Real Road Test: 1977 Austin Maxi 1750 

Maybe Arthur Lower and Eric Sykes should have driven a Maxi in "The Plank" instead of a Morris Minor.

@Guestar I ended up as an area manager for B L and the plank length was always one of the questions for incentive gatherings, be surprised how many were pretty close. The trick to achieving it was to lay seats flat and tucking it into the parcel shelf on the passenger side. Those were the days...

@@peejpom BL top management (not you btw) were PLANKS lol

Didn't Terry from Terry and June have one or was it a Princess?

@@seancooke4127 what year was the plank . Had maximum come out. Yes I also had a taxi our baby used the parcel rack to sleep on .when we slept overnight.

You look better than a BMW driver and you are different

@@alanssnack1192 Not sure what this comment means. If nice large windows with an excellent view is a bad thing, them guilty. Modern cars have huge pillars and small windows and narrow interiors because of all the crash protection. Not nice to be in.

@@daifromwales9543 true, its just i had a old fiat panda, the privacy was bad, felt like a nobhead, could not relax. when someone drives behind you they can see your whole head. etc

As a wee boy in shorts, to this day I still remember the plastic seats in summer.

😅😅😅. I get the same thing here in Australia when I pore over a Morris 1100, or Datsun 1000😅😅. Horses for courses I guess 😉

i dont get that at all - id rather have a bland car than the overstyled function follows form stuff that other cars have in common

I kept a clothes peg in the car to stop the choke from slipping.

Love it mate, memories for me too! Holding the choke for my dad, I was so happy to participate :)

@@donsharpe5786 I thought the clothes peg was supplied with every car from the factory !!

Our old Vauxhall Chevette did that.... Clothes peg did the trick ;)

Spooky 😊 I was looking thru my international vintage VW magazines to find more info. I bought a load of old IVVM magazines from him. I a. Sure his has a vw engine in it and type 125 front wheel drive. Adapted from the VW 4x4 system used on the type 125 or type 166 commander wagon VW.

maxi>? what maxi lolli? maxi renault 5? maxi pad?

I had a High Line around 1973 which was excellent except for wheel vibration which they could not solve.

@@robertmorley3609 Front wheel bearing. I had the same problem.

I seem to recall the ability to convert the maxi into a double bedroom was a selling point when it first came out. Ostensibly for 'campers' but probably also for unmarried couples needing to get away from nosey landladies.

@Farina Marcina hahaha

You could do the same in a Cortina estate.

Ricky Doolous the older 18 Austin's before the maxi had column change full bench seat front and back I slept in mine every night when I worked away on site and the boss paved me the lodge money for a hotel use to shower/ shave in the transport cafes I never saved the lodge money that went to the pubs and clubs ha ha

Enough room to knock one out?

Harsh engine, poor gear change, headlights that acted as search lights as soon as you hitched a caravan - the list goes on.

Apart from galloping metalworm. This vehicle should be destroyed compulsorily along with all other surviving examples. All historical evidence of this model's existence should be deleted. All mention of this vehicle is hereby taboo.

Spot on

Yes!

For all its virtuous the Maxi did not sell, people bought the Ford Cortina because it sold them an image they wanted to be.

How are they wholesome have you eaten one

How is it wholesome weirdo

How awful of it 😂

Here Here

Mine was white and scrubbed up quite well - I also put in a centre console which went really well when I came to sell my very first car TOR 27?T :-)

Thanks Stevie Wonder for that comment.

Teal blue, every time!

Agree there. It's definitely one of the better looking BL things of the era. It's definitely nicer than the Allegro, and way more practical too (aside from the ground clearance issue where the first thing to hit a speedbump is the gearbox...). If it wasn't from the terrifying lack of safety and an auto box I wouldn't mind one of these :)

And what colour would that be? They came in; farmyard shit, Autumn shit, shitty sandy colour, winter, spring and summer shit and Fern green (shit).

My wife had one of the original Rover Metros, it was a 1 .4 GS and the engine (and car in general) was fabulous, no head gasket issues at all.

@@pierre-de-standing The 1.1 and 1.4 litre K series had no issues with head gaskets. It was the open deck design of the 1.6 and 1.8 litre K series which had the problems

@@psk1w1- thanks for that Paul. Once again more fake news via the press and rumour mills! I was sufficiently naive to have believed it.

Precisely. It is often caused by lazy people reading "10 worst car" articles written by lazy journalists, half these people weren't even around during this period. An Allegro was a better car in many respects than an equivalent Escort or Chevette, the interiors were much nicer. The Allegro 1.3 Super had nice cloth seats and full door trims where as the others had vinyl or far less plus cloth and exposed metal on the doors.

I don't think that's right, Iv worked in the motor industry all my life and the BL cars from the 70's were terrible compared to Ford and other manufactures of the time. I remember my dad having cars in the 60's like the Austin Cambridge that was built like a tank and various cars like the Singer Vogue. I remember in 1972 he got the Ford Cortina 2000GT which was amazing at the time when you think of the crap that BL were making, there was the Ford Capri, Escort and Granada. Vauxhall had the Viva and the sporty Firenza, Victor and the shitty Chevette but still all built better than more or less anything from BL. That morris marina might have sold a few cars but they were all company cars and I know from experience that they were absolute rubbish. People love to bash BL and there is a good reason for it. We used to call the Allegro the All-Agro because of it's unreliability and terrible build quality. Thank f*** those days are gone.

