Morris Marina....Does Anyone Have One?

[Lizey]

so i was watching TopGear UK today and it made me wonder...why do they hate Morris Marinas so much? are they that bad of a car? if anyone here has one pipe up because i literally know zero about them haha. in my opinion its a pretty nice looking little car!

[Brock Samson]

 That car was pretty much obsolete when it was introduced in 1971. I think their only real claim to fame were the flush rectangular door handles - though the AMC  had them too and in 1968...   there's actually a website devoted to the Marinas door handle...

OK: here's one website - but I've seen another one where they go on for page after page as Regards the door handle.. It's really pretty funny..

http://hooniverse.com/2010/08/30/more-than-you-ever-cared-to-know-about-the-morris-marinas-door-handles/

Wiki has it pretty well surmised here,.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Marina

"The BBC2 motoring show Top Gear has featured several Morris Marinas, all of which have been destroyed. The first Marina was set fire to after Jeremy Clarkson raced it against a Lada driven by James May in the Communist Cars episode. Next, following complaints from the Morris Marina Owners Club, the presenters claimed that they had bought their own Marina to restore. They ended up dropping a piano on it, which they claimed new delivery firm "Careless Air" was responsible for. In the Rear Wheel Drive Challenge James May was forced to drive a Marina after his own Ford Capri broke down. It was entered in an ice race against Jeremy Clarkson in Porsche 944 and Richard Hammond in a Nissan 300ZX, not to mention several professionals such as Frenchman Olivier Panis. Although the Marina was the best of the presenters cars, another piano was dropped on top of it. In the Lancia Challenge a Marina was raced against a Lancia. The Lancia, driven by Clarkson, caught fire and the Marina of Hammond broke down. Hammond had strapped a piano to the roof of the Marina to prevent another one landing on it, although, predictably, one was dropped anyway. In his DVD Duel, Clarkson was about to race a Marina against an Aston Martin, although another piano was dropped on it before it could start. In the Top Gear book Crap Cars by Richard Porter the Marina was voted 4th worst car of all time".
BTW: "Hyundai took the Marinas and developed the Hyundai Pony from them, in 3-, 4- and 5-door variants, a station wagon, and a pick-up, kick-starting the company's ascendancy in car manufacturing".

  "n my opinion its a pretty nice looking little car"!

Next thing you'll be telling us you like boat anchors..  

PS: Here's the web site devoted to it's door handles,..  you may notice they fail to acknowlage that AMC's Javelin and AMX and the Chevrolet Corvette had them three years prior...  


http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?ado28doorsf.htm

PPS: I see upon a review of the site that the many comments about AMC at the close of the article forced the site to offer this addendum.

"As part of the feedback process for the first release of this piece, we had several suggestions that the major inspiration for the doorhandle design came from American Motors".

 

[Vainglory, Esq.]

I had one, but a piano fell on it.

It was the damndest thing...

[Bob T]

They were rubbish, I had a bright yellow 74?  4 speed one when I was a broke apprentice at about age 18 -19 in 1989, ended up writing it off in a car crash. Handled bad, an old nana's car in every respect. Wallowy hydrostatic suspension.  Pleased to put that one behind me.
Piano might have been for the best , but it handled running up the back of a ford telstar at about 30mph , had seam welded guards I seem to remember

The Poms cars of that whole era were rubbish, they just couldnt design nice cars for the masses and then worse , export them to the rest of the colonial outposts

[TiMopar]

Well this is a subject I never dreamed would arise on Dodge Charger .com! And one that I am able to contribute to also, as I own one! To be more specific I own one of the van derivatives. I love it! It is rather basic, utilitarian transport for sure and the handling can best be described as 'entertaining'. The only problem I have with it is the 4-speed gearbox, which means that at 50mph the poor little 1.3 litre engine is spinning away at about 10.000rpm. I am currently swapping the engine for a 2.0 litre Ford 'Pinto' and 5-speed trans. Incidently, the suspension on these cars and vans will be familiar to Charger owners; parallel leaves at the back and torsion bars at the front. Not mine pictured, but same color.

[doctor4766]

Oh dear.. they actually made more than one body style Marina?
I'd put them in the same category as a Leyland P76, Lada Niva, and those bloody awful Reliant Robins!
Waste of time, waste of space and waste of money!
Thank gawd most of them here have ended up at Simms metals.

To the OP..
Think of the worst car you have ever driven and divide it by two to get the score out of 10 that any decent motoring magazine would give the Marina.

[TiMopar]

Lol, no love for the Marina then. There's no denying that Brit cars of the era were pretty dire, and that's why we don't make cars anymore.... I still love it, but not blind to it's faults; did I mention that the steering feels like it's done with sticks? I remember on another forum someone who fondly remembered his Marina as having "Oversteer, understeer, all kinds of steer, frequently simultaneously!". It's still fun to run around the congested streets of London in though. To my Australian friends I would say that I know what an awesome handling car is, until recently I owned a Nissan Skyline GTR32 (500hp at the hubs). That's the car that spanked all the Fords and Holdens in it's day...

[Lizey]

 quote: there's actually a website devoted to the Marinas door handle...

dear god you werent kidding......

[bobs66440]

quote: there's actually a website devoted to the Marinas door handle...

dear god you werent kidding......

Somebody truly has too much time on their hands!  

[aussiemuscle]

The marina was available in australia, fortunately never had to drive one

[kokxville]

My dad used to own one back in the days.It was a dark red or purple color.I can still remember when we drove home at night from my grandparents in a big rainstorm when the electrics under the dash burned out and it stopped.
I think it's one of the most known piece of crap cars that were ever made in automobile history,together with all of the british leyland product at the time.