Morris Marina

The Morris Marina is a small family car that was manufactured by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland (BL) from 1971 until 1980. It served to replace the Morris Minor in the Morris product line, which had first been built in 1948. The Marina was also sold in some markets as the Austin Marina, the Leyland Marina and the Morris 1700. It has a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout and was produced with saloon car, estate car, coupé, pickup truck, and van body styles.

It was a popular car in Britain throughout its production life, beating its main rival, the Ford Escort, to second place in UK car sales in 1973 and taking third or fourth place (behind the Escort) in other years. The car was exported throughout the world, including North America, and assembled in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Malaysia. A total of 1.2 million were built.

According to various sources, the Marina ranks among the worst cars ever built.

The 1980 replacement for the Marina, the Ital, was the same car with only mild styling changes. It was only fully replaced by the Austin Montego in 1984.

British Leyland sold the Marina alongside the 1969 Austin Maxi, which shared the same market segment but used front-wheel-drive and had a hatchback body, and the 1973 Austin Allegro, which used front-wheel-drive and more adventurous styling.

The Marina was developed under the ADO28 codename. The impetus for its development came when Leyland Motors merged with British Motor Holdings (BMH) in 1968, thus forming British Leyland. BMH was the corporate parent of the two biggest car manufacturers in the UK, Austin and Morris. The new BL management, made largely from ex-Leyland Motors staff, were shocked to learn that apart from the Austin Maxi (then entering the final stages of development) and a tentative design for a replacement for the Mini (the 9X) BMH had no new cars under development. The company's products aimed at the mass-market consisted of the Morris Minor, dating from 1948, and the 1100/1300 range of mid-sized Austin and Morris saloons that were a decade old. BL rapidly implemented a plan to develop a replacement for both the Minor and the smaller Farina models that could be produced as quickly as possible and would be on sale for no more than five years until a genuinely "all new" product could be launched in its place.

To try to introduce some clear distinctions between its multiple brands BL decided to release conservative, traditionally engineered cars under the Morris name, and sell more adventurous cars as Austins, or even as new marques – such as the Austin Allegro and Princess, the former of which occupied the same small family car segment as the Marina would. Specifically this meant that Austins use the groundbreaking transverse-engine front-wheel-drive layout developed by Alec Issigonis. It was thus decided that the ADO28 would be badged as a Morris.

The Marina would use a conventional rear-wheel drive, live rear axle drive-train as found on other popular mass-market cars such as the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Viva. This strategy was also intended to improve sales in BL's export markets. Commonwealth markets such as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand were large buyers of BL products, but the innovative BMC cars were considered too fragile and complex for use in such countries, as well as being fitted exclusively with small, low-powered engines. As a result, the Marina was unadventurous but simple, making use of existing BMC components derived from the Morris Minor and MGB, as well as using mainly Triumph Dolomite transmission and running gear from the former Leyland side of the organisation.