Morris Marina Men - Mad!

I can see why they're upset about it, I mean if someone trashed an early model Ford Taurus, I'd get upset for a bit. However, going on to take it as a personal insult, which, to me atleast, their entire Top Gear thread comes across as, is a waste of time. It's just a car. Yes, I get the sentimental feelings and whatnot, but there are more important things than a pile of metal and rubber.


Another thing, the seller of the car in question had this to say:
well look at them all slate our cars and this forum - how rude can you be -

some people obviously need to get a life me thinks
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Bit hypocritical, don't you think?
 
Even if it was an original...

They told him that they would not smash it. Smashing does not include burning or crashing in my book.
 
Did no one read this post?

BerserkerCatSplat said:
I could care less about the car, he sold the damn thing on Ebay, he gets no sympathy from me because he obviously didn't care enough to keep it, or even sell it privately. If you sold your bike on Ebay and the buyer lit it on fire the day after, so be it. It's his bike, he can do what he wants with it.

But, if you dig further, apparently they didn't wreck his car in the first place.
OK, your admin has called and asked me to come along and clarify a couple of things. So I will.
First of all, yes, that is a (riveted) repair to the car used in the destruction sequence which was originally a blue car, given a quick spray job to make it look like the nice one. GJR said that the decent car was in the compound and, for a while, so it was, but we haven't spoken in a week or two since when the Marina has found a new home in the hands of an enthusiast who refuses to use any forum because of the rubbish that tends to be talked about these very things!
The scrap car had to have a framework fabricated and fitted into the floor and chassis areas (sills, suspension mounting areas etc.) as it was really quite the rustiest thing we could have found, this made it safe to use on the "race" segment during which the interior trim from the good car was used in close ups.
Prior to the fire, that trim was replaced to the good car and the remains of the scrap one filled with a bed of poly peanuts and flour to give the impression of an interior fire.
No interior trim was destroyed, nor any usable parts. Even the windows were replaced with sugar glass.
The car was obtained from a man who had intended to use it for racing of the oval track variety, but as it had no structural integrity, he gave up on that idea and gladly took the BBC's cash!

As I said to GJR when asked by him to break cover and write this, the information is all available in the public domain, no secrets, no myths, and this is why the comments posted on the Marina site were so roundly criticised by him, they were purely speculative and had no basis in truth.

So go ahead and take a dislike to Top Gear, but please, Marina fans, acquaint yourselves with the facts of the situation before condemning something armed only with wild inaccuracy and assumptions.

Geoff.
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Mineworksfine said:
I dunno. Captain Slow concluded that the Countach was a bit of a dog to drive.
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GT - R said:
Minor nitpick: Clarkson drove the Countach in 1 or 2 of his DVD?s.......
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And i raise you a man who not only has daily driven his countach to 70k, but had no need to do so if he didn't want to.


It was the last of the great dinosaurs, but some people like that. Sure its probably the most uncomfortable, defeating, hard to drive monsters, but who cares? I mean the Leno has a fucking lotus elan, possibly one of the best driving cars ever, and yet he still occasionally chooses to drive the 'tach.
 
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Incedantally said car is exxcatley 25 years young today First reg 8/12 1983.My wifes car which ws once mine is incedentally a scobbbie impreza estate Auto.Her first car was a Punto which was uneconimal to repair after a incident with black ice and railings.I gave her the scobbie.At first said car was hated.However i cant get the car keys from her now.We all know Marinas and Itals and other BL cars werent the best in many ways.Neither were lots of cars from the same era.Perhaps all we want is some fainess.Dont just Bl bash cause it easy to do so .What tehy did was wantom vandalism just for the sake of it.No other reason.
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Oh... my... :blink:
 
That forum fails this hard: <------------------------------------->
 
Oh some other Morris Men:

Used to go to this when I lived in Dorset. ...

[YOUTUBE]N7ytMspgJ5A[/YOUTUBE]

Extreme version:

[YOUTUBE]VP3fZp4UM2E[/YOUTUBE]
 
Crazyjeeper said:
Did no one read this post?

