We rescue one of the last Allegros and put it back on the road... where it belongs! Because at the Practical Classics workshop, all classics are equal!
Wow, thats quite a find. Looks like it just came out the factory! Has the Allegro been restored prior to this video? It looks too good to have original paint/ bodywork. Nice to see another Allegro saved! :)
Marvellous content , a wonderful find, leave Charlie in original ' conserved ' condition.I know Ian and Dawn very well, a lovely couple , Ian is too modest to convey just how multi- skilled he is ,one of them in creating this niche service in keeping Leyland car suspension systems working well after their normal service life .Disregard the stupid ill-informed comments on the ADO 16 replacement , the Allegro is already starting to appreciate and offers the fun of owning a cheap to maintain car with a bit of character and charm .It wasn't long ago the original Mini and Capri were similarly derided - look what happened there !.
Owned a 1300 allegro from 1984 - 1992 . The first 4 years of ownership were hell - the pipes connecting the front to rear hydragas units corroded . The crownwheel bearing collapsed - managed to get a rebuilt transmission from a breaker £30 . Nearly everything else went wrong. A strange phenomenon - grit from winter gritting would pass through the front trim and puncture the radiator cured by putting mesh behind the trim . The last 4 years of ownership i hardly layed a spanner on it . Only dumped it when the oil feed to the rockershaft bunged up and a tired 1600 Maestro in need of a bit of TLC came along. Cheap but tiresome motoring .
I acquired a poo brown 1980 allegro in 1994. It was in a local scrapyard, was fairly solid apart from filler on top of both wings, and it was in need of a radiator hose. I was 19 at the time, and had no money , so I swapped my 2 year old Raleigh Hotfoot mountain bike, for the allegro. Had this for a month before the head gasket went, very fond memories of this little car, will fondly search eBay to help reminisce, or consider selling the wife kids and grandkids to get myself a nice poverty spec Mark 2 😉
New subscriber, and from Belgium. I love British classic cars, owning a GT6 that has always been in the family ever since. I know exactly where they were built, and visited the place 3 years ago, in Seneffe. Liked the intro as well. Will be watching more of this! Cheers!
The Allegro is a much maligned car. When Austin (BL) first bought it out everyone compared it to the 1100/1300, Austin's most successful model at the time and it wasn't liked because the Allegro was bigger, more bulbous in design, but as usual Austin was ahead of the game just look how cars and models have grown in size today. The engineers had designed all 1100/1300 faults out of the car, such as getting rid of the sub-frames which had plagued the range with mounting problems and rust. The engine bay was bigger, allowing larger engines to be fitted such as the E series and better access for maintenance plus the interior was more spacious. However the change to Hydragas from Hydralastic was an improvement but people preferred the Hydralastic as it gave a smoother ride, and of course the famed build quality of BL cars gave it a bad reputation straight away where the car leaked through the front and rear windscreens, the engine mounting caused the car to pitch when braking, this was soon resolved by fitting small dampers to the front of the engine. By the the time the series 3 came out with its revised interior and outer design, the fitting of the then new A plus Metro engine, getting the screens to fit correctly it was a good car, but the damage was had been done. If only the series 3 had been a series 1 it would have been a different story. I bought a 1750 HL (series 1 1/2 model) in the mid 70's which was factory fitted with the engine that the fabled Downton Engineering had re engineered and BL took these E series engine improvements on, with twin HS6 carbs, a better inlet manifold and head, plus a 4 branch exhaust manifold giving it 90 bhp and a 0-60 time of 10secs, a quick car at the time, however the car was let down by the front hubs which use to eat the wheel bearings, if BL had only fitted Timken taper row bearings rather ball bearings it would have been so much better!
As you may know the biggest mistake BL made on Allegro was the change of design to the rear wheel bearings from those used on ADO16 (1100 / 1300). Those used on ADO 16 could be tightened up to a reasonably large torque without affecting the bearings themselves (only the bearing outer race was clamped I guess). The new setup for Allegro from memory were taper roller bearings arranged so you couldn't tighten the main nut nearly so much since this DID affect the roller loading. Some garages (shops) tightened them up as they were used to tightening up the ADO 16 bearings which resulted in seizure and the wheel sometimes falling off due to an incorrectly sized washer that should have prevented the loss of the wheel. This fault was quickly put right by a warning label regarding proper tightening of the bearing and provision of the correct size washer. But the damage to the cars reputation had already been done.
