Austin 1800 and 2200 (1964 – 1975) Review

January 1956

XC9001 prototype

First Issigonis thoughts of a 1500cc B-Series powered family car can be traced back to the 1956 XC9000. The model on the left shows clear Citroen inspiration, with its long wheelbase and low build stature – the picture on the right depicts the running prototype of this car, which at the time retained a rear-wheel-drive layout. Shortly after the XC9000 was completed, Issigonis would change tack and tread the front wheel drive development path.

Once Mini development was all but finished, Issigonis turned his attention back to the larger car in 1958. This version of the car was now called the XC9001 and following the work on the Mini, had now become a front wheel drive car – styling still bore a similarity to the Mini/XC9000, but this was probably an expression of Issigonis

August 1958

Work on the new car begins

After a gap of two years, big car thinking resumed in earnest in the Autumn of 1958, and following the successful development of the XC9003 (Mini), the obvious direction for Issigonis to take the new big car was down a front wheel drive path. The new front wheel drive design went under the project name XC9001, and in short order, a prototype was soon built to appear under the code number XC9001 – the first looking remarkably like the original XC9000 project of 1956, but clothing front wheel drive mechanicals. Because the XC9001 in its initial form looked rather like an elongated Mini, management instructed that the basic car needed a restyle – and as the styling house of choice at BMC at the time was Pininfarina, they were invited to forward their own version of the car.

In the Autumn of that year, two competing XC9001 prototypes were evaluated; the first to appear was a Pininfarina proposal that looked rather like an enlarged ADO16, whilst the second one, produced in-house – a larger car – was more recognisably an 1800, with its characteristic Six-light bodywork and cropped-fins. The latter of the two, was the model that was eventually pursued by BMC, because it was felt that the bigger car would make better use of the upcoming enlarged version of the B-Series engine. The development of the MGB had required the enlargement of the B-series engine from 1622cc to 1798cc, as the new car was turning out to be heavier than anticipated. It was this decision to switch to the larger version of the engine that influenced the company’s thinking in going with the larger proposal. In doing so, the project began to move away from its desired market slot – a replacement for the Farina.

Instead of keeping the dimensions of the car to the same level of those of the Farina, and consistent with the rest of the cars in its class, Issigonis grew the car’s wheelbase and (thankfully) its width in order to take full advantage of the extra grunt that the 1.8-litre engine. The wheelbase of the car was now a full 106 inches – some 6 inches longer than the car it was supposed to replace. The trouble was not so much the absolute size of the ADO17 – it was over ten inches shorter than the Farina – but its proportions and its size perception with customers. Actually, with such a long wheelbase, the interior accommodation was truly impressive, rivalling much larger cars, such as the Austin Westminster.

During the development of the ADO17, George Harriman replaced Leonard Lord at the top of BMC, but continued to have complete confidence in the judgement of his design chief at Longbridge (if anything becoming more dependent on the views of this man), believing that the 1.8-litre car would be exactly what the market wanted, trusting that Issigonis had the magic touch when it came to the creation of new cars. If Issigonis and BMC had bothered to look at new car registrations for 1960, they would have noticed that a mere 5% of cars were in the 1700cc-1800cc sector, while 19.6% were between 1400cc-1500cc, a statistic that did not go unnoticed by Ford UK’s product planners led by Terry Beckett.

January 0001

Development of a Landcrab

October 1958 and the styling is radically changed as the XC9001 is grown to accommodate the upcoming 1.8-litre version of the B-Series engine – the styling (above and below) is now very recognisably a Landcrab, although the frontal treatment has some way to go from this unsatisfactory Rootes Group proposal.

Pininfarina also prepared their version of the XC9001 during October 1958 – and this mock-up, which was being prepared concurrently with the in-house Rootes-style Landcrab would show in what direction the Italians wanted to head. Styling shows a strong likeness to early versions of the XC9002 – and this four- light style was eventually dropped in favour of a refined version of the Landcrab.

Pininfarina’s more developed version of their four light version of the XC9001 concept was presented to BMC in 1959 – unlike in the ADO16, where this style went on to form the basis of the final car, it was passed over by management. Pininfarina were now asked to refine the six-light Landcrab concept produced in-house in October 1958.

June 1960

Under the ADO17's skin

By June 1960, Pininfarina had produced this version of the (re-named) XC9005. The style is almost set and it is very evident, that this is little more than a modified version of the 1958 in-house effort. Only minor styling tweaks required now in order to imbue the car with some much needed character, in order to distance it from the ADO16.

