Allegro Club International

[Rich Oakley]

Hello everybody. I'm new here so I thought I would introduce myself. Grab yourself a cuppa and read on....

I grew up not a million miles from the factory at Longbridge in the 1970s/80s. Just about everybody locally worked at, or knew somebody that worked at the factory and so consequently, a large proportion of cars that local people owned were Marinas, Maxis, Triumphs, Allegros etc.

My first 'hands-on' BL experience was in 1980 when I was five years old. My dad sold his trusty 1973 Texas Yellow VW Beetle, which he had owned from new, and we collected a brand new Marina 1700L in Russet Brown from PJ Evans dealership in West Bromwich.

After seven years of reliable Volkswagen motoring, my dad was almost immediately disappointed with the Marina. Within a couple of years of ownership, the bodywork was starting to go rusty, suspension components were starting to fail, it needed a new fuel tank after four years etc. and most of my weekends in the 80's were spent working on the car with my dad in the driveway, just to keep the thing on the road.

Somehow (more necessity driven than through choice), he managed to keep it going until 1990 when it really was in a shocking state. With 90k miles on the clock, he sold it for about £80 and bought a new Vauxhall Astra. He vowed never to buy another BL/Rover/MG product again and suggested that I follow this advice too.

Fast-forward to the early 1990's and my motoring history begins with a 1961 VW Beetle, followed by a 1970 Beetle, 1971 VW Camper, 1964 Beetle, 1962 Beetle... You may see a pattern emerging here!

Around 100 air-cooled VWs later (five of which I still own), I find myself browsing the 'net in 2013 and stumble across several articles about the Allegro. I was intrigued to find out if they really are as terrible as general consensus would lead us to believe. So, I went out and bought one!

I'm sure you all probably saw this one for sale on the carandclassic website. It's a lowly 1978 S2 model 1100DL with 33k on the clock from new. I bought it sight un-seen and traveled by train from Sussex to Tamworth to collect the car. For the sub £1k price I paid, you would not be able to buy a set of tyres for one of my very early VWs, so even if the car was terrible and badly described in the ad, I would not be too disappointed!
However, the car turned out to be a good 'un! Never welded, resprayed at some point in its life and nice and original. The drive home in torrential rain was entertaining, especially as the suspension needed pumping up, but the car never missed a beat!



The engine was running cold so the first thing I did was replace the thermostat which solved the problem immediately. The heater fan was not working either, but a bit of tinkering soon had that sorted. I found a local guy with a Hydragas pump so the suspension is now working well and in tip-top shape.

So what's my opinion of the Allegro so far? It's not bad at all!! I really wasn't expecting it to drive so well as it does. The build quality leaves a hell of a lot to be desired compared to my trusty old VWs, but I like it and plan to garage it over the winter and only use it when the sun is out.

Jobs on the to-do list:
Straighten the rear bumper (which is a bit bent)
Find an un-cracked dashboard (preferably brown) or some way to repair the old dashboard.
Find a passenger-side door mirror.
Repair or replace exhaust (there's a tiny pin hole in the back box).

I did email the clubspares email address a few weeks ago, but didn't get a reply. Does anybody have any ideas where I could find the above spares?

Thanks for reading.
Rich.

[J Dawson]

Welcome along, that's a very nice looking car. Plenty of help and advice available on here. It's worth emailing Colin the Spares Sec. again, quoting your membership no. His contact details are published in Quartic, at the back.

I would've thought you'd have the opposite experience of VW vs. Austin build quality. Anyway, at least you've seen the light now.
_________________
Austin - you can DEPEND on it!

1976 Allegro 1100 4-dr saloon

Squeak, rattle & roll

[Phil Bagley]

Hi Rich, lovely looking car. Looks very similar to mine (same colour - sandglow) but mine is a special deluxe 1300 and from your picture the differences are that my plastic vents by the rear door are black whereas yours are painted, you have blanking plates where reversing lights would be and mine has a body stripe. Hope the ownership experience goes well.
_________________
Phil
Allegro 1.3 SDL 1979

[Rich Oakley]

[Rich Oakley]

[Andy Perman]

Hi Rich and welcome to the forum Thats a nice motor you have there, think I remember it for sale last year?? Where abouts in West Sussex are you, I'm just north of portsmouth on the Hants/West sussex border. Are you going to the Brooklands Austin/Morris day on March 9th?

Andy.