Space in the Garage - MY CHANCE for a Classic

[Al Weyman]

Ever owned a five speed Allegro or Maxi or a Princess or that awful 6 cylinder version of the Austin 1800? Infact ever tried to fix a wretched 5 speed Maxi box, I have when I had my garage and they were the pits, horrible unreliable design, always hopping out of gear complete rubbish. BL bought this on themselves with appaling development work and a surley strike prone staff and poor quality control. Can you for example imagine a company that has a fantastic V8 engine on their books (Rover Buick) but decides no we can do better than those damned yanks so we will build and design our own with our new prestigious sports car (Truimph Stag which would have been great with the Rover V8) it will only weigh a bit more (yeah right!). What a cock up and what a totally awful engine, has anyone seen so long a single timing chain on any engine ever that used to stretch and break with devastating consequenses on a regular basis then when it did and bent all the valves you coudnt get the heads off the pig even if they had blown a head gasket which was another thing they were fond of! Who ever made that 'executive' decision should have been hung for treason.