And here it is, the final version of the XC9005, pictured in March 1962. As is very evident, the style is a yet further refined version of the 1958 Landcrab, but with a far more stylish front end. This more stylised grille arrangement would later be employed (in a modified form) on the Mk II version of the Austin and Morris incarnations of the ADO16.

Development of the ADO17 continued apace, although its designation changed from the XC9001 to XC9005 in June 1960 (XC9001 signified the 1.5-Litre option, XC9005 indicated a changeover to the 1.8-Litre version) – and by this time it looked almost like the finished article. Actually, the ADO17 project name was first seen in pictures of the new car, but according to Alex Moulton’s own documentation, the ADO17 codename had been in use since before September 1958. What this all means in all probability is that BMC referred to the project as the ADO17, but Issigonis (who was still based at Cowley in the late-1950s) referred to the car as the XC9001, in order to differentiate it from what was being developed in Longbridge.

By now, Issigonis was using a cell system to develop BMC’s cars. Each cell was a group of engineers with responsibility for a particular model. A-Cell, headed by Jack Daniels was responsible for Mini development, B-Cell, led by Chris Kingham, was tasked with developing the ADO17; while C-Cell, led by Charles Griffin, was responsible for the ADO16, which was under development at Cowley until the team moved to Longbridge in May 1962. With the development of the ADO16 centred at Cowley, Issigonis was only able to check up on progress once a week, usually Thursdays. This enabled Charles Griffin to have a relatively free hand, and the ADO16 was probably the better for it. With development of the ADO17 based at Longbridge, Alec Issigonis was able to adopt a more hands-on approach.

The appearance and execution of the ADO17 was already set in the mind of Issigonis as it had been since 1958, but the trouble was that as development on the car continued, it moved further and further away from being the car that could replace the Farina saloons on the market place. After their successful work on the ADO16, Pininfarina were involved in the latter stages of the car’s styling programme, and would prove to be responsible for some of the last minute revisions to the design of the ADO17. The car already looked rather similar to the Austin version of the ADO16, so the Italian styling house undertook a final restyle of the front end (which would result in the final solution which was also adopted later, and ironically, for the ADO16) and give it a touch individuality that would associate it with the ADO16, but not too closely.

One can see the reasoning behind this decision, after all, the ADO16 was a car that had been extremely well received, but it also has to be said Pininfarina did not influence the overall design enough. As can be seen from the accompanying photographs, Pininfarina wanted to take the XC9001 in a different direction, but because BMC management preferred the internal proposal, Pininfarina’s role in the creation of the ADO17′s styling would be quite superficial when compared to what he had done with the ADO16. In the end, Pininfarina could only really claim responsibility for the headlights, grille and front wings – the centre section was pretty much untouched from the 1958 proposal – and that, arguably, was the ADO17′s most unhappy aspect.

As mentioned, the four-cylinder engine was basically the 1.8-litre version of the B-Series engine found in the MGB, but in the standard single carburettor incarnation, it was seen as being too unrefined for use in a saloon car. In the pursuit of that extra refinement, it was therefore reworked completely to take a five-bearing crankshaft, despite the fact that the engine had only recently been bored-out to 1.8-litres. Unusually, the cylinders were siamesed in two pairs; an expedient adopted with the increase in bore size from 76.2mm of the three bearing crankshaft version of the B-Series engine to 80.3mm of the new variation. With this re-working, the single SU carburettor version of the new engine gave a healthy 85bhp at 5300rpm and was enough to endow the new car with more than acceptable performance.

Technically, the rest of the story with the ADO17 was pretty much as with the ADO16, with one major difference: Issigonis finally had his desire for a subframe-less car realised with the new car. Minor refinements were of course, implemented, especially in the gearbox: compared with the ADO16, the ADO17 transmission was set further back in relationship with the engine, in order to aid packaging – by fitting beneath the front suspension cross-tube (the Hydrolastic units sat in this tube, horizontally across the car). Apart from that, refinements were made to the lubrication system within the gearbox – to ensure that there would be no more instances of the weaknesses in the Issigonis transmission-in-sump arrangement.

ADO17 differed from the Mini and ADO16 by not having subframe assemblies – as mentioned before, this had been a wish of Issigonis. He believed that subframes added weight and cost, and certainly in the case of the Mini, they were only added because of failures in the early prototypes, where the suspension had been mounted directly to the body. In the ADO17, they had managed to mount the front suspension and engine were mounted directly to the body (by thinking laterally in terms of location), which meant that Issigonis designed the ADO17 to have an incredibly stiff structure. In the Mini and ADO16, the subframes added strength to the structure and also served as an effective insulation from road-induced noise. Without these, Issigonis ensured that there would be no criticism against the car in these areas by over-engineering the car’s hull.