OK, your admin has called and asked me to come along and clarify a couple of things. So I will.
First of all, yes, that is a (riveted) repair to the car used in the destruction sequence which was originally a blue car, given a quick spray job to make it look like the nice one. GJR said that the decent car was in the compound and, for a while, so it was, but we haven't spoken in a week or two since when the Marina has found a new home in the hands of an enthusiast who refuses to use any forum because of the rubbish that tends to be talked about these very things!
The scrap car had to have a framework fabricated and fitted into the floor and chassis areas (sills, suspension mounting areas etc.) as it was really quite the rustiest thing we could have found, this made it safe to use on the "race" segment during which the interior trim from the good car was used in close ups.
Prior to the fire, that trim was replaced to the good car and the remains of the scrap one filled with a bed of poly peanuts and flour to give the impression of an interior fire.
No interior trim was destroyed, nor any usable parts. Even the windows were replaced with sugar glass.
The car was obtained from a man who had intended to use it for racing of the oval track variety, but as it had no structural integrity, he gave up on that idea and gladly took the BBC's cash!

As I said to GJR when asked by him to break cover and write this, the information is all available in the public domain, no secrets, no myths, and this is why the comments posted on the Marina site were so roundly criticised by him, they were purely speculative and had no basis in truth.

So go ahead and take a dislike to Top Gear, but please, Marina fans, acquaint yourselves with the facts of the situation before condemning something armed only with wild inaccuracy and assumptions.

Geoff.
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Well that's good to know. It just seemed like such a damn shame to destroy such a vintage car, no matter how bad the car was.

This part is funny though:

"Marina fans, acquaint yourselves with the facts of the situation before condemning something armed only with wild inaccuracy and assumptions."

What the hell did they expect people to believe?! Dipshit.
 
I took a look through that thread, the word "jingoism" kept popping into my thoughts.

Dunno why, there is just something I can't put my finger on over there at the Marina board.
 
jayhawk said:
I took a look through that thread, the word "jingoism" kept popping into my thoughts.

Dunno why, there is just something I can't put my finger on over there at the Marina board.
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Perhaps their secret love for subarus?
 
captain_70s said:
I also dislike the fact that you make fun of the people on the Marina forum for liking Marinas, You may love your girlfriend and think she is the best looking girl in the world.
I might think she is an ugly hag, its down to personal preferance, you can't say a person is an idiot for having differant tastes to you.
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Yeah, but you can't exactly sell your girlfriend to someone else and have it trashed and set on fire, now can you?

The clear fact is that someone sold the car, to Top Gear, none the less. What more could they have expected? I mean, I love Bluebirds to death, but if Top Gear Australia got their hands on one and destroyed it, I couldn't care less. Like I already understand, they should realise that they're the minority that loves the car, not everyone else. Treasure your horrid creations and don't sell it. That's what I'm doing with my Bluebird.

I love the horrid thing, but the key thing is, well, it's horrid. I'm part of a few Datsun/Nissan and Bluebird forums, and I get the piss taken out of me by my friends. But despite my affection towards my Bluebird, it is rubbish - so I don't care. Besides, the Marina isn't exactly a collectors item, the fact that there's less than a thousand left on the road speaks in volumes about it. I can understand the affection and love for such questionable things, but come on - don't sell it to Top Gear if you don't want it destroyed.

This reminds me of the BL challenge, with that guy moaning about his Dolomite that he didn't bother to fix properly.

The fact that it was a junker made to look good ends their shitty argument.

You have to remember one thing, the three clowns on there just go where the money is. One of them (the curly haired tw*t) claimed the Rover 620ti was as good or better than the B*W M3 at one point, until B*W stopped Rover paying him so much..... after that anything vaguely British was classified as garbage, unless you could pay him to say different.
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:rolleyes:
 
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After reading the whole four pages so far, I can understand their frustration as to why a Marina was destroyed. But they should at least toughen up rather than make conspiracies to the kill the TG3. It was the owner's mistake that he sold it in the first place.

Some people do like old sh*t, others don't.
 
captain_70s said:
Right, thought I should post here. Given my signature has a Marina in it.:rolleyes:

I must say it is a great disapointment that Top Gear has to destroy cars and enforce a predujice against British cars that is not justified.
It seems with TG that any British car that is not an Aston, Roller or Bentley should be frowned up-on.
They then fuel this with out-dated info, for example: yes the Marina was not a good car to start with, the handling was badly set up, although by the Mk2 most of the large faults had been fixed leaving it barley any worse than the spongey Ford Cortina Mk3.

