Manufactured from 1973 until 1983,
the Austin Allegro was actually manufactured by British
Leyland and sold under the Austin name.
It’s reach even penetrated
Italy, where it was manufactured under license by Innocenti
between 1974 and 1975 and sold as the Innocenti Regent.
Designed as a replacement for the wonderful Austin
1100/1300, the car promised much, but delivered little.
A victim of the ailing British car industry of the
time, much like the woeful Morris Marina, the Allegro
featured poor design, insipid performance, appalling build
quality, non existent re-sale value wrapped in a design
that not even a mother could love.
History tells us
that British Leyland were undergoing serious difficulty
at the time of the Allegro, mostly from within.
Rather
than create a car for the time, the decision was made
to stick with the “tried-and-true” design
from previous decades – but to most observers
it now seemed centuries old.
Volkswagen had released
the wonderful Golf, reliable, well built, modern, economical – pretty
much everything the Allegro wasn’t.
At a time
when the “hatch” had captured the hearts
and minds of the buying public, just why British Leyland
stuck with a “booted” design beggars belief,
but they did.
Speculation continues to this day as
to why such a self defeating strategy would be used,
the most favored view being that the company wanted
the Austin Maxi to have the “unique” selling
point of being the only Austin to feature a hatchback.
There
is no other way to describe that decision other than
plain stupid. The Allegro followed the front-wheel drive
configuration of the Austin 1100/1300, and used the now
familiar A-Series engine with sump-mounted transmission. The higher specification models used the SOHC E-Series
engine from the Maxi in either 1.5 or 1.8 litre iterations.
It had originally been proposed (by stylist Harris
Mann) that the design be afforded the same sleek
wedge shape of the Princess, however Management dictated
that the bulky E-Series engine be shoe-horned into
the car, along with the heating system from the Marina. The knock-on effect was to create a car that looked
bloated and tubby, although to British Leyland the
actual prettiness of the design, or rather lack of
it, was not an issue.
Rather, they felt the Citroen
approach of combining advanced technology with styling
that eschewed mainstream trends to create long-lasting
'timeless' models was a much better idea. The final
car bore little resemblance to Mann's original concept,
in that the Allegro was supposed to
be a re-skin of the 1100/1300. This appearance, as
well as British Leyland's faith in it as a model that
would help turn the company around, led to it earning
the early nickname of the "flying pig". The
car was offered in the usual range of British Leyland
colours; notably beige, brown and green.
There was
also an up-market version sold as the Vanden Plas 1500/1700
which featured a prominent grille at the front. To
distance itself from the Austin, the “Allegro” name
was not officially used. The early models also featured
a curious "quartic" steering
wheel — that is, nominally a rounded square.
This
was touted as a sales feature though its merits were
questionable, some felt that it was introduced because
insufficient room had been allowed between the driver's
legs and the base of the wheel. The 1975 the “Allegro
2” was launched, it obviously using the same
body-shell, but featuring a new grille and some interior
changes to increase front leg room. Changes were also
made to the suspension, engine mounts and drive shafts.
A 2-door “Estate” version was added to
the range, and the infamous "quartic" steering
wheel was also finally dropped.
Five years later, in
1980, the Series 3 was launched. Using an “A-Plus” version
of the A-Series engine that had been developed for
the Metro, the Series 3 featured a handful of
minor cosmetic alterations in an attempt to keep the
momentum going. It was all far too little, and far
too late. The Allegro was an out-dated design at launch,
and no “makeover” could make it more appealing.
Thankfully, the model was finally put out of it’s
misery in 1982, and not a moment too soon.
