I own a mini and a volvo 740 I know which one is more fun to drive and it ain’t the volvo.
Although the mini is useless when a sofa needs moving
kr79:
Who all Make fwd cars now
Having all agreed not to compete with each other with rwd. 
In a modern car with all the electronic gizmos and state of the art suspension systems can any average driver, i.e. the mass market buying public, really tell the difference between a fwd and rwd car?
No doubt something to do with the Germans Margaret Thatcher and Harold wilson
gingerfold:
In a modern car with all the electronic gizmos and state of the art suspension systems can any average driver, i.e. the mass market buying public, really tell the difference between a fwd and rwd car?
No and I remember my mum telling me when buying her first car it was a toss up between a ■■■■■■ and an allegro and she chose the escorts because it was blue and the allegro was browm
kr79:
I own a mini and a volvo 740 I know which one is more fun to drive and it ain’t the volvo.
Although the mini is useless when a sofa needs moving
To be fair the Zafira Tourer is ok for shifting stuff and is more than quick enough to lose a licence and handles fine in a world of speed cameras and PC.As for the Volvo the old 140/240 series was better as proved by their competition record.
gingerfold:
In a modern car with all the electronic gizmos and state of the art suspension systems can any average driver, i.e. the mass market buying public, really tell the difference between a fwd and rwd car?
The less than a year old Zafira can still torque steer and understeer and wheelspin like a zb when given the sort of throttle input entering a busy roundabout for example.That the old 1970’s BMW 3.0Si or my present 6 litre V12 manual 1980’s Jag wouldn’t even notice.
gingerfold:
In a modern car with all the electronic gizmos and state of the art suspension systems can any average driver, i.e. the mass market buying public, really tell the difference between a fwd and rwd car?
Agreed, and, as the vast majority of car owners no longer do their own maintenance on their vehicles, the ease of access for repairs isn’t really an issue either. Some of my neighbours don’t even check their oil or tyre pressures any longer, they just book it into the garage. The garages I worked in only charged ‘book time/price’ for servicing etc and if it took longer it didn’t cost the customer any more money as the garage stood the extra time/cost.
Pete.
kr79:
That’s the thing they had the ideas but they thought it was acceptable for customers to do the fault finding.
I don’t think they were that cynical. I think the fault was ignorance- they just did not anticipate the complexity of the challenges ahead of them. The firms had formerly prospered by employing unqualified people as engineers, because those people knew the job, IE they knew how it had always been done. They floundered when things changed. Those front wheel drive cars (and V8 lorry engines, and solutions to the problems of increasing power outputs in car and lorries) demanded staff who had a strong grounding in engineering theory. Leyland were too late to realise that. I do not think they deliberately set out to fleece their customers, because the outcome of that would have been easy to predict.
As I’ve said the idea of the Marina being all about fleet sales’ is just part of the same bs as the idea that BMC’s fwd designs were viable either in the fleet market or anywhere else.The fact is Issigonis zb’d up big time and Stokes should have at least forced the end of all further fwd development and production and used the money saved to develop the cars that the Marina and SD1 should have been at the time when it could have made the difference.
[/quote]
Again quoting from your own link the director of sales,the bizarrely named,Filmer Paradise when asked why the marina was not fwd said “It’s our job to give the fleet operators what they wanted NOT to tell them what they wanted”. As for them saving the wasted money to develop other cars they actually made £9 million profit in 71/72 so someone was buying their cars.
I’m actually going to agree with a couple of your points stokes was made into a bit of a scapegoat but wasn’t entirely blameless for what went wrong.
Also they didn’t make much,if any,profit from the mini and the 1100 wasn’t priced much better but was huge export success at one time over 40% of them were exported,not forgetting they were also assembled abroad,Australia and Italy among others,so they did make some money.
Your idea that they should have developed the marina with McPherson struts etc was a no go they just didn’t have the money why do you think in later years you got truck manufacturers sharing cabs,f7 volvos cab of four and SA/Daf 95,it’s so expensive to develop new tooling production lines from scratch.
Your argument that I can’t compare the mk1/mk2 cortina with the marina why not what’s the difference between bl using 50’s technology till the 80’s or Ford using 60’s technology till the 90’s besides you say the best bit of the marina was the b series engine which was designed in 1952.
Your saying Issigonis was behind the failure of bl cos they concentrated on his fwd design instead of the,in your opinion,superior rwd range would that be the Issigonis who retired in 1971.
carryfast,
if rear wheel drive was so good,how come the fiesta and mk3 ■■■■■■ were front wheel drive?
I seem to remember ford did rather well indeed with those models despite (or because of) being front wheel drive…
my mate had a mk1 ■■■■■■ 1300 and it handled terribly-my 1275 mini would ■■■■ all over it on a twisty road-and if it was wet then forget even trying to keep up with the mini!!!
