CarBrandLogos archive · Austin · 1973

AustinAllegro

The square steering wheel was the least of its problems.

Photo: Charles01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Austin history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Austin Allegro, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Replacing the ADO16 1100 and 1300 was the hardest assignment in the British motor industry. That car had been the country's best-seller for most of the 1960s, and the job of following it fell to the Allegro in 1973. Harris Mann's original drawings were low and wedge-shaped. The production car came out tall and rounded, because it had to swallow the tall E-series engine and a heater unit carried over from another model, and no amount of subsequent explanation has made that look like a choice rather than a compromise.

Austin Allegro 1.5HL MKIII 1982 · DeFacto · CC BY-SA 2.5

Design and engineering

Underneath it was competent enough: front-wheel drive, Hydragas interconnected suspension, and a range of A-series and E-series engines. But it was built at Longbridge during the worst years of British Leyland's industrial relations, quality was erratic, and the launch cars had a quartic steering wheel, squared off at the corners, which was ridiculed and quietly withdrawn. It was also a saloon with a conventional boot at the moment when the rest of Europe was buying hatchbacks.

Vanden Plas 1500 1977 · DeFacto · CC BY-SA 2.5

In production

It sold in numbers that would flatter most specialist manufacturers and in numbers that were a disaster relative to its predecessor, losing ground steadily to imports. Production ended in 1982, split between the Maestro and the Montego. The Allegro has since become the standard shorthand for everything that went wrong with British car manufacturing, a burden considerably heavier than the car itself deserves.

Austin Allegro estate reg 1981 1275 cc · Charles01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1973–1982

Engine

1.0&nbsp

Designer

Harris Mann

Body

2-door saloon

Technical specification

The Allegro, in detail.

Production: 1973–1982
Class: Small family car (C)
Body style: 2-door saloon; 3-door estate; 4-door saloon
Layout: FF layout
Engine: 1.0 L A-Series I4; 1.1 L A-Series I4; 1.3 L A-Series I4; 1.5 L E-Series I4; 1.7 L E-Series I4
Designer: Harris Mann
Assembly: United Kingdom: Longbridge, Birmingham (Longbridge plant); Belgium: Seneffe; New Zealand: Auckland; Petone (NZMC); Italy: Lambrate, Milan (Innocenti: 1974–1975)
Manufacturer: Austin (British Leyland)