Morris Marina equivalents

svb

svb

Active Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2008
Messages
193
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Jumping off from the other Marina thread, I'd like to just further get into the discussion of what the equivalents are in other countries.

Let's start by establishing why Clarkson hates the Marina so much. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it is because the car was poorly-built, prone to problems, underpowered, terrible to drive, and at one time in Britian, ubiquitous, despite all of the above. It is the counterpoint to any true enthusiast car.

Now let me move on to my own country. Here in the US, I think the closest equivalent would be the Chrysler K-Car. Sure, these things saved Chrysler back in the 80s, but they were the epitome of bland, boring, slow, and uninspired. Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember the streets were littered with them. Thankfully, most are gone now, even here in CA where rust isn't much of an issue. I'm not sure if there are any clubs of morons here in the US that restore old K-cars, but if TGUS existed and I were running it, I'd be happy to drop a piano on a Dodge Aries or Plymouth Reliant each week.

The 1984 Plymouth Reliant:
1984Reliants_01.jpg


The only other car I can think of for which I have as much hate would have to be the original Ford Explorer. In the 90s, they were everywhere. But they sucked gas, were ugly as sin, slow, and handled terribly. They weren't even that great off-road nor did they even have that much space in the back. They were mostly driven by soccer moms or their overprivileged children who knew nothing about driving. Plus, they jumpstarted the SUV craze in America, which means the Ford Explorer is ultimately responsible for all the crap that followed.

The 1990 Ford Explorer:

Explorergen1.jpg


In sum, the K car was worse, but the Ford Explorer was pretty awful as well, and arguably may have even done more damage in the long run.

Anyone from any other countries want to offer up their worst?
 
Last edited:
I always figured that the hatred for the Morris Marina was analogous with their love of the Dacia Sandero...they do it because they can.
 
One thing the K Car had going for it was decent engineering for the time, even if some of the bodyshells were very plain and functional. The Marina wasn't really in that class of goodness.

I would consider things like the Chevette and Pinto to be more akin to a Marina, with the Vega being ahead mainly because even though it wasn't terribly successful, they were at least trying with it.

Steve
 
The K-Car, for all its problems - and there were many problems - at least had some effort put into it. The Marina was a parts bin special designed to innovate as little as possible. The tricky thing is to find something equally devoid of effort, innovation and style, and deliberately designed to be that way.

The closest I can get would be the Chrysler Sebring sedan. Maybe the Pontiac Sunfire.
 
The Marina wasn't a parts bin special. If it was it wouldn't have cost over 30 million pounds to develop and have one million variants which shared few parts.

For all its faults (and boy did it have faults) the K series platform was reliable. I still see the things running around regularly up here.
 
argatoga said:
The Marina wasn't a parts bin special. If it was it wouldn't have cost over 30 million pounds to develop and have one million variants which shared few parts.

For all its faults (and boy did it have faults) the K series platform was reliable. I still see the things running around regularly up here.
Click to expand...

That was their plan, at least. I remember they wanted to make a cheap, boring, uninteresting car for people who might be frightened by the Allegro being too advanced.

I never said they did a very good job.
 
As soon as I saw your post the K-Car came to mind before I even read it. I would have to disagree with the Ford Explorer though.
A few that I thought of where the Ford Tempo, Cadillac Cimarron, Chrysler Dynasty, Ford Pinto, and I am sure I could think of many more if I had the time to really think about it.

1986-1987 Ford Tempo sedan
1st_Ford_Tempo_sedan.jpg


1982 Cadillac Cimarron
1982%20Cadillac%20Cimarron.jpg


Chrysler Dynasty
Dodge_Dynasty.jpg


Ford Pinto
184454.174pinto.jpg




svb said:
Jumping off from the other Marina thread, I'd like to just further get into the discussion of what the equivalents are in other countries.

Let's start by establishing why Clarkson hates the Marina so much. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it is because the car was poorly-built, prone to problems, underpowered, terrible to drive, and at one time in Britian, ubiquitous, despite all of the above. It is the counterpoint to any true enthusiast car.

Now let me move on to my own country. Here in the US, I think the closest equivalent would be the Chrysler K-Car. Sure, these things saved Chrysler back in the 80s, but they were the epitome of bland, boring, slow, and uninspired. Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember the streets were littered with them. Thankfully, most are gone now, even here in CA where rust isn't much of an issue. I'm not sure if there are any clubs of morons here in the US that restore old K-cars, but if TGUS existed and I were running it, I'd be happy to drop a piano on a Dodge Aries or Plymouth Reliant each week.

The 1984 Plymouth Reliant:
1984Reliants_01.jpg


The only other car I can think of for which I have as much hate would have to be the original Ford Explorer. In the 90s, they were everywhere. But they sucked gas, were ugly as sin, slow, and handled terribly. They weren't even that great off-road nor did they even have that much space in the back. They were mostly driven by soccer moms or their overprivileged children who knew nothing about driving. Plus, they jumpstarted the SUV craze in America, which means the Ford Explorer is ultimately responsible for all the crap that followed.

The 1990 Ford Explorer:

Explorergen1.jpg


In sum, the K car was worse, but the Ford Explorer was pretty awful as well, and arguably may have even done more damage in the long run.

