Okay, okay, I know for many of you, the answer to that headline is going to be something like it all looks weird, it’s an Austin Allegro! But, you see, I don’t buy that. I know the Allegro gets all manner of shit from pretty much everyone, especially Britons, but I just don’t think it’s that bad looking? I know the styling was compromised to make room for legacy engines and bulky HVAC systems, but I just don’t think the result was that bad?
No, the thing that looks weird to me isn’t really so much the styling, but has more to do with the suspension. Specifically, what looks weird is how high the body seems to be sitting on the wheels. Look at how much gap there is between the tire and the wheelarch!
I mean it, look:
That’s, uh, that’s a lot of ride height, a lot of space. I showed David the car, and he mentioned how cars like this don’t exist; small cars with high ride heights, but I think he was thinking of cars where this was intentional, like AMC Eagles:
On an Eagle, the ride height was a byproduct of the four-wheel drive system and was very intentional; the Allegro was just a front-wheel drive car that was never marketed as an off-roader, which makes the ride height feel less planned.
Were they all this high-riding? Let’s look at some commercials, and see these babies in motion:
Hm. That one is pretty dark, and doesn’t give us much to go on. Plus, all the kicking! And legs aplenty, there’s stacks of them! But we never really see the car’s legs, the wheels. Let’s try another:
This one is more interesting, because we get to see the suspension actually rise as the weight of those, what, dozen or so people is removed from the car, and, yeah, it seems to settle pretty high.
The suspension used in the Allegros was interesting; it was called Hydragas, and was an evolution of the old Hydrolastic suspension system that used soft rubber springs. Here, the car was suspended on four gas-filled balloons that used valves and nitrogen gas to absorb shocks and bumps and keep things level.
The front and rear suspensions were interconnected so when the front wheel went over a bump, the rear was prepared for it:
The system is too much for me to go into here and now, but it must have contributed to the high ride height, right? Also, I think I kinda like the high ride height look? There were other lovely cars with a similar stance, like the BMW 507, which still looks great even when beat to crap, like this one:
Why do I like these funny long-legged cars? I think I just do?
I do have to say, the dash on these is kind of dull, and look at that gauge to the right: an awful lot of hash marks for a fuel and oil level gauge. This one has a normal, rational round wheel. What fun is that?
This is more like it! The “quartic” wheel, a sort of strangely rounded-off square wheel, was a nice, weird Allegro trademark.
I feel like lowering a car is an easy shortcut to making something appear more stylish and sleek. But there’s something weirdly appealing, in a gawky way, about the opposite.
Or is it just me? Maybe. Maybe I’ve been looking at pictures of Allegros too long?
The quartic steering wheel was ahead of it’s time! Go look at a C8 Corvette’s wheel.
The Quartic steering wheel was already done long, long ago.
Look at 1960-63 Imperials, and 1960-61 Plymouth Furys
The “Allegro’s got Vroom” song is the earworm you never knew you needed.
I was gonna say the black trim around the rear window, myself. It’s like someone was dabbling in being goth last night but missed cleaning up half the eyeliner.
Same, I was expecting it to be some hair brain BL idea to boost sales by changing the exterior trim.
When I bought my Allegro it had oversized replacement wheels and a failing Hydragas system. You’re welcome to your own opinion of its altered appearance but the suspension characteristics were awful. I’ve since replaced the Hydragas displacers at all four corners, repressurized the system to the original-specification height, and returned it to stock wheels and tires. This is how it was when I got it:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5608/30211470343_7d3f3b8168_c.jpg
I’m sure you’ve shared pictures here before, but would love to see one of it’s new/original look – the reason I joined the Autopian was for gratuitous Allegro porn.
Allegro Vanden Plas, baby. Ride in style.
In the photo I posted above, behind my SAAB 96 and next to my other SAAB 96, you’ll see my Maestro Vanden Plas. I should add that I no longer have the 96 that’s in front of the Maestro.
If you and Jonny Smith aren’t already really good friends, you should be.
I don’t have any good photos at hand of the car with its current, original wheels and corrected suspension but at least this shows one front wheel pretty well:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50495287042_b02623abc2_c.jpg
I love how staunchly, deliberately weird your car fleet is. It’s great.
looks SUS
Call me weird, but one of my dream cars is an Allegro estate in that pea soup green that Austin was using. And of course, a quartic wheel.
https://es.pinterest.com/pin/austin-allegro-cult-classics–748512400588655053/
The estate looks epic! Funny enough, the Vanden Plas was my dream car for 20 years. And finally 🙂
Mmm. Very Hygge.
That, but in brown.
Or is brown too obvious and uninventive a colour for an Allegro?
Proud Allegro owner, with one of the most weird variants, the Vanden Plas (google it guys, google it). I’ve lowered it a tiny bit with releasing some of that whiskey soda fluid 😉
I daily drove an ADO16 Austin 1100 automatic with hydro gas for almost a year. It was such an interesting ride, smooth over bumps, and planted in corners. It was weird going over speed bumps and the whole car lifted instead of the front and back independently
Uncle “BIG WHEELS” Adrian probably has a short circuit when he sees those things. Hey, has anyone ever made an Alegro Donk?
HAH!! Are we sharing a brain today?
It wasn’t so much the lifted look, more the lack of visible suspension around the wheels that stood out for me.