Also when the rwd sierra was launched the fwd vauxhall cavalier stole a lot of sales from motorists and fleets replacing there cortinas mainly due to its at the time radical styling and there been no saloon option and fleets had overcome there resistance to rwd no doubt down to costs although it was the now accepted norm of gearbox on the end set up and that era vauxhall were very simple to repair.
I had a mark 2 astra van that was a great little runaround
Never had any problems with any of these,owned by me from new. Also had a MK2 Cortina and a MK3.
Dave the Renegade:
Never had any problems with any of these,owned by me from new. Also had a MK2 Cortina and a MK3.
Hi Dave, I liked the Cavalier I had L reg with 1.7 diesel, had over 100k when I bought it and I never showed it any mercy,underated and cheaper than a sierra at the time,cheers Pete
Hi Pete,
I had a 3rd Cavalier on an M plate. All the Vauxhalls were new 2.0i petrol and went very well. The K plate did 132,000 while I had it, and the others did good mileage. I had an A35 van, then an Anglia 105E before having Cortina’s followed by the Escorts which were new. Since then I’ve had two transits and the two Mercs. Done a million miles in my own vehicles, besides what I did in other peoples.
Cheers Dave.
dazcapri:
Again quoting from your own link the director of sales,the bizarrely named,Filmer Paradise when asked why the marina was not fwd said “It’s our job to give the fleet operators what they wanted NOT to tell them what they wanted”. As for them saving the wasted money to develop other cars they actually made £9 million profit in 71/72 so someone was buying their cars.
I’m actually going to agree with a couple of your points stokes was made into a bit of a scapegoat but wasn’t entirely blameless for what went wrong.
Also they didn’t make much,if any,profit from the mini and the 1100 wasn’t priced much better but was huge export success at one time over 40% of them were exported,not forgetting they were also assembled abroad,Australia and Italy among others,so they did make some money.
Your idea that they should have developed the marina with McPherson struts etc was a no go they just didn’t have the money why do you think in later years you got truck manufacturers sharing cabs,f7 volvos cab of four and SA/Daf 95,it’s so expensive to develop new tooling production lines from scratch.
Your argument that I can’t compare the mk1/mk2 cortina with the marina why not what’s the difference between bl using 50’s technology till the 80’s or Ford using 60’s technology till the 90’s besides you say the best bit of the marina was the b series engine which was designed in 1952.
Your saying Issigonis was behind the failure of bl cos they concentrated on his fwd design instead of the,in your opinion,superior rwd range would that be the Issigonis who retired in 1971.
On what premise in the day are you basing the idea that what the fleet customers wanted,in regard to the argument between fwd v rwd,was any different to what the general customer base was calling for.Especially in the used/nearly new market mostly based on easier maintenance and resale values.
As for the age of the Marina’s Morris Minor based design it’s more a case of ‘what’ it was not ‘how old’ it was.Thereby creating those limits on inferior transmission fit and at least front and preferably also rear suspension design.On that note unlike those aspects the 1.8 B series engine at least was obviously a case of a major upgrade on the original Minor’s design just as a McPherson front and hopefully even also better rear,suspension would/should have been.
Which leaves the obvious question ‘if’ the Marina project was all about a specific solution to meet fleet customer demands in the case of BMC,how do you explain the need for Triumph to ‘also’ have go to all the aggro of having to re engineer the 1300 and 1500 saloons from fwd to rwd ?.
As for Issigonis does it matter when he retired.As opposed to the issue being Leyland Group being lumbered with his fwd designs in 1968 and further in house arguments,between its supporters v Stokes,regarding the best place to put Leyland’s future investment regards fwd or rwd,in the day.
As for the Cortina.It obviously wasn’t Ford that was lumbered with having to make large scale panic re engineering reactions to a customer base calling for rwd products with its small to mid car range effectively being lumbered with Issigonis’ type commercially suicidal ( in the day ) ideas regarding car design.As I said Leyland having an open goal in this case ‘if’ it had just put more effort and investment into the Marina instead of bothering with the Maxi and the Allegro.
andrew.s:
carryfast,
if rear wheel drive was so good,how come the fiesta and mk3 ■■■■■■ were front wheel drive?
I seem to remember ford did rather well indeed with those models despite (or because of) being front wheel drive…
my mate had a mk1 ■■■■■■ 1300 and it handled terribly-my 1275 mini would ■■■■ all over it on a twisty road-and if it was wet then forget even trying to keep up with the mini!!!
As I said at that point all the volume manufacturers were agreeing with each other not to compete with rwd v fwd in that market sector anyway.
