearbox, you don't  even need to change gears all that often,   because it just rides on this wave of torque  that just brings you up to your nice respectable   cruising speed. Because the Landcrab isn't a  car for all-out performance and high speed.   It's for sitting at 65-70 mph and cruising very  merrily. And this engine. It's just so smooth.   Whispery quiet. And in fact, most of the noise  you can hear from it is actually from the fan,   because of course this, being an early  BMC front-drive car, the engine radiator   is on the side. It has a belt-driven fan. And so  most of the noise is fan noise, not engine noise. But if the 1.8-litre B was a misstep, then  worse was to come, as in 1972 they doubled   down on their misguidedness by launching  the Austin and Morris 2200 and Wolseley Six,   featuring a variant of the overhead cam E-Series  straight-six. Making it a phenomenally rare   example of a transverse six and a car even  more removed from its original target market. But we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that  perception and the market were at fault for   the Landcrab’s failures. First of all, it  had its fair share of mechanical maladies,   all of which were solved, but  when the car was launched,   they couldn’t even calibrate the dipstick  correctly. And as with all Issigonis cars,   it had some design oversights, and in this  case, they all show themselves inside. Now this excessive space wasn't originally met  with excessive luxury, because in the Austin   versions and the Morris versions of the Landcrab,  Issigonis did his thing that he did with the Mini   and more importantly the 1100, because  the dashboard of these cars was incredibly   spartan. You just had a huge shelf and you had  a little strip speedometer in front of you.   Nothing else. Issigonis was a big big fan  of minimalism, and in this case it was a bit   too much. It suited the Mini and 1100 very well  because they were small cars. They were cars of   the people. But the Landcrab is still very much  in the Issigonis mould, but it's not a people's   car. It's a family car for people that are at  least relatively well off in the 1960s, and so   they expected a certain level of luxury that in  the Austins and Morrises they just didn't get.   But don't let that take away from what we  actually see here, because just things like the   door bins - just like the mini it's got enormous  door bins to the side, but this car, of course,   has wind-up windows as well, so it's posher than  a Mini. And we get fresh air ventilation and all   the heater controls are very neatly integrated  to the bottom of the dashboard. You've just got   everything written on the lower dash rail. These  little tiny switches below. But here come the   issues, because I'm sat here driving the car, and  it's a very commanding driving position, but it is   like a Mini so the steering column is straight, it  comes with a slight angle and it's very horizontal   really and you have to sit on top of the steering  wheel rather than in front of it. And in this kind   of era, seat belts were not compulsory, but  they were starting to become fitted to cars   and I think it was '65 they became compulsory  to fit but I'm not 100% sure, so this car   does have seat belts, but being from this era,  they're fixed belts. There's no inertia reel here,   and so when you've got this seat belt on, you're  locked back in your seat. And so if I'm driving   here and I want to use the indicator, that's  great. I've got my little indicator stalk with   the flashy light on the end of it - very BMC -  and all is well. My gear lever is there to hand.   Again, it feels like a big car. You want to extend  your arms out to use everything in it. The door   handle is there, the window winder absolutely  fine, the handbrake even is just there - this   umbrella-style handbrake lever. But if I want  to turn the lights on? If I want to use the   windscreen wipers? If I want to use the ashtray?  Or I want to adjust any of the heater controls? Just about. You've got to have a lot  of leeway given in your seat belt, and   then it kind of stops functioning. So to  adjust these heater controls down here,   the pure size of the car is getting in the way  of the basic ergonomics. Because it's so big   you've got to reach down. The ignition key  is all the way over there. I think that one   is wipers, that one's light, I think. Not 100%  sure. But everything is just so far away from   me. It's excessive. And here starts to show  up that excess is not always a good thing. So the quick version of that is that the  Landcrab’s interior, though very clever,   is an ergonomic nightmare. It’s just difficult  to use. And in an Austin or Morris, it feels   low rent too. It’s almost as if the  factory forgot to fit the dashboard.   