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| Facel Vega Excellence: flopsy |
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The 1956 Facel Vega Excellence was about as exotic as cars came and, to prove it, it had four doors with no supporting structure (known as a B-pillar) between each pair. This meant that if ever all four were opened at the same time, so weak was the car's body that it would flex enough to ensure you couldn't close them again.
And if you were wondering why none of the marvels of 1970s British Leyland have been mentioned until now, it is simply because I wanted to save the worst till last. We'll forgive the Morris Marina, just about the worst handling car of its era. We'll turn a blind eye to the beautiful Triumph Stag's appallingly unreliable engine and cast our gaze on the Austin Allegro.
Not for nothing was this known as the 'All-Aggro.' It had a square steering-wheel, which was interesting, and so little rigidity that the rear windscreen popped out when you jacked it up. But I remember it for two more reasons: one a design fault that should never have seen production, the other a quirk of fate so beautifully apt you wonder whether it could have happened by accident alone.
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| Allegro: slippery in reverse |
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The design fault affected the 1750SS model, the sporting Allegro. And if this sounds like a contradiction in terms to you, imagine what a proud owner felt when he walked up to it in the morning and discovered all four tyres were flat. BL failed to mention that those sexy alloy wheels were, in fact, porous.
The quirk of fate is simply this: at some stage and for reasons unknown, someone put an Allegro in wind-tunnel facing the wrong way. It was only then they discovered the Allegro had better aerodynamics going backwards than forwards. Says it all, really.
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