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Originally Posted by Cromax
because my memories of the Austin 1800 were ... Beige car ... Blood red interior ... hard to use seatbelts ... fall apart rear lights ... starting to rust hood ... weak engine ... expensive hydraulic suspension (most owners didn't know how to maintain it ... but to keep the suspension in good running order it required regular maintenance) ... however it was very comfy.
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That's uncanny - you just described my Dad's old 1800 perfectly! Don't forget crappy paint job - this was the early '70s and you could get away with repainting a car by hand...
"Comfiness" was a design trait shared with the French. Except French car usually worked way longer, and didn't prematurely become four-wheeled garden ornaments that rapidly turned into fertiliser. I just like the look of British cars up to the late '60s, but it's kinda telling that a lot of restored Morris Minors have japanese running gear....
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Originally Posted by Cromax
All I can say is the car was completely useless in terms of reliability & design. The poms have no comparison to the germans on either of those.
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Think of it - Germany gets the crap bombed out of its industry and under 10 years later they produce something like the 300SL Gullwing and the 220-SE Mercedes sedan, a car that matched the Rolls-Royce in luxury and sheer go.
The Brit car industry was strangled by bureaucracy and (mis-)management cynically recycled engineering for many years. Most '70s cars had '50s running-gear....
Yeah but the LandCrab is still kinda cute in an odd way.... Kinda tempted to buy one in a deceased estate auction ten years ago. It hadn't been run for a decade as the husband had died and the elderly lady couldn't drive. If it had been mothballed properly it would have been a great buy for a collector. As it was the car had lain in a leaky garage as it was the moment the husband had last driven it, and mould had got into everything in the interior and the hydrolastic suspension had perished. Pity, the car looked like it had been the husband's pride and joy too.
That auction was such a sad experience. The whole house had started to decline the moment the husband died, and his tools and workshop were left as they were for 10 years before she died too. You felt like an interloper walking around, as someone's whole life was sold off piece by piece....