Test Driving the Morris Marina - Work in (slow) progress
Created | Updated Dec 4, 2005
Suppose you’re a car shopping student. Worse, you live in Auckland, New Zealand, the worlds largest vintage car museum. Okay second, after Bombay. Anyways, what good are Jeremy Clarkson and PJ O’Rourke. You can never actually afford an Aston Martin, and flatmates look strangely if you take Top Gear into the bathroom. What you need is a car review which tells you about cheap reliable old classics. Someone out there should write one. Meantime, I’ll trash this bomb.
The Morris Marina is a conventional car, which is to say it has four wheels, two headlights and nearly one engine. There are windows to look out of and a roof to leak. In front of the driver is one large wheel three pedals and a bunch of knobs, the number of which vary with specification and proximity to Knightsbridge.
The Marina reviewed here is the 1750 Coupe Super Deluxe, (basic trim, minimal knobs, and 1800 engine). It is about the size and shape of a largish 5 door split seat hatchback, has two doors and a very small boot. The design team obviously recognised that once they’d got you inside the car, their only hope lay in not letting you out. The advantage of this is the car is solidly built. Body work is nine inch iron oxide panels mounted on Cobham armour.
The Morris Marina I tested was built by Australians claiming to be British Leyland, who in turn insist the Marina is an Austin. Despite such desperate attempts to pass the buck, they’ve all gone bust. However, thanks to a piece of journalist research Rupert Maxwell would cringe at, I can now reveal it was all the work of the Nazis.
JERRYCAN
Marina design was initiated by Dr Ferdinand Porsche at the height of the late 30s German Gothic revival. Ferdinand had originally designed the Marina as a heated out house for the set of Nosferatu, but, unfamiliar with the nuances of Teutonic lack of euphemism, the British overrunning Berlin made a tragic mistake translating the blueprints and passed them on to their motor industry, leaving Jerry the VW.
The British Motor industry gave the plans to a pair of Rootes groups marketing brightest young chimpanzees. BMC sat on the plans for as long as possible, but faced with increasing competition from up starts in the colonies they were finally forced to use everything they had to stay competitive. Following restructuring a BMC zoo keeper cleaning the apes open plan cage found the Marina plans, slightly soiled, with a ripped bottom half off a dragotype Morris Minor stuck on with ear wax. There scawled in soiled banana was the message “Cheap if reuse Minor platform. Extend wheelbase 12’, understeer 4 Africa”. BMC hospital passed the plans to Aussie.
IT’S THE BOMB
God’s own nuclear testing ground knows explosive potential when it sees it – the ockers were soon fine tuning the Marina for production. The turret was removed. Several different types of wheel were tested. Eventually they chose round ones. Interior décor in blood clot plastic, was by the team of Genghis, Alaric and Attila, from an original concept by the man who put an ammo dump in the Parthenon. It’s so ugly it could be a modern art masterpiece, gushed Rolf Harris. In the year of Koilee Minogue’s birth and the Seedknee Operah house, the Marina was voted ugliest Ocker.
Thirty years down the road the Marina has grown into it’s looks. Like Keith Richards. My test car has been left alone at the far wind battered end of a student car park, as if the owner was ashamed to park it within site of the metalic cool Hello Kitty bestickered teenage Koreans. Exposed to the elements it squats over a puddle of the blackened oily life fluid draining from it. Dust is evenly rain plastered across the oxidised ex-white paint, through which rust streaks run like dried and diluted car blood from the bloated rust blisters that every so often open into gaping dark wounds. The half flat tires are weathered and crazed. They’re geriatric snake coils that still hiss when kicked hard enough. The doors creak like a Vincent Price movie. Seats are sun cracked red vinyl, through which filter grains of gritty decomposed foam rubber. The after market steering wheel cover of now very dead cow has broken where you put your right hand, exposing bakerlite underneath.
Surprisingly the engine turns over first time. Chris Amon planks in tarseal have nothing on a student car park for testing car suspensions. Minis are still missing in some of the larger pot holes. By the time I’d travelled to the ticket booth, I was getting suspicious. A quick look under the car confirmed it – the marina had no suspension – front axles stubs were bolted directly to the chassis. The rear axle was live, but it’s breathing sounded pretty rattly.
