Marina

Launched in the UK 50 years ago today....

 

My first trip to the NRM was in the back of an 'authentic two door coupé'…

It's encouraging that advertising industry bovine ordure was just as prevalent back then as it is now.

Simon

 

Do you think it was possibile to sue under the Trades Description Act??..

 

My Aunt and Uncle had a couple of Marinas which were much better thanks the Viva they had previously. I bought the first one from them and it had a lot of issues. One was that a circlip in the gearbox broke, which made 2rd and 3rd gears nearly impossible to engage. I drove from Kent to Leeds and back using just 1st and 4th for most of the time.

Sent from my SM-A105FN using Tapatalk

 

Surely its false representation to call an BL Marina a car, I had one, Many, many years ago, and if that wasn't bad enough, i even had an ITAL, and that was just as bad, i only got the marina because it was cheap, and I needed a car, In my defence, i was a broke foolish 20 something year old, In the 3 years i had the car, i must have replaced every working part

 

Perhaps that's where you were going wrong…?

Simon

 

Certainly my 1.8l Marina coupe was pretty rubbish, but then I did only pay £200 for it. Main major issue seemed to be the poor alignment of the gearbox to engine, resulting in bearing issues with the gearbox input shaft, certainly both mine, and a friends saloon version had repeated issues with that bearing. Only had it 2 years and was glad to see the back of it.

 

I learnt to drive on a 1.3L Coupe, rolled like a ship in a rough sea.

Dad bought it for my brothers & I to learn to drive on.

The Family Car - which my mother learnt to drive on was always some sort of large saloon - Ford Corsair, Austin 1800 & Princess. This though was nippy and Mum didnt have to worry about bending it. As she put it, if she got home a second earlier it was an extra second to get the dinner prepared in. First time he was in it with her as a passenger, my youngest brother, about 15 at the time, came home looking as though he had stared death in the face - I think the sonic boom she had created took out the windows on the Gloucester Road as she headed home from the shops.

 

Ah yes, the Marina of blessed memory.

My first company car was a Lincoln Green DL, which meant it had carpets (wow) but no radio! The narrow tyres lasted about 2000 miles.
En-route to a customer (Cummins Engines at Daventry)on the M6 , there was a loud "clunk" from underneath, but it was still running so I pressed on.
On returning to the car following my business meeting there was no response when trying to start it. A glance underneath revealed the starter motor hanging by the cable. Presumably the bolts had dropped out on the motorway! Fortunately the car park was on a slope so I got away with a rolling start.

Next up was a brand new Ital 1.3L and the first trip was to (of all places) BL Cars at Cowley. Progress down the Warwick bypass induced a vigorous shaking from the back. Investigation revealed that the off-side rear wheel was loose and obviously had not been tightened properly before delivery. Opening the boot I found that the jack bag with the required wheel brace wasn't there, but in compensation the factory had gifted me a handful of spare bumper bolts! The situation was saved by flagging down a Marina driver and borrowing his jack and brace.

I tried really hard to like BL' s cars, not least because they were a valued customer, but my next car was a Vauxhall Cavalier - faultless. Some time later BL refused entry of other manufacturer's cars into the factory grounds with the veiled threat of moving the business elsewhere, so I moved back with two consecutive MG Montego's. I won't bore you with all the problems but they were a good concept poorly executed and badly built.

The nearest they ever came to a really good car (with oversight from BMW) was the Rover 75, but by the time I had one BMW had given up, and mine was a victim of Longbridge's "Project Drive", aimed at reducing costs. This resulted in "penny pinching" to a ridiculous extent. As an example, some bright spark deleted the plastic covers for the rear lights inside the boot and extended the boot lining instead. I discovered this when I needed to change a bulb and had to pull most of the liner out to gain access.