Such was the effectiveness of the ADO17 design, the Princess actually could not quite match the car’s structural integrity (and certainly not its hewn-from-granite feeling), even with the benefit of the computer aided design that was used during its development.

October 1964

Launching the Landcrab

Austin 1800 on display – In Mark I form this car certainly looked set to continue the styling theme established by the Mini, while the Pininfarina front end tied it in with the recently launched ADO16. The proportions may have been unconventional but it certainly looked different to the porridge offered by Vauxhall and the Rootes Group at the time. (Picture reproduced and supplied by Declan Berridge)

1800 interior followed the 1100 and Mini’s minimalist design. As plush as this version was, the odd angle of its steering wheel and the almost unreachable switchgear mounted on the centre console weighed heavily against it in this more elevated sector of the market.

The power pack was nicely compact. (Picture: Ian Nicholls)

But when the ADO17 was launched in October 1964, what emerged from Longbridge was, therefore, a car that was faster, heavier, much wider and more expensive than the car it was designed to replace. With that in mind, BMC quite sensibly kept the Farinas in production, although that was not an expedient move as there was little profit in these cars and, being a product of a bygone era, they did not fit-in readily with the rest of the range. It also meant that had the Farina not remained in production, there would have been a huge, gaping gap in the range between the small and perfectly formed ADO16 and the oversized ADO17. Of course the ADO17 was actually a quite compact car in terms of its length; its space efficiency remains to this day absolutely astounding in relation to its length, but the fact remained that the car was larger than the buyer of a mid-sized car was looking for at the time. What particularly set the ADO17 apart from all its rivals was the massive width of the car.

Unabashed, George Harriman accepted the view given to him by the dealers that the car could produced at a rate of 4000 a week and they would be able to sell all of these cars without difficulty. The truth was somewhat different; the ADO17 was priced at some fourteen percent above the Austin Cambridge and was pitched at a point in the range where it more resembled a gap-filling car in the range between the Farina and Austin Westminster, even though it was just as roomy as the larger and more expensive car. As it was, demand for the car was slow to build and it gave the management time to realise that it was never going to meet the anticipated sales targets – and would never have done so, even if it had been the direct replacement for the Farina that it was envisaged to be.

Like the ADO16 before it, the ADO17 was not offered through the entire dealer network; in a quid pro quo arrangement, the Austin dealers got the first crack of the whip with the ADO17 in September 1964 and it was not until 1966, that the badge engineered Morris versions made their appearance on the market. Of course, looking at that situation retrospectively, it was a quite ridiculous situation to offer your new and drastically important mid-sized car through half of the company’s available dealers, but that is exactly what BMC did twice during the decade. Madness!

The press got their hands on the ADO17, now known as the Austin 1800, in July and August 1964 at the Strathgarve Lodge Hotel at Garve in Scotland. Here they drove 16 pre-production cars. The actual launch day was the 13th October 1964. It was openly stated in the media at the time that the Austin 1800 was an addition to the BMC range, coming in above the A60 Cambridge, and would not replace any existing models. Initially the production target was 2500 a week, building up to 4000. Also, a working life of 150,000 miles, low depreciation rates, and a ten-year model run was to be expected from the new model. Geoffrey Charles the motoring correspondent of The Times wrote, ‘I would sum up the Austin 1800 as a ruggedly built car, adequately powered, comfortable, offering exceptional passenger space, and thoroughly well-designed for modern traffic and touring. It should earn the highest placings in export markets.’

This was typical of many reviews, and it appears that most contemporary pundits thought the ADO17 would be another triumph for Alec Issigonis and BMC. On 27 January 1965, BMC announced some production changes. Some of the Minis being made at Cowley would be produced at Longbridge and in return Cowley would build Austin A60s then being built at Longbridge. Some of the A60s built at Longbridge were made on the same production line as the 1800. To enable production of the 1800 to be increased this work was moved on to a line at Cowley already making other models in the 1.5-litre Farina range.

October 1965

the range expands

Sure footed front wheel drive chassis ensured that the ADO17 continued the tradition for exemplary road manners started by the Mini and then augmented by the ADO16.