Charlie is very charming i love everything about him from the goodmans parcel shelf speakers the little speakers down by the pedals the aftermarket electric windows to the beige seats everything
I had a 1.5 HLS. Twin carbs and four headlamps, five speed in black with a vinyl roof .. the reg was LAB 913X Had some great times in it ... yours brought back some memories... love it .. keep up the good work
No surprise really, Pretty decent condition when put it a garage as a good runner, and uts a basic points ignition carbureted engine, i,d be more surprised if it wouldn't run.
I always advise any new Allegro owner to check that the ends of of the driveshafts in the wheel hub with the castellated nut on the end, are still attached to the rest of the driveshaft & CV hub! On my MKI they were not & had worn right through & fell out when I took the hub caps off......
Great vid Danny, a big fan of anything BL, but I’ve got a soft spot for the Allegro, I bought an Allegro 2 several years ago but never got it on the road, but I’m pleased you’ve rescued another example which looks like it’s had plenty of love over the years. I saw “Charlie” at the Festival of the Unexceptional last year and he looks in fine order.
A really informative and interesting watch. I particularly like the way that hydragas system was unpacked and explained and the aftermarket electric window is fab.
I had this car in BRG with gold pin stripes(1500 with five speed) ten years and drove completely about two hundred thousand miles..Died because of corrosion and lack of spare parts.. Had some issues ,but nothing major...Like all other cars have...Always started ,even in 22 degrees of freeze and had very good consumption...Good car by good handling and good care..
I used to have a 1975 Allegro 1300. The engine never let me down. The Hydrolastic suspension started giving me no end of trouble, so I got rid of the car.
I think there’s a new appreciation for cars like this. They were mocked in their day, but they seem to have been solidly built and over engineered for their day. With old fords being vastly overpriced now for old wrecks, classics like this are available in good condition and at a tenth of the price of an old ford needing a full £10K restoration.
I had a mk2 1100 super deluxe in royal blue reg TYP 51S. Nothing super or deluxe about it no radio no head rests and only one wing mirror struggled to hit 60mph. I inherited it from my grandad so it had a sentimental value to it even though it was a horrible car.
Allegro was the perfect car, by size, delivered performance and ride comfort, just disappointed with build qualities and all the lacking extras. Simplest improvement needed - electronic ignition.
Weirdly the 1.3 tended to burn oil. But these engines did not have a reputation for this in other cars.dad was a BL mechanic and was equally mistified. I had a 1.0 and a 1.5.
My dad had a 1750 allegro gyk771n he had it a year and when he took it for an mot the it failed the defects on the sheet was 30+things so that weekend it was off to the auctions for another car i bidded and bought a vauxhal victor fe for the princely sum of 65 quid at the age of 10 lol .
They have just started to put A series metros in the mag a few years ago, the thing is with practical classics, it was always the same types of cars. Mini, MGB and Minors, only a spit full of other classics. i stopped buying the mag due to that.
Great find and interesting video. Shame some of the steps in getting the car going were not mentioned, like draining out the old fuel for instance which presumably was necessary. Also I would have spun the A+ engine over on the starter motor without the plugs in, there's less load on the battery and less load on the bearings that may have little oil in them. You can then hear the oil pump after some seconds become primed with oil - at least on a rebuild you can - (the starter motor becomes more loaded) and the oil pressure starts to build. A great relief that when the engine started it sounded in very good condition, what a find! I believe I'm correct in saying that the later Allegros had A + 1.0 L & 1.3 L engines and the old 1.1 L A series was dropped. Not entirely sure when this happended without looking it up again.
I used to read practical classics growing up in England. Been in US. For 30 years but lots of nostalgia for cars like allegros/ marinas / sd1s/ capris/ cavaliers etc etc. 👍
I had three all-aggros while I was a student in the late eighties. They were quite popular because they were basic and cheap to maintain but they were not cool so they were also cheap to buy. My last one was 82/Y exact same model featured here.
Nice to see how they hydrogas unit works! i wonder if its the same people that are a members of the metro owners club. Also are those door bins the same units off the mini? I also suspect that these share a few things with the metro too. Like how the suspension is linked like the K series metro, and the same tyre profile, the rest the same as the mini and A series metro. ?
Great video! No idea how I only just found it, Ian and dawn did my allegro too and there’s absolutely loads of allegro content on my RU-vid channel if anyone is interested in this much maligned car.
It's such a terrible car, you have to restore it for posterity so everyone knows. It's just like a Gremlin or a Pacer, here in N.America, they're awful but people restore them to either Troll or serve as a reminder of what *not* to do.