I also dislike the fact that you make fun of the people on the Marina forum for liking Marinas, You may love your girlfriend and think she is the best looking girl in the world.
I might think she is an ugly hag, its down to personal preferance, you can't say a person is an idiot for having differant tastes to you.

I get a lot of mockery regarding my apparent bad taste and silly looks, and to be fank I don't like seeing it directed at people due to the sort of CARS they like.
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They've defended British cars for years, the whole British Leyland challenge last year was a chance for the 3 presenters, with their own cash, to defend the company, the fact only James made any money was cos the cars were shite!

They used a Marina for the simple fact they wanted a race in this Communist piece between Russia and someone else.
 
Jimi Hendrix said:
Well, when you sell your car and after that you spot it on the street, don't you like to see it's been well treated? Maybe I'm a rare person but when this happened to me I spent like five minutes walking round the car (and it was a Jetta 1.6, nothing special at all). Now imagine that the BBC buys your car and you feel happy beacuse you are going to watch it featured on TV...and then they burn it, how would you feel?
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Yes, I'd prefer it was treated well. But that doesn't change the fact that when you sell something, you no longer have any rights over it. That's just the way things are.

As I said, I don't think destroying cars is that funny, and I didn't see the point of it in this show. But if the dude cared about his car, he should have kept it, or sold it to a collector.
 
I actually worked for British Leyland at Longbridge for a few years as my first job in the mid/late 70s, and I owned (for my sins) an Austin Allegro (briefly) and 2 TR7s. I almost bought a Marina, but finally decided that the Allegro was marginally more advanced!

The things that went on during this period at BL were exactly as JC has previously portrayed. Management had been incompetent and weak for years, and the unions had been allowed to build up a mass of inefficient working practises. The standard of design and product/production engineering was poor.

Whilst I can understand the Marina owners defence of the vehicles they have developed an attachment to, I do believe that virtually all BL cars of this period were of incredibly poor quality and design. My Allegro had oil leaks, squeaks and rattles, poor paintwork, and didn't like the damp. Both TR7s I had broke down at some point, the gearbox on the 2nd one being on the way out after 30k miles. When I left BL I traded it in for an Escort XR3i which had a much higher build quality and ran without a problem. I would gladly have torched any of my BL cars due to the complete lack of care and professionalism in the design and build of them.

I remember driving all the Austin-Morris and Rover-Triumph cars, and they were all bad. Apart from the SD1 (which at least looked modern - though with a solid back axle and reliability problems), they all had the same technology as in the early 60s, but many of them were even worse designs(eg the Allegro was a step back from the old 1100/1300). The Dolly Sprint was a great car to drive (and at least had a modern engine - until the cylinder head or gearbox went), and looked pretty good, but it was amazing to see all the wood and fiddly bits of trim which must have cost a fortune to fabricate and assemble.

The top of of the range Marina 1.8TC made a nice MGB like noise at low speeds, but of course the ancient B series engine was pretty gutless and very noisy at speed, and the old Morris Minor type suspension made for a pretty harsh but sloppy ride. The interior, like the Allegro and Princess, was not an inspiring place to be. The lesser Marinas were, of course, even worse.
 
lol this is all very funny. I'm a big porsche nut and JC crashed a perfectly good SC in one of the shows. Did I get upset? No, did I think it was a waste yes.

I was also burnt at the stake (via a forum) for taking a mint 911 supersport and chopping it up to make a 1973rsr. My thoughts were it had been on sale for 4 months with no buyers, it was for sale at the price of less well looked after examples, and finally if I was going to drop another 40k on upgrades I wanted to start with the best.

I also know of a tuned 911 lent to top gear and tiff drove it to destruction it came back in a very sorry state and the BBC wouldn?t fork out on repairs. The owner was gutted. The lesson here is don?t ever give your car to a journo because they are only interested in making a good article and never give your car to a race driver because to them it?s just a tool.
 
smtk said:
The lesson here is don?t ever give your car to a journo because they are only interested in making a good article and never give your car to a race driver because to them it?s just a tool.
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It's just a tool? Sounds like the answer to the question "How would you describe the average Morris Marina enthusiast?" :lol:
 
It upsets me that nobody cares about the Lada...
 
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