In October 1965 The Times Motoring correspondent toured the London Motor Show with BMC’s Technical Director and the resulting article offered an insight into the mindset of Alec Issigonis. ‘I am filled with nausea at the dearth of any kind of technical development in the family saloons here, with certain honourable exceptions, of course. They are so dull, uninspired, and unimaginative, It’s all very depressing,’ he said. ‘You can be as critical as you like,’ he said as we passed the Austin 1800, ‘but that car is way out ahead of them all. Styling? I don’t approve of the word. It tends to date a car, and I hate designing cars that date…’

By the time the Morris and Wolseley versions had made their appearances, in March 1966 and March 1967 respectively, it was quite clear that the ADO17 was never even going to get close to its sales targets and in fact it never managed more than the modest total of 40,000 sales per year – compare that to the projection of some 200,000 or so sales per year and it demonstrates just how much of a failure on the market the ADO17 really was. The problem of course does not always lie with a car’s styling alone – some ugly cars do sell well, but it is generally because they are regarded to be good cars and see despite their looks. In the case of the ADO17, the car’s odd styling and somewhat inappropriate proportions were not the only problems.

OK, so it was a fabulously space-efficient car, but the list of ergonomic shortcomings far outweighed its commodiousness. Firstly, in an attempt to give the car the maximum possible interior space, Issigonis had saddled the ADO17 with the same rather compromised driving position that was found in the Mini and ADO16.

This may be considered an amiable eccentricity in an inexpensive car like the Mini, but it was a major flaw in a car with more upmarket pretensions. Also the steering was unacceptably heavy and low-geared, but as Issigonis was breaking new boundaries in launching such a large front wheel driven car, it was accepted that the steering would have to be given a lower ratio rack in order to keep effort down. Unfortunately, it was not taken into account during development of the ADO17 that there would be the requirement for power steering because none of its domestic rivals had it – at the time.

The only comparable car at the time with front wheel drive was the Citroen DS and that came with Power assisted steering anyway.

The other problem was that the ADO17 suffered from reliability issues that proved troublesome for the company to fix – most notably, its propensity to burn oil at alarming rate; a problem that took a considerable amount of time to cure, being attributable to the car being over-filled with oil due to its incorrectly calibrated dip stick. Such stories made great press and were widely circulated, which had the predictable effects on sales. Customer confidence in the ADO17 – and BMC – was dented by such stories and although these maladies were eventually fixed, it proved too late; the damage had been done. The Times reported in 1969 that the 1800 had had a bad launch in 1964, and 70,000 first-batch samples sent BMC dealers frantic with customer complaints.

So low was demand for the 1800, it took until 1966 to build the first 70,000 examples – a crushing disappointment for BMC. The peak production year was 1965/66 when 56,876 left the factories.

In 1999 journalist Ronald ‘Steady’ Barker wrote about how he stumbled by chance on the awful truth about Alec Issigonis’s attitude to prototype development: ‘Shortly after the 1800′s launch in 1965, Autocar‘s party borrowed one for the annual trek to the Turin Show, and as we arrived outside the Palace Hotel a black Peugeot 404 driven by Sergio Pininfarina drew up behind us. Out stepped Issigonis, his engineering deputy Charles Griffin and BMC styling chief Dick Burzi. Smiling broadly, Issigonis straight over to us.

“No one told me you were bringing one of these. How did you find it?” he asked

“A curate’s egg, good only in parts,” I replied, then challenged him.

“Alec, you’ve never actually had one of these in France, have you?”

“My dear, of course we have – what makes you suggest that?”

“Because for every ten miles along the French roads we must have travelled
half a mile up and down! It gets very wearing.”

“Let’s have a chat over Martinis before dinner” he suggested.

An hour later he drew me out of earshot of the others.

“You’re quite right, we haven’t had an 1800 in France. You see, I’ve always thought it a waste of time and effort to build two dozen prototypes
and send them all over the world on proving trials,” he admitted.

“So we built only three 1800s, thinking we could do everything with them.”

Over breakfast next morning, before flying home to Longbridge, he called me over. “I promise “Steady”, we’ll have at least two cars in France within a few weeks.” Perhaps they did, but it was too late.’

March 1967

New models, but a case of zero development?

Estate study made it to full-size prototype – the plug was only pulled on it when it became evident that it would end up being almost identical to the Austin Maxi.