Fun fact: This stance was the inspiration for the Dodge Hornet/Alfa Tonale. The design team had “I miei pantalo sono troppo corti!” on a banner in the studio.
The Allegro kind of sits in a place where it’s just a bit too drab for the weirdness to work (compared to, say, an AMC Pacer). And, for the most part, there weren’t much in the way of fun or interesting versions to lend a little flair while you’re waiting to either find out when you’re going on your next strike, or when you’re going to be declared redundant. It’s a little more successful in rally car version, but lacking trim or interesting wheels or even a heaping dose of period correct BROWN, it’s just bleh.
https://live.staticflickr.com/5454/30301115873_438e485623_b.jpg
Also, in regards to the surplus hash marks for the fuel and temp gauges, if you squint, you can see there’s additional markings and they actually take up the exact same amount of space as in the fancier dash below. It’s like someone drafted up one of those tachometer blanking plates that looks like a clock, and maybe was a clock if you weren’t so damn cheap, and then at the 11th hour, someone realized they forgot to slap on a couple necessary gauges, and well, cutting a couple holes in that blanking plate was good enough.
The Van de Plas ones are not drab though, really quite weird too
https://goauctionmpc.blob.core.windows.net/stock/2066-1-medium.jpg?v=63841808407583
That is deeply weird and speaking as the owner of a Vanden Plas trim car myself (1988 Jaguar XJ6) I am here for it.
A lot of cars of that era have the centers of the wheels just about aligned with the bottom of the rocker panel. You see it on ’60s-70s Alfas too, which you’d think would sit lower. My ’79 Scirocco sat at about that height as well. I guess these days, cars sit lower for aerodynamic reasons, but I like the old tall ride height.
Not only that, but watch old TV shows with car chases (e.g., Rockford or Starsky & Hutch) and watch how easily these big American coupes and sedans go over curbs as if they aren’t even there. Just think of the money that could be saved on replacement rims if we went back to the days af 14″-15″ wheels with tires that had 8″ of sidewall!
I was thinking about this the other day when I was driving next to a recent model Subaru Outback Wilderness. It is lifted to the point where the bottoms of the rocker panels are in line with the centers of the wheels. Conversely, a ‘normal’ crossover rides at a height where the rocker panel is in line with the bottom of the wheel lug circle – but they universally paint the rockers black or use black plastic cladding to make it look like the bottom of the car is in line with the hubs.
I think this is because we currently visually delineate ‘car’ and ‘truck’ ride height by the visual ‘bottom’ of the car lining up at or below the hubs. At the hubs (or above) = truck, below = car.
Clearly, based on the Allegro and other examples from the past, that was not always the case. I wonder when that shift actually happened?
The reason the dash looks a bit basic is that it was the base model and that is BL’s way of telling the buyers that they are worthless scum. I had an 850 Mini “DeLuxe” – no carpets, no temperature or pressure guages. I was slightly below a garden slug in the hierarchy. Absolutely loved that Mini. The other UK manufacturers were as bad, if not worse. Ford used to actively downgrade trim to produce “Popular” models.
Honda did it, too. My son upgraded to a higher trim instrument panel on his 1992 Civic in order to have a tach.
Reminds me of all the pickup trucks I see around me where the owner has given it a lift and then stuck on some low profile tires and custom rims. Empty wheel well for days.
We now have prior art for the Apple squircle based on that steering wheel.
The generous wheelwells were the first thing to catch my eye, along with the beigeness of their interiors (which may have been done to increase the contrast with the tires).
Second thing – the AMC-style door handles
Third thing – the blacked-out trim on just one window
Third thing; That’s the rubber gasket around the fixed rear window, it’s not trim it’s what’s holding the window in.
In white, the stance is like somebody in Sunday best making their way across a muddy field.
Or those cartoons where a car sprouts arms and picks itself up to tip toe over puddles
Anyone else look at the diagram and see two teddy bears wearing helmets that say “gas”? Just me?
Well, NOW I do!
thank you! i am not the only one! 😀
Allegro, a step up in small cars.
British Leyland really raised their game with the high-end Allegro. It elevated the small car niche to unprecedented heights.
And that’s a tall order.
“I’ll have a tall, double-shot, half-caf, one vanilla pump, oat milk, no-foam Allegro.”
My initial thought just looking at the picture was that it looked like a VW Type 3 Fastback had gotten stung by a bee and started to swell up.
My guess was the side window gaskets. The difference between the door window and the fixed pane window makes it looks like they are slightly different sizes, mostly because of the black gaset on the fixed pane.
Same here, or perhaps someone just forgot to install a trim piece.
For a more modern example of this, the SN95 Mustang had a similar stance. You don’t notice it at first b/c Mustang, but once you do, you can’t not see it. Never knew why Ford did this (maybe Huibert does?)
On mine, I swapped out the stock springs for Ford Performance B-springs to drop it just a tiny bit/give it a slight rake. Looks 100% better in my eyes.
I was lucky (unlucky?) enough to live as a young boy in England when these things were around and I remember people saying that if you jacked up the rear of the car to replace the tire wrong, the rear window would pop out. Not sure if that’s true, but certainly tracks for Austin.
I have an anecdote about a hydrogas pump that has political connections. But that’s a story for another day.
Please elaborate?
Anyone we may have voted for?
Local election in the UK. Depends where you live.
More than the ride height too high, I especially feel the wheels are way too small
Yeah! Let’s see an Allegro on dubs!!