Anyone from any other countries want to offer up their worst?
Click to expand...
 
[YOUTUBE]HA99GsXC3wI[/YOUTUBE]
 
I'm not sure exactly which car is the australian equivalent but i keep think this...

Holden Camira

https://pic.armedcats.net/q/qu/quadrax/2009/12/15/imagen8ejzg.jpg

Poorly built, boring to drive, ugly to look at.... yet it seemed like everyone owned one at some point.

Behold this Advertisement!

[YOUTUBE]mJQiYgMwho0[/YOUTUBE]

They make it sound so impressive! :lol:
 
^^^
That is the 80s-ist thing I have ever seen.
 
There are many cars that come close, but there is nothing quite as awful as a Marina.

Just as one example - the K-car, when it was sold as a K-car, had no pretensions at being anything but cheap basic transport, unlike the Marina. Also unlike the Marina, the K-car was very reliable and got excellent gas mileage.

The case for the defense of the K-Car.
 
Last edited:
Spectre said:
There are many cars that come close, but there is nothing quite as awful as a Marina.

Just as one example - the K-car, when it was sold as a K-car, had no pretensions at being anything but cheap basic transport, unlike the Marina. Also unlike the Marina, the K-car was very reliable and got excellent gas mileage.

The case for the defense of the K-Car.
Click to expand...

California isn't the real world!

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nppKMomMP-4[/YOUTUBE]

Adding to that, there is a car that was imported to the United States, that is just as bad as a Morris Marina, mostly because it is one.

Austin Marina
 
Last edited:
Give the Explorer a little credit--I hate my parents' '94 and would love to kill it with fire, but it could haul a moderate amount of stuff and the 4WD would go okay in the snow. So, it had its uses.

Still doesn't mean I wouldn't love to see a piano drop on it, though--just for different reasons.


I would nominate something that either had serious mechanical issues (a la the Marina's handling problems), cost way too much to develop, or was just uninspiring and dull.
 
Dodge Caliber and Chrysler Sebring. In 20 years time they will be seen as the box and the lid of Chrysler's coffin, and its total inability to face death head on and at least make a friggin effort.
 
Labcoatguy said:
Dodge Caliber and Chrysler Sebring. In 20 years time they will be seen as the box and the lid of Chrysler's coffin, and its total inability to face death head on and at least make a friggin effort.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%.

Although one could argue Chrysler has been dead for a while.
 
There are a few cars that I can think of that could compete with the Morris Marina for honors as the Worst Car Ever - here are 3 likely contenders:

1980 GM X-Body (Chevrolet Citation, Pontiac Phoenix, Oldsmobile Omega, and Buick Skylark)

https://pic.armedcats.net/p/ph/phoenixsac/2009/12/15/Chevrolet_Citation_II_front.jpg

(Chevy Citation pictured)
Believe it or not, but GM used to be a leader in automotive technology up through the 60's. Overhead valve V8s, electric starters, automatic transmissions, turbocharged production cars -GM introduced them all. But in the Seventies and Eighties, in their rush to be first, their engineers sometimes overreached themselves. (See the Cadillac V8-6-4 as a prime example.) The X cars were another example of rushing a new platform to the market. The cars suffered from almost dangerous levels of torque steer and truly horrid build quality - to the point where I believe that the X cars still hold the record for most recalls of any production car.

1971-77 Chevrolet Vega

https://pic.armedcats.net/p/ph/phoenixsac/2009/12/15/3298555556_7ff9b9dcb9.jpg

Another example of poor engineering. The Vega was introduced in 1971 with an aluminum block, cast iron head 2.3 liter I4 engine. Unfortunately, the engine had, as "Car & Driver" magazine said, "All the durability of a potato chip." While the styling, in hatchback and Kammback wagon form, was attractive; the mechanicals were so bad that if you find a Vega nowadays, it's likely to have a small block Chevy V8 and Turbo-Hydramatic transmission. (Unless it's a Cosworth, but the Cosworth-powered cars are very rare.)

1971-72 Plymouth Cricket

https://pic.armedcats.net/p/ph/phoenixsac/2009/12/15/The_Cricket_03.jpg

Now this car is a ringer - as the more astute of you may have noticed, the Plymouth Cricket was really just a rebadged Hillman Avenger. Like GM and Ford (With the Vega and Pinto, respectively.), Chrysler wanted a small import fighter, to take on Volkswagen and Toyota and Datsun. Unlike their domestic competitors, Chrysler didn't have the money to create an all new small car platform. So Chrysler asked the Rootes Group, which was owned by Chrysler for a car and voila! The Plymouth Cricket was born. However, the same problems affecting British Leyland in the 70s were also affecting the Rootes Group - and the Cricket did not prove to be a strong selling import fighter. I think Crickets in the US are even rarer than Marinas in the UK. Chrysler did eventually get their import fighter, but it wasn't until 1978, with the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon.
 
i will have to chime in with the amc eagle,or well any amc product followed by the vw rabbit truck.the pontiac transport mini van is up there in the lame list too but the aztec is by far the worst gm vehicle since the citation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top