As for a bog standard 1300 ■■■■■■ v a Mini 1275 I’m guessing you didn’t meet many RS 2000 's let alone twin cams.
While it wasn’t just a matter of ultimate nutter zb hooning on public roads 
it was the whole spectrum from easier maintenance to easier to flog.
On that note if you’re saying you’d prefer to work on the Mini than the ■■■■■■ in the day great that’s your choice. 
Carryfast:
andrew.s:
carryfast,
if rear wheel drive was so good,how come the fiesta and mk3 ■■■■■■ were front wheel drive?
I seem to remember ford did rather well indeed with those models despite (or because of) being front wheel drive…
my mate had a mk1 ■■■■■■ 1300 and it handled terribly-my 1275 mini would ■■■■ all over it on a twisty road-and if it was wet then forget even trying to keep up with the mini!!!As I said at that point all the volume manufacturers were agreeing with each other not to compete with rwd v fwd in that market sector anyway.
As for a bog standard 1300 ■■■■■■ v a Mini 1275 I’m guessing you didn’t meet many RS 2000 's let alone twin cams.
While it wasn’t just a matter of ultimate nutter zb hooning on public roads
On that note if you’re saying you’d prefer to work on the Mini than the ■■■■■■ in the day great that’s your choice.
why on earth are you mentioning twin cam escorts and RS2000’s? my point is the bog standard ■■■■■■ wasn’t all that good despite it having the (in your view) superior rwd. they handled like a bag of ■■■■■■■■
easier to flog? never had a problem selling a mini-ever
and whilst the mini isn’t perfect to work on general maintence is a piece of ■■■■,and most jobs easy if you know what your doing-engine swap on a Saturday no problem
Carryfast:
dazcapri:
Again quoting from your own link the director of sales,the bizarrely named,Filmer Paradise when asked why the marina was not fwd said “It’s our job to give the fleet operators what they wanted NOT to tell them what they wanted”. As for them saving the wasted money to develop other cars they actually made £9 million profit in 71/72 so someone was buying their cars.
I’m actually going to agree with a couple of your points stokes was made into a bit of a scapegoat but wasn’t entirely blameless for what went wrong.
Also they didn’t make much,if any,profit from the mini and the 1100 wasn’t priced much better but was huge export success at one time over 40% of them were exported,not forgetting they were also assembled abroad,Australia and Italy among others,so they did make some money.
Your idea that they should have developed the marina with McPherson struts etc was a no go they just didn’t have the money why do you think in later years you got truck manufacturers sharing cabs,f7 volvos cab of four and SA/Daf 95,it’s so expensive to develop new tooling production lines from scratch.
Your argument that I can’t compare the mk1/mk2 cortina with the marina why not what’s the difference between bl using 50’s technology till the 80’s or Ford using 60’s technology till the 90’s besides you say the best bit of the marina was the b series engine which was designed in 1952.Your saying Issigonis was behind the failure of bl cos they concentrated on his fwd design instead of the,in your opinion,superior rwd range would that be the Issigonis who retired in 1971.
On what premise in the day are you basing the idea that what the fleet customers wanted,in regard to the argument between fwd v rwd,was any different to what the general customer base was calling for.Especially in the used/nearly new market mostly based on easier maintenance and resale values.
As for the age of the Marina’s Morris Minor based design it’s more a case of ‘what’ it was not ‘how old’ it was.Thereby creating those limits on inferior transmission fit and at least front and preferably also rear suspension design.On that note unlike those aspects the 1.8 B series engine at least was obviously a case of a major upgrade on the original Minor’s design just as a McPherson front and hopefully even also better rear,suspension would/should have been.
Which leaves the obvious question ‘if’ the Marina project was all about a specific solution to meet fleet customer demands in the case of BMC,how do you explain the need for Triumph to ‘also’ have go to all the aggro of having to re engineer the 1300 and 1500 saloons from fwd to rwd ?.
As for Issigonis does it matter when he retired.As opposed to the issue being Leyland Group being lumbered with his fwd designs in 1968 and further in house arguments,between its supporters v Stokes,regarding the best place to put Leyland’s future investment regards fwd or rwd,in the day.
As for the Cortina.It obviously wasn’t Ford that was lumbered with having to make large scale panic re engineering reactions to a customer base calling for rwd products with its small to mid car range effectively being lumbered with Issigonis’ type commercially suicidal ( in the day ) ideas regarding car design.As I said Leyland having an open goal in this case ‘if’ it had just put more effort and investment into the Marina instead of bothering with the Maxi and the Allegro.