Students get to park on a construction site bordering the north western motorway on ramp. A right turn out of the student car park in Auckland rush hour is arguably within the Crimes Act definition of attempted homicide at the best of times, Surviving it in the Marina is comparable to the road to Damascus. The last car to attempt the Scylla and Carbides gap ended up supported partly by it’s left rear wheel, and partly supported by it’s drive shaft, both of which were on the ground. The rest of the car was suspended by the metal and wire median strip divider the Ministry of Works is testing before export to Iraqi insurgents. A dash between the change of lights involves two hazards;- cars which come down Grafton road so far in excess of the speed limit the MoT has installed a permanent speed trap for them, and the 18 wheeler Mainfreight Macks coming off the Motorway at mach unity, which has the MoT planning to base F15s under Grafton bridge. Waiting till the light turned orange, I picked the gap between a courier’s bull bars and the decorative plastic spoiler of a business woman Peugeot. I put my foot down and swung the wheel hard. It was at this moment the Marina’s Porsche origins came to the fore, along with its rear end. Convinced that in all real cars the engine camps just above the exhaust pipe, the marina will attempt to correct this anomaly at the slightest touch of the steering wheel.
This may have something to do with that live rear axle. Solid live rear axle. The Marrinas design team had heard of differentials but he was quite happy with his sexual orientation thank you and oh God why did Jaguar never answer his job applications. The courier was standing on his horn. I could see him in the mirror. To my surprise I recognised him. He was the guy in Goodbye Pork Pie who the Blondini gang sold their flags too. And the air horn they stole from a freight train. No prize for guessing what had been fitted to his van. He didn’t look too happy. He had one of those Footrot Flats dogs on suction cups spread eagled across his grill.
I guess the Marina’s tail happiness was explicable. What wasn’t was the roll. Given the sophisticated front suspension, there shouldn’t have been any. In fact the marina was rcking like Wolf man jack rounding the horn in an RNZN P-class frigate. I was still swaying gently too and fro when Psycho courier overtook on the foot path. Now to get round the corner
Fuel gage inaccurate. Idians right to keep the Oxford. Live axle, but quality of life somewhat less than Terry Schavo.
The Morris Marina is a conventional car, which is to say it has four wheels, two headlights and nearly one engine. There are windows to look out of and a roof to leak. In front of the driver is one large wheel three pedals and a bunch of knobs, the number of which vary with specification and proximity to Knightsbridge.
The Marina reviewed here is the 1750 Coupe Super Deluxe, (basic trim, minimal knobs, and 1800 engine). It is about the size and shape of a largish 5 door split seat hatchback, has two doors and a very small boot. The design team obviously recognised that once they’d got you inside the car, their only hope lay in not letting you out. The advantage of this is the car is solidly built. Body work is nine inch iron oxide panels mounted on Cobham armour.
The Morris Marina I tested was built by Australians claiming to be British Leyland, who in turn insist the Marina is an Austin. Despite such desperate attempts to pass the buck, they’ve all gone bust. However, thanks to a piece of journalist research Rupert Maxwell would cringe at, I can now reveal it was all the work of the Nazis.
JERRYCAN
Marina design was initiated by Dr Ferdinand Porsche at the height of the late 30s German Gothic revival. Ferdinand had originally designed the Marina as a heated out house for the set of Nosferatu, but, unfamiliar with the nuances of Teutonic lack of euphemism, the British overrunning Berlin made a tragic mistake translating the blueprints and passed them on to their motor industry, leaving Jerry the VW.
The British Motor industry gave the plans to a pair of Rootes groups marketing brightest young chimpanzees. BMC sat on the plans for as long as possible, but faced with increasing competition from up starts in the colonies they were finally forced to use everything they had to stay competitive. Following restructuring a BMC zoo keeper cleaning the apes open plan cage found the Marina plans, slightly soiled, with a ripped bottom half off a dragotype Morris Minor stuck on with ear wax. There scawled in soiled banana was the message “Cheap if reuse Minor platform. Extend wheelbase 12’, understeer 4 Africa”. BMC hospital passed the plans to Aussie.
