When I become president...

[Alex]

I like this one: “Celebrity owned”.

A sense of mistery and anticipation. Followed by 1/2 hour of googling someone nobody even heard of in the last 3000 years.

 

[st13phil]

I had the misfortune of owning one from new , for six months , after which I had had enough of weekly trips to the dealer and comparing notes with other disgruntled owners .

In the early 1970's my father worked as a fitter for an Austin-Morris Main Agent (remember them?) and had to try to sort out some of the myriad of problems that accompanied every new Allegro.

While dealing with yet another complaining customer with a litany of faults, Peter the Sales Manager asked, "So, to be clear, you've been using the car?"

"Yes", came the customer's response, "of course I have"

"Well", said Peter, "there's the problem!"

Said customer didn't see the funny side...

 

[Scott_F]

There is an owners club

Advocating for the Austin Allegro since 1990. | Allegro Club International

I had the misfortune of owning one from new , for six months , after which I had had enough of weekly trips to the dealer and comparing notes with other disgruntled owners . After six months I'd had enough and managed to trade it for a one year old Audi 100GL , which was a brilliant car and it remained in the family for about 15 years .

Unsurprisingly , DVLA sheds no light on the fate of WLS 422R , a certain Astral Blue Allegro 1500 Special , though I remain uncertain what was special about it .

You made the mistake of going for a 1500 model with the E-Series engine from the Austin Maxi. A better bet would have been an 1100 or 1300 model with the ancient (even by the mid-70s) A-Series engine carried over directly from the Allegro's highly-successful predecessor which was a much more robust unit.

 

[kid-jensen]

Yes, my Mum had one, and it was down to me to fix it on several occasions.

I was always amazed at the amount of effort the designers went to to get exceptional access around the engine/gearbox...almost as if they knew you would appreciate their efforts in the coming years....

Then there was the rear hub/brake problem. They were designed to come off in one lump, and when refitting, you tightened up the single nut whilst spinning the wheel till it siezed, then back-off half a turn. Problem was, nobody told the dealers, who just "did it up tight".
They normally failed couple of months after that, sometimes with the whole hub/brake/wheel falling off!

 

[markjay]

My friend's mother bought a brand new Allegro in the seventies after owning a Mini Clubman for many years. She very quickly realised that Austin (part of BL by then) are not what they used to be and was looking to get rid of it, by a stroke of luck my friend crashed it and that was the end of it - I think they had it for around a year from when she bought it to when he wrote it off.

PS - forgot to mention that the handling was questionable and the steering vague, and there were various trim bits falling off - I remember the internal door handle coming off, and that's on a brand new car.

 

[Ted]

I worked on them in a BL garage from 1979 - 1982.

Highlights I remember
Sports wheels on one side of a car and standard on the other
Two temperature gauges on one car - no fuel gauge.
They had an innovative flat wiring harness. Unfortunately a large number of them had the rear seatbelt mounting bolt screwed through the harness to the rear.
To be fair, the Allegro equipe wasn’t bad at all (except for the stupid sticker), and the Allegro 3 was quite good for the price and the time.

 

[Scott_F]

PS - forgot to mention that the handling was questionable and the steering vague, and there were various trim bits falling off - I remember the internal door handle coming off, and that's on a brand new car.

The Allegro's handling was actually very good thanks to its Hydragas suspension and fwd set-up and was light years ahead of the Mark 1 /Mark 2 Ford Escort and HC Viva which were amongst its major competitors. The build quality is a different matter of course.....

To be fair, the Allegro equipe wasn’t bad at all (except for the stupid sticker), and the Allegro 3 was quite good for the price and the time.

The Equipe was rather let down (literally) by its porous alloy wheels which would cause all four tyres to go flat overnight !

 

[markjay]

The Allegro's handling was actually very good thanks to its Hydragas suspension and fwd set-up and was light years ahead of the Mark 1 /Mark 2 Ford Escort and HC Viva which were amongst its major competitors. The build quality is a different matter of course.....

You may be right, I was mostly a passenger i.e. I don't think I ever drove the car myself, these were his mother's complaints at the time, though keeping in mind that she had a Mini beforehand (did they not have rubber blocks instead of hydraulic dampers....?) that view may have been somewhat subjective.