Once the Morris and Austin models were launched, the badge engineered Wolseley 18/85 version followed in March 1967, but unlike the ADO16 and Farina models, that was the extent of the badge engineering for this car. There was some work undertaken on the development of a Riley version, but it did not make production because it was felt that it would clash with the Wolseley version – and further variations of the ADO17 were felt to be pointless because of its poor sales performance from the day of its launch. So the development of the ADO17 continued in a marketing sense – there was obviously no way that there could be an MG version – the ADO17 was an excellent passenger carrier, but a sporting saloon it was not.

There was also some preliminary development work undertaken on an estate version of the ADO17, but two factors ruled out the production of this variation: the fact that management considered that it would be in direct competition with the traveller version of the Morris Oxford/Austin Cambridge and when it became clear that the Farina would be replaced by the ADO14 (which was now in the early stages of development), a car that would heavily resemble an ADO17 estate. The shame is that the BMC 1800 would have made an excellent basis for an estate version; with its compact suspension system and lack of rear wheel drive mechanicals at the important end (for an estate car).

The ADO17 that did get away was the Vanden Plas 1800: Initially, Kingsbury worked on a badge-engineered version of the ADO17 similar in spirit to the Vanden Plas Princess, and produced a luxuriously appointed car with a unique front-end style. However, the styling of this car was not an entire success, being too similar to the car it was based on (hardly a handicap in the case of the smaller car, which was blessed with good looks) and its awkward styling resulted in a re-think by the Kingsbury stylists. Soon after, the reworked Vanden Plas 1800 made an appearance – and it proved dramatically different to its forbear, being based on the body shell of the Australian Austin X6 Tasman/Kimberley. Not only did this incarnation of the Vanden Plas 1800 look sufficiently different to the ADO17 to be adjudged a suitable Vanden Plas, but it also proved to be a styling success – and that was an achievement, given its rather mixed parentage.

However, like the Riley version of the ADO17, the Vanden Plas version did not make it to the market – production volumes would have been small, but more tellingly, following the creation of British Leyland in 1968, it would have competed in the same area of the market as the upmarket stable mates produced by Rover and Triumph. Would it have appealed to the same drivers, and poached their sales? Probably not, and that is a shame, because the Vanden Plas 1800, in 2.2-litre form and including power assisted steering would have made a very appealing package indeed.

May 1968

The 1800 Mk2 is launched

Following the launch of the Wolseley 18/85, the the Mk2 Austin and Morris were launched May 1968; although it was to be another year before the equivalent Wolseley was revealed. The Mk1 had 13in wheels with 4.5in wide rims; the Mk2 moved to 14in rims. This was done to try and lighten the steering. At the rear, the car now had vertical tail lights. In October 1968, the Morris 1800S made its debut. This twin-carburettor car featured a cylinder head designed by Daniel Richmond of Downton Engineering, a BMC consultant. The engine produced 96bhp at 5700 rpm, which was enough to propel the car to 99mph. It has been speculated that the ADO17 would have been badged as a Cooper, had the BMH/Leyland merger not taken place. However Cooper, Downton and other consultants were now out of favour at BLMC – this was the era of the long distance rally and the 1800S would be pressed into service as a reliable and rugged, if slow competitor.

Morris 1800 made a rugged competition car, suited for long distance events (Picture: Gerard Brown, courtesy the Endurance Rally Association)

By 1969, the extent of the ADO17′s failure in the market place was exposed for all to see. Below are the BMC/Austin Morris UK sales figures for 1968.

1100/1300: 150,000
Mini: 90,000
A60/Oxford: 30,000
Minor: 22,500
1800: 20,000
A40: 2750

Total: 315,250

At the time of the production of the two millionth Mini in June 1969, The Times recorded the fortunes of the Issigonis front wheel drive cars: ‘The Mini, which was designed by Alec Issigonis, pioneered the concept of front-wheel-drive, transverse engine design in Britain, a formula followed by several Continental car makers. After the Mini, the 1100/1300 and 1800, BMC models embodied the same layout, and in less than ten year,s more than 3.7 million of these cars and their derivatives have been built. As well as 2 million Minis, the total includes 1.5 million 1100/1300s and 200,000 1800s. Between them, these models currently account for 25.7 per cent of the Britsh new car market.

The 1100/1300 is the best-selling car in Britain, with 14.6 per cent of the market, and the Mini the fifth best seller, with 8.1 per cent. The 1800 holds 3 per cent.’ The ADO17 had managed to sell around 200,000 examples in roughly the same time as the Mini and ADO16 had each managed to sell nearly a million.