IT’S THE BOMB
God’s own nuclear testing ground knows explosive potential when it sees it – the ockers were soon fine tuning the Marina for production. The turret was removed. Several different types of wheel were tested. Eventually they chose round ones. Interior décor in blood clot plastic, was by the team of Genghis, Alaric and Attila, from an original concept by the man who put an ammo dump in the Parthenon. It’s so ugly it could be a modern art masterpiece, gushed Rolf Harris. In the year of Koilee Minogue’s birth and the Seedknee Operah house, the Marina was voted ugliest Ocker.
Thirty years down the road the Marina has grown into it’s looks. Like Keith Richards. My test car has been left alone at the far wind battered end of a student car park, as if the owner was ashamed to park it within site of the metalic cool Hello Kitty bestickered teenage Koreans. Exposed to the elements it squats over a puddle of the blackened oily life fluid draining from it. Dust is evenly rain plastered across the oxidised ex-white paint, through which rust streaks run like dried and diluted car blood from the bloated rust blisters that every so often open into gaping dark wounds. The half flat tires are weathered and crazed. They’re geriatric snake coils that still hiss when kicked hard enough. The doors creak like a Vincent Price movie. Seats are sun cracked red vinyl, through which filter grains of gritty decomposed foam rubber. The after market steering wheel cover of now very dead cow has broken where you put your right hand, exposing bakerlite underneath.
Surprisingly the engine turns over first time. Chris Amon planks in tarseal have nothing on a student car park for testing car suspensions. Minis are still missing in some of the larger pot holes. By the time I’d travelled to the ticket booth, I was getting suspicious. A quick look under the car confirmed it – the marina had no suspension – front axles stubs were bolted directly to the chassis. The rear axle was live, but it’s breathing sounded pretty rattly.
Students get to park on a construction site bordering the north western motorway on ramp. A right turn out of the student car park in Auckland rush hour is arguably within the Crimes Act definition of attempted homicide at the best of times, Surviving it in the Marina is comparable to the road to Damascus. The last car to attempt the Scylla and Carbides gap ended up supported partly by it’s left rear wheel, and partly supported by it’s drive shaft, both of which were on the ground. The rest of the car was suspended by the metal and wire median strip divider the Ministry of Works is testing before export to Iraqi insurgents. A dash between the change of lights involves two hazards;- cars which come down Grafton road so far in excess of the speed limit the MoT has installed a permanent speed trap for them, and the 18 wheeler Mainfreight Macks coming off the Motorway at mach unity, which has the MoT planning to base F15s under Grafton bridge. Waiting till the light turned orange, I picked the gap between a courier’s bull bars and the decorative plastic spoiler of a business woman Peugeot. I put my foot down and swung the wheel hard. It was at this moment the Marina’s Porsche origins came to the fore, along with its rear end. Convinced that in all real cars the engine camps just above the exhaust pipe, the marina will attempt to correct this anomaly at the slightest touch of the steering wheel.
This may have something to do with that live rear axle. Solid live rear axle. The Marrinas design team had heard of differentials but he was quite happy with his sexual orientation thank you and oh God why did Jaguar never answer his job applications. The courier was standing on his horn. I could see him in the mirror. To my surprise I recognised him. He was the guy in Goodbye Pork Pie who the Blondini gang sold their flags too. And the air horn they stole from a freight train. No prize for guessing what had been fitted to his van. He didn’t look too happy. He had one of those Footrot Flats dogs on suction cups spread eagled across his grill.
I guess the Marina’s tail happiness was explicable. What wasn’t was the roll. Given the sophisticated front suspension, there shouldn’t have been any. In fact the marina was rcking like Wolf man jack rounding the horn in an RNZN P-class frigate. I was still swaying gently too and fro when Psycho courier overtook on the foot path. Now to get round the corner
Fuel gage inaccurate. Idians right to keep the Oxford. Live axle, but quality of life somewhat less than Terry Schavo.
