Historical vehicle information?

[Amulree]

No quartic wheel...this is a Series 2 1500 built in Seneffe in Belgium. The UK built ones are generally regarded as better......Interestingly it came from the factory fitted with a Ducellier distributor which was a dodge BL had to overcome the effects of the 1977 strikes at Lucas

fullsizeoutput_56 by Joe Lamont, on Flickr

[GuzziPaul]

It may be 40 years old in October but you can'y register it as historic till next January 2021, even if it was 40 years old in February 2020 you would still have to wait till January 2021 to register as historic. Another thing to note is its not when it was first registerd but when it was manufactured. My Le Mans was built December '77 so got registered as historic in January 2018.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

No quartic wheel...this is a Series 2 1500 built in Seneffe in Belgium. The UK built ones are generally regarded as better......Interestingly it came from the factory fitted with a Ducellier distributor which was a dodge BL had to overcome the effects of the 1977 strikes at Lucas

Mine was a Belgian series 3 in Beige, it's previous owner was an OAP who'd owned it from new, it had a full service history but had failed MOT, I think I paid £225 for it, I took it to an MOT tester who wasn't trying to sell me a new car and it passed with some duct tape over the rust and holes in the bottom of the doors. It's amazing there was any rust considering the amount of oil that leaked out of the engine when it was running.

It was a good design, but really suffered from a body made out of poor steel and a poor engine, if Leyland had fitted an 1800 B series engine from an MGB it would have been a better car (they fitted this engine in the Maxi and Princess), if they'd stuck with the original styling they might have had a sales success, it's a better car to drive than most of it's competition from the same time, the only one I can think of that's better to drive is the Alfasud.

[David]

What ruined the aggro was the availability of a heater ..Spen King was forced to alter the front to accomodate the unit the money men chose. See clarkson et al....

[JackyJoll]

It was a good design, but really suffered from a body made out of poor steel and a poor engine, if Leyland had fitted an 1800 B series engine from an MGB it would have been a better car (they fitted this engine in the Maxi and Princess), if they'd stuck with the original styling they might have had a sales success, it's a better car to drive than most of it's competition from the same time, the only one I can think of that's better to drive is the Alfasud.

The Maxi had the overhead cam E Series engine.

[Druid]

It was a good design, but really suffered from a body made out of poor steel and a poor engine, if Leyland had fitted an 1800 B series engine from an MGB it would have been a better car (they fitted this engine in the Maxi and Princess), if they'd stuck with the original styling they might have had a sales success, it's a better car to drive than most of it's competition from the same time, the only one I can think of that's better to drive is the Alfasud.

The Maxi had the overhead cam E Series engine.

Which was fitted in the 1500 and 1750 versions of the Allegro. Either of these as better than the B series engine. My mother had a T reg 1300 which was ok, but it was only a couple of years old so the new car snags had been sorted and it wasn't old enough for things to wear out.

[David]

It was a good design, but really suffered from a body made out of poor steel and a poor engine, if Leyland had fitted an 1800 B series engine from an MGB it would have been a better car (they fitted this engine in the Maxi and Princess), if they'd stuck with the original styling they might have had a sales success, it's a better car to drive than most of it's competition from the same time, the only one I can think of that's better to drive is the Alfasud.

The Maxi had the overhead cam E Series engine.

That engine dated back to a pre war riley....
I had an Ambassador with the two litre o series. About the best BMC car i ever came across.

[David]

The 1100 and 1300 motors in the allegro had their own problems. .bmc actually changed the rules on oil consumption as they consistently used masses. But they had only been making that engine since the early fifties....

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

It was a good design, but really suffered from a body made out of poor steel and a poor engine, if Leyland had fitted an 1800 B series engine from an MGB it would have been a better car (they fitted this engine in the Maxi and Princess), if they'd stuck with the original styling they might have had a sales success, it's a better car to drive than most of it's competition from the same time, the only one I can think of that's better to drive is the Alfasud.

The Maxi had the overhead cam E Series engine.

Which was fitted in the 1500 and 1750 versions of the Allegro. Either of these as better than the B series engine. My mother had a T reg 1300 which was ok, but it was only a couple of years old so the new car snags had been sorted and it wasn't old enough for things to wear out.

The 1500 in my Allegro oozed oil out of every gasket and oil seal when the engine was running, didn't leak a drop when it was stopped, I think it had done 80,000 miles, I had an 1800 Marina TC - this burnt a little oil but didn't leak any, the engine felt about the same power as the 1500 Allegro and used less fuel.

[Wossname]

My brother had the hi performance version - the 1750 "SS". It had a really fast vinyl roof. He went over a hump back bridge a bit too enthusiastically one day and one of the back doors wouldn't shut afterwards. He replaced it with a Dolly Sprint which was nice and worked OK until he went above 45 mph when it always overheated. Not ideal and spoiled a nice car. OTOH, I had a Marina TC (coupe, the fast one) which was fine till you came to a bend. We were slow learners in our family.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I was given the Marina TC, the synchro had worn out on 2nd and 3rd, which made changing gear interesting, corners were best approached with plenty of room to slow down as it was 50/50 as to whether it would change down or not.

My father (who was mechanic) loved British Leyland, BMC and Triumph cars, as a family we had an endless procession of shit cars, 1100s, a lot of A60s, Marinas, various Triumph 2000s and 2500s, the car that he had that lasted the longest though wasn't Leyland, it was a Singer Vogue from the Rootes House of fine motor cars, he also had a Hillman Minge for a while, I had a Hillman Limp and a couple of Talbot Sunbeams (these were actually good cars but hideously out of date when they came out in 1978)