The fact that the fwd 1100 was the bestselling car for more than a decade would I think show what the customer wanted in that class of car,they had plenty of choice should they have wanted rwd as they could have bought a car from a rival maker or up to 67 halfway through the 1100 's life an a40 from bl. You asked why if fwd was so good why was the marina rwd I just said that bl built what they thought the fleets wanted.
It makes a difference when Issigonis retired because he had no input with BL during the marina/allegro years. The marina was designed by ex ford (mk2 cortina )designer roy haynes and the Allegro by ex ford designer harris Mann. Your right about one thing stokes didn’t like Issigonis so effectively sidelined him in favour of haynes so all this crap about Issigonis boys influence being responsible for bl fwd cars is rubbish stokes used his own men.
Harris Mann was briefed to build a DIRECT replacement for the bestselling fwd 1100 they thought the Allegro would take its place at the top of sales chart. Why would they change the design if a bestselling product as the old saying goes “if it ain’t broke why fix it”,unfortunately no one at the time realised that they had their pricing all wrong and weren’t making enough from their product.
As from triumph they’ll have made fwd cars because,as has been proved,they thought rightly that they were the future for small cars probably because austin fwd products were outselling their rwd stuff by a country mile. If you think triumph were bullied into making cars they didn’t want you’d be wrong they couldn’t be made to use the Rover V8 engine in their stag so I very much doubt they could be forced to build a whole car they didn’t want.
The Allegro was built from 73-82 by 82 all other manufacturers had small fwd hatchbacks,the Allegro was originally designed as a hatch,in there range,eg vw golf 1974,fiesta 1976, so on what premise in the day are you saying the buyer’s in that class would have preferred rwd.
dazcapri:
The fact that the fwd 1100 was the bestselling car for more than a decade would I think show what the customer wanted in that class of car,they had plenty of choice should they have wanted rwd as they could have bought a car from a rival maker or up to 67 halfway through the 1100 's life an a40 from bl. You asked why if fwd was so good why was the marina rwd I just said that bl built what they thought the fleets wanted.
It makes a difference when Issigonis retired because he had no input with BL during the marina/allegro years. The marina was designed by ex ford (mk2 cortina )designer roy haynes and the Allegro by ex ford designer harris Mann. Your right about one thing stokes didn’t like Issigonis so effectively sidelined him in favour of haynes so all this crap about Issigonis boys influence being responsible for bl fwd cars is rubbish stokes used his own men.
Harris Mann was briefed to build a DIRECT replacement for the bestselling fwd 1100 they thought the Allegro would take its place at the top of sales chart. Why would they change the design if a bestselling product as the old saying goes “if it ain’t broke why fix it”,unfortunately no one at the time realised that they had their pricing all wrong and weren’t making enough from their product.
As from triumph they’ll have made fwd cars because,as has been proved,they thought rightly that they were the future for small cars probably because austin fwd products were outselling their rwd stuff by a country mile. If you think triumph were bullied into making cars they didn’t want you’d be wrong they couldn’t be made to use the Rover V8 engine in their stag so I very much doubt they could be forced to build a whole car they didn’t want.
The Allegro was built from 73-82 by 82 all other manufacturers had small fwd hatchbacks,the Allegro was originally designed as a hatch,in there range,eg vw golf 1974,fiesta 1976, so on what premise in the day are you saying the buyer’s in that class would have preferred rwd.
Firstly there’s no argument that the 1100 was selling.The question was its ‘profitability’ in large part because people generally bought the thing on price not by practical choice.
You couldn’t possibly have had an A40 from Leyland Group because BMC/BMH didn’t join Leyland until 1968.
If you read the Marina article closely you’ll see that Stokes was under massive pressure to continue with BMC’s fwd design philosophy and to ditch the Marina project from within BMC based on the ( correct ) premise that such a move would further undermine the already precarious market credibility of BMC’s fwd products.At least only some of which he obviously overruled in the case of the Marina but obviously not all.While it’s obvious that the Marina project was the baby of Triumph’s engineering thinking in the form of Webster and Turnbull not BMC.IE Leyland allies of Stokes at which point it’s a fair bet that the whole situation was effectively one of civil war already breaking out between BMC and Leyland Group regarding the fwd v rwd argument at that point very shortly after the 1968 merger.Any ex Ford staff obviously having to do whatever they were told to do in that regard not their own initiative.I’m sure probably themselves asking the same questions privately why are we being told to design the worst possible option of the under funded compromised rwd car that we need to save money for the fwd ones we don’t.
As for the issue of fwd v rwd in the case of Triumph.You’re still left with the inconvenient question of ‘if’ fwd was the way forward ( at that point in time ) why did Triumph ‘start off’ with fwd small mid range products in the form of the 1300 and 1500 which had to ‘then’ be re engineered to rwd and not vice versa ?.