 

[219]

You made the mistake of going for a 1500 model with the E-Series engine from the Austin Maxi. A better bet would have been an 1100 or 1300 model with the ancient (even by the mid-70s) A-Series engine carried over directly from the Allegro's highly-successful predecessor which was a much more robust unit.

in fairness , the only engine issue I had was the plastic oil filler cap disintegrating and allowing oil to be sprayed all over the engine compartment . The 1500 engine went well enough and returned something like 40 mpg , from memory . I had wanted one of the very last , numbered edition Beetles ( the local dealer had one with the plate on the dash stating it was no 98 out of the last 100 official UK ones , special edition in Silver ) but my dad insisted on buying me that 'thing' because it was going to be better on petrol . That Beetle sure would be worth a few bob now .

I remember getting the car home from the dealers to find that one fog lamp had fallen out ( the wires were still there ) and one sidelight didn't work, but looking through the glass the light unit was half full of rusty water - at this point the car had seven miles on the odometer !

It has been some 40 odd years , but I remember both hydragas units at the back letting go on different occasions , numerous electrical problems , lights not working etc , the back seat , which had hardly been sat in , collapsing when my mother got in , the speedometer stopping from working ( replaced reducing the mileage back to zero ) , the back part of the exhaust fell off , a windscreen wiper flew off on the motorway ( thankfully the passenger side one so I could still see ) ... there was a new fault almost every week and I really can't remember them all .

After six months I'd had enough and I managed to swap for a year old Audi for very little money - the All Aggro was still the current registration and only something like 3K on the odometer ( thanks to it having been swapped , I might have neglected to mention that to the VW dealer I traded it in to ) , while the Audi was the previous year and had something like 12K on it . The Audi was a brilliant car which we took round the clock , each of my sisters in turn had it after me and was only sold on at about 15 years old when rust was starting to take hold .

 

[johnsco]

My favourite used to be:
"NEEDS SLIGHT ATTENTION"
In other words ... It's a ****ing heap.

Another good one I came across when buying an elderly car ...
In the discussion, I asked (as you do) - How long is the MOT ?
The answer I got was "Oh - THE MOT's run out, but it will pass easily".
I told him - Get 12 months MOT on it, and I'll buy it.

 

[Scott_F]

I remember getting the car home from the dealers to find that one fog lamp had fallen out ( the wires were still there ) and one sidelight didn't work, but looking through the glass the light unit was half full of rusty water - at this point the car had seven miles on the odometer !

It has been some 40 odd years , but I remember both hydragas units at the back letting go on different occasions , numerous electrical problems , lights not working etc , the back seat , which had hardly been sat in , collapsing when my mother got in , the speedometer stopping from working ( replaced reducing the mileage back to zero ) , the back part of the exhaust fell off , a windscreen wiper flew off on the motorway ( thankfully the passenger side one so I could still see ) ...

But apart from that it was OK ??

 

[DrNick]

"Many happy hours of travel free trouble"

 

[219]

But apart from that it was OK ??

 

[219]

This was my Audi , loved that car ...

most would say brown , but it was Tissian Red , after the hair colour of the Rheinmadchens







For some reason , I have no photos of the All-Aggro

 

[Scott_F]

This was my Audi , loved that car ...

most would say brown , but it was Tissian Red , after the hair colour of the Rheinmadchens.

It looks different colours in different pictures.

 

[Bellow]

You may be right, I was mostly a passenger i.e. I don't think I ever drove the car myself, these were his mother's complaints at the time, though keeping in mind that she had a Mini beforehand ( did they not have rubber blocks instead of hydraulic dampers....?) that view may have been somewhat subjective.

Rubber springs, conventional hydraulic dampers.

 

[219]

It looks different colours in different pictures.

Yes , I know - film & scanning

3rd pic probably most accurate from memory

 

[artyman]

When I become president I shall ban people from shooting videos with their smartphone in the vertical position......

 

[kid-jensen]

Minis started out with Alex Moulton designed rubber suspension, which gave them excellent handling and the notoriously spine-crushing ride. Conventional springs were tried in the early development, but the rubber units took up less room.
Due to constant complaints about the ride (even in the days when we had passable road surfaces) hydrolastic suspension (derived from the Morris 1100) was fitted for a while and during that time was the only period when the Mini had an acceptable ride quality.
BMC went back to solid rubber units eventually, the official reason was to improve handling, but the real reason was the cost of the units and the royalties paid to the designer made the Mini (more ) unprofitable.

Having driven both, I found the slight reduction in outright handling was well worth it for the massive improvement in ride...

The BMW mini is a much more thoroughly designed car, but it's sure no mini, and seems to have missed the point of the original.