During several series of Top Gear, the Morris Marina appeared on the show quite regularly. Not because the car was well-liked by the presenters, but because they fervently hated the Morris machine. The Marina would often be set fire too, have a piano dropped on it, or destroyed in some amusing way. The first time it became a running gag was back in season 12 after racing a Lada Riva.
How though did the Marina become the butt of so many jokes on Top Gear? Why the Marina in particular despite being a classic car? Well, it was down to not only the dislike towards the car of the three presenters and the fact it was a good gag to have, but also the fact that the Marina itself was not the best car in the world. In fact, it came at a time when quite a few British cars were sadly rather poor. The Marina is typically seen as one of the worst of the lot, and it was only ever in production for nine years from 1971 up to 1980.
Why Did The Marina Become A Top Gear Joke?
Very quickly, a new lower-link arm was given to the early production Marinas to help eliminate the problem. However, some 30,000 of them were actually sold with the original and incorrect suspension setup which needed correcting by dealers. The press also found out then in sharp corners, the car would end up driving on the wrong side of the road. While the Marina was never intended to have exciting handling, its tendency to understeer despite being rear-wheel drive certainly baffled a few people.
Over the years, some 807,000 Marinas would get sold. However, many owners would find that their cars did not survive in the elements well, with really poor rustproofing being one of the biggest problems with the car. It is an issue that plagued a lot of British cars of the era and caused so many to get scrapped. The Marina would largely go unchanged throughout its nine-year production run, bar a few facelifts and small tweaks meaning it was quickly outdated and surpassed by models from rival manufacturers, and within its own BL stable. Little wonder it soon became the butt of jokes.
Was The Morris Marina Really That Bad?
The truth is, it wasn’t great. Only 745 Marinas were on the road in the UK in 2006 and that number is likely to be much lower now. Especially after Top Gear burned a few. It never had a particularly exciting engine either, with Britain only getting the 1.3-liter A-Series inline-four engine or the 1.5-liter B-Series inline-four diesel. Exports to South Africa and Australia got a 2.6-liter E-Series inline-six engine. It wasn’t all bad as the Marina was in fact priced quite fairly, hence the large sales numbers which reflected how many families in Britain could afford the car.
A Car Perhaps Deserving Of The Jokes It Receives
With so few on the road now, it was perhaps unkind for Top Gear to destroy a few of them. However, there can be no doubt that the Marina was a pretty awful car. It suffered so many issues over the years, and it was clearly never meant as more than a short-term production car, yet it lasted nearly ten years before it was then replaced. The fact the first batch was of course delivered with the suspension incorrectly fitted says it all. The Marina is perhaps a car we should look at now and preserve as a classic. But only to remind the world how truly terrible it was.
Birth Of The Morris Marina
The Marina in development had the ADO28 codename, and it came about after the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings to form the new British Leyland company in 1968. The new BL management was quite mortified to learn that only the Austin Maxi was in development, with no new cars other than that under development by the company. This led to the ADO28 commencing its development, and after some time it was thus decided the car would be a Morris to help differentiate it from other cars within the BL umbrella of brands.
Roy Haynes was the man who designed the car, the same man who designed the Ford Cortina Mark II and there were subtle similarities between the two cars. While there were initial good signs about the upcoming model, BL would go on and undo those almost instantly. The final design and stages of production were in fact rushed, leading to the rather embarrassing moment when the press fleet cars were handed over with the incorrect front-suspension setup. There was no camber when the car rolled, leading to what at the time was actually called “almost heroic” levels of understeer. This rather set the tone for the rest of the Marina’s life.
Sources: IMCDB, Adrian Flux, Chronicle Live, Top Gear Via YouTube