In May 1969, the Wolseley 18/85 Mk2 was announced; and in July 1969 the Austin 1800S appeared, followed by the Wolseley 18/85S in September. The S models embarrased BMC’s own luxury barge, the Austin 3 Litre in performance terms and the Wolseley offered the upmarket trimmings. The 3 litre cost £1507, while the 18/85S retailed at £1273.

March 1972

Six-cylinder 2200 models launched

It was not until 21 March 1972 that the first major major mechanical addition to the ADO17 range was made, with the launch of the 2.2-litre E-Series versions. This engine had already seen service in the Australian Austin X6, launched in 1970, but the UK and Europe had to wait – another example of the intelligent policy of bedding in a new engine by releasing it in a limited production form, even if the dealers may have disagreed. The straight six was actually conceived in the BMC years and was basically a six-cylinder version of the E-Series engine that was being used at the time in the Maxi.

For anyone that saw the compromises in original four cylinder version of the E-Series engine with its siamesed bores with no water jacketing between the cylinders, it became obvious that it was designed that way in order to be as compact as possible. The reason for its compactness was that when stretched to six cylinders, it needed to fit across the engine bay of the ADO17. A product planner for the company related an interesting tale regarding the E6 engine and its installation in the ADO17: ‘I was told that originally, the 2200 was going to have the radiator on the side. When it moved to the front, it freed up more width, so they needn’t have made the E series quite so short.’

The Wolseley Six was the best of the new cars, an armchair on wheels with the contents of a timber yard for furnishings mated with a smooth six-cylinder engine. It was the best selling of the 2200s as well. At the same time the 2200/Six models appeared the ADO17 went into MK 3 guise. Like the MK 3 Mini’s and ADO16′s, these were blander versions with cost taken out. These Mk3 versions would see out ADO17 production. Production of the ADO17 1800/2200 ended in early 1975 to make way for its more stylish ADO71 replacement. 387,283 were produced in a decade.

March 1975

Production ends

On the left is an early (1964 vintage) Austin 1800 and on the right is a late (1974) Austin 1800 Mk3.

So why was the ADO17 such a poor seller? Well, looking at the situation logically, the car failed on a number of counts: it was not the car that the mid-sized market needed – its engine was too big, it cost significantly more than the Ford Cortina and it was also too commodious. The mid-sized buyer (the company car man) liked a car that they could understand – and the BMC 1800 was such a unique concept that most people in the market chose to avoid what they did not understand.

It also failed because it was too obviously mid-sized to be considered an alternative to the large 3-litre saloons that were on offer at the time. That would indicate a certain lack of judgement from the big-car buyer, because the ADO17 was a truly capable car. Certainly when the Austin 3-Litre was launched in 1969, the 1800 in twin carburettor form could outperform it and offered more interior space. In modern terms, the ADO17 was as much a miracle of packaging efficiency as the Mini was – it was roughly the same length as a Ford Focus, but offered considerably more interior room than the Ford Mondeo –and it offered something to the motoring world that should not be underestimated.

But the truth is that buyers simply did not understand the car and on that basis perhaps, BMC should have not rested on their laurels when designing it. They should have accepted that larger cars would encourage more demanding motorists and so, should have given it a more effectively styled bodyshell. BMC and Pininfarina had worked closely in the past and it is a shame that the company did not employ the Italian master to style the complete car, instead of simply altering an Issigonis-penned design.

Perhaps when BMC saw just how badly the car was faring on the marketplace, they should have committed to a re-body along the lines of the BMC-Pininfarina prototype that was shown to the world in 1967 – it may not have appealed to the middle-market man who was eminently happy to buy Cortinas in their hundreds of thousands, but its futuristic Citroen CX-type looks might have encouraged a new breed of buyer to Austin. The company knew they were heading for a takeover by Leyland at the time and so, should have thrown caution to the wind, accepted that the BMC 1800 was a moderate seller and so, given it the beautiful body it so richly deserved – it would perhaps have given the company a significant presence in the junior executive market that was emerging from the shadows with the success of the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000.

The styling of the car does not address the issue of the unsuitability of the basic model on the marketplace. Really, Issigonis should have had his creative impulses reined in when putting together his plans for the ADO17. It must have looked terribly appealing to build the car around the larger 1800cc engine, but it did move it away entirely from the market that it was intended for. It was designed to replace the Farina and yet the company thought it was a good idea to make it bigger and considerably more expensive – that was a monstrous and fundamental mistake to make. The Issigonis concept was a marvellous one, but perhaps the ADO17 should have stuck with the 1622cc version of the B Series engine, sat on a 100-inch wheelbase that was the class norm and had a more traditional three-box bodyshell.