It’s astonishingly unsuitable for a big family  car, and that made it undesirable. People   wanted an interior that looked chic and gave them  trinkets to play with. But BMC gave them nothing. But, you might be thinking, what about the  Wolseley? Well, it does have a proper dashboard   while retaining the shelves below, but there’s  still no sight of something like a rev counter.   Because a Wolseley is not a sporting car,  and the Landcrab doesn’t suit that anyway.   But the Cortina did. The majority of people like  a car that looks sporting over one that’s well   engineered, because at the end of the day,  it is all about perception. And with nothing   to wow people in the dealerships, nobody was  going to buy one. The Landcrab only averaged   40,000 annual sales, a heck of a long way  behind the projected 200,000 per year. BMC were so scared, in fact, that they  kept building the Farinas through most   of the Landcrab’s production run, and in  1969, 30,000 Farinas were built by BMC,   while only 20,000 Landcrabs  crawled out of the factories. And in this era, we weren’t just being bitten by  the chic Cortina, but also the compact executive,   in the form of the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000,  two cars that this Wolseley very easily could   have competed with, and the Six definitely  did. But it didn’t have anything to attract   that kind of buyer. Not the styling. Not  the interior. And certainly not the badge. It’s madness. This car had every potential  to be a world beater. But its design team   took their hands off the wheel for just  a bit too long and ended up with a car   completely unfocused on any market segment.  If only it had a shorter wheelbase,   a smarter appearance, a smarter interior,  a smaller engine, and a lower asking price,   history would have been very  different. There’s no doubt about that. And at the end of it all, everything has to  come down to price. The Landcrab’s surface   specification doesn’t overly matter, because  trinkets don’t cost much, but engineering   certainly does. We’ve already seen  the engine pushing the Landcrab   up into no-man’s land, but sit down for this one. Because according to my Motorists’ Guide for  July 1968, a brand-new Mk2 Ford Cortina 1600 GT   would have set you back £965. But a basic Austin  1800 was up at £999. And for the average motorist,   walking into a showroom, I’ll let you  guess what they’d drive away in. And   if you wanted the luxuries of a Wolseley,  that would be 1082 of your finest Sterling. The Mini and 1100 weren’t just hits, but they  were generational talents. And the Landcrab is   a brilliant car too. There’s no doubting  that. But everyone knows the issues that   BMC and later British Leyland faced. And this  car is the beginning of that design confusion.   Despite being 1965’s Car of the Year,  people weren’t sure what it was,   and people certainly weren’t attracted to it. And  the story was repeated again in 1968 with the huge   Austin 3-Litre, then again in ‘69 with the smaller  Maxi. And those two cars matter here because,   for the sake of saving money, they used the  same doors as the Landcrab. So even today,   nearly sixty years after this car’s launch, people  still confuse it with two different BMC cars. And that’s how they remember the Landcrab.  As a confusing and undesirable car. But in   the midst of that, it's the one of the  three that Issigonis always maintained   he was most proud of. The Mini  sold over five million units,   and the 1100 was the best-selling car in  Britain for years and years and years,   but he still maintained that this was the best  car that he designed. And as a piece of history,   I think we should see it in the same way. As a  genius piece of engineering with a set of flaws   that encapsulate the man that designed it. And on  that note thank you very much for watching. If you   enjoyed the video, then please do click like  and subscribe to Twin-Cam as well. I'm forever   indebted to my wonderful Patreon supporters,  so if you'd like to support me that way,   then please do follow the link in the description.  And I'll have more videos coming along soon.
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Channel: Twin-Cam
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Keywords: Cars, Autos, Motor, Twin-Cam, Twin Cam, Vehicle, Vehicles, Motoring, BMC, British Leyland, Austin, Morris, Austin 1800, Austin 2200, Morris 1800, Morris 2200, Wolseley, Wolseley 18/85, Wolseley Six, Austin Landcrab, Morris Landcrab, Wolseley Landcrab, BMC Landcrab, Landcrab, Classic Car, Retro Car, 1960s, Ford Cortina, ADO 17, ADO 16, Classic Mini, Austin Mini, Alec Issigonis, Citroen, Hydrolastic, Morris 1100, Austin 1100, Morris Mini, Rover Mini, Citroen DS, British Car
Id: IyEkWdTSJX4
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Length: 37min 50sec (2270 seconds)
Published: Sat Aug 13 2022
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