In this same era, Ford had a hand in supporting the rise of Friedman's Chicago School economics in Chile, and Pinochet's coup ... leading to economic implosion, a police state, and many extremely unsavoury deaths. If it had been more widely known, and understood, it should have led to a world wide boycott of the brand.

I was always getting ribbed at work by one guy about my Maxi till his Cortina engine blew up - he went quiet after that...

Although I suspect that people are unfairly biased against BL cars of the era, the way I see it is that BL used sophisticated engineering badly executed, whereas e.g. Ford used basic engineering well executed. BL cars tended to have advanced ideas but were always let down by the details or the build quality. Ford made similar mistakes sometimes too (the Zephyr mk4) but when they stuck to the conventional (mk1 / 2 Cortina and Escort) and invested heavily in getting the details right they made winners.

Don't believe you - a drum kit, two guitars, bass, mikes, PA in a Maxi? I think you and your bandmates must have been smoking something funny at the time

@@davidmacdonald1695 The PA was a small 500watt vocal only rig, powered speakers and a small mixing desk (deck was a six channel job only a foot or so square and the speakers were only 3x2x2 ft, if that - no stands or monitors). Amps were combos, Can;t remember the bass rig, could have been a Trace Elliot of some kind. Guitar amps were a Peevey Bandit and a Laney Linebacker, both loud but small. The drums were a custom kit that stacked like russian dolls, one inside the others. So the whole kit came in four boxes - the bass and three toms, a seperate snare, a small ammo box with stands and a soft bag with cymbals, mic stands were carried in a golf club bag and our three mics were in a very small flight case. The only other stuff we had was a small backpack with leads and four gangs in, two guitars and a bass in soft cases. oh yeh sometimes a small backpack or bag each with spare undies, washing stuff etc each. It was a squash and sometimes a guitar and personal bags were in the boot of the mini, but believe it or not. It happened.

@@stashyjon - I believe you, been there, done that. Many people think that back in the day even amateur bands had gear that could only fit in a van or a small truck. We had to get very creative when it came to logistics.

Or brilliant recipes but always under cooked😉

I had a HL L reg, great when my daughters were babies, could get a Silver Cross pram in the back, loads of room for such a small car.

Agreed! Fantastic interior space available for the exterior dimensions. We would travel 5 up - my parents plus the three of us kids (my brother and I were teenagers, so adult size in reality) plus the family dog. There was always room for us all and our luggage. Dad used to tow his racing cars with the Maxi's too - they proved to be great at this.

My dad also had 2 1750's I remember the second being the HLS in metalic gold. I actually quite liked them.

Me too - underrated cars in my view!

I remember the oil consumption 40 miles per gallon or was that the petrol. I always carried oil with me.

Indeed. He's often presented as a genius, or a motoring hero, but he was ultimately a liability. A very clever one, but sadly one who wouldn't listen to others.

Yes one of his bigger mistakes was regarding the Austin Morris 1100 ADO16. Pressed Steel pointed out all the rust traps in the body design which he poo pooed and told them to build the body as per the original design.

Lewis72 lmfao

And no rear wiper - like a Tesla!

Isn't it bizarre that a huge socket intended to contain *within it* the gadget it was meant for, for an activity (smoking) now deprecated, has become the international standard 12v connector.

I've thought for a while it's about time these sockets were updated but if you need something demanding a higher current like a tyre inflator, apart from crocodile clips on the battery there's not really any alternative.

DESIGNED FOR THE FUTURE!

You can't prove anything! lol

syncmaster2015 Mums the word.. oh no wait

@@deadmeat6563 Oh Daddy!

#Who s the Daddy ?

The 1800's were even better! (I had a SAAB 99, much more upmarket - as was my girlfriend at the time (still my wife 41 years on!)

Just as well then...probably needed to be towed quite often😂

Owned 2 of these underrated cars. The 1500 were tunable the 1750, being a long stroke engine very smooth and bags of torque, real jeykel and Hyde character if it had a turbo conversion.

Nope, not Damask Red or Emberglow. It's actually Carmine Red. Damask Red is a darker maroon colour and Emberglow is more orange.

Here in Australia ,our Leyland products were manufactured here in Sydney. There's a village of hi-rise apartment buildings on the former Leyland factory site, however the streets within it are named after various Leyland Marques. My brothers 1st car was an olive green 74 Marina coupe. He put Cortina sport alloys on it, lowered the front by turning the torsion rod nuts and it was a great looking car, and unique. From memory it was ridiculously reliable with it giving him zero, I do mean ZERO issues throughout the 2 or 3 years he had it. He sold it to buy a Ford Falcon ute which gave him considerable headaches, and they said Leyland's were no good?...😅😅😅

And if it's a princess how about the 2.2 six 😊

B Simpson Holbay

My grandfather used to have a Maxi 1750 in the mid to late 80s, and it was nowhere near as bad as some people make out. Granted it was never an exciting car, but there was bags of room in it and it never broke down. NY aunt had a Escort Mk2 1.3 and it was horrid, woefully underpowered and unreliable

Eddie Womble Yeah... I tried to get my Maxi to slide.. just a little bit, just for fun. I never did succeed, not even on gravel roads, or even in the wet. Never pushed it on snow or ice, but then who would, prior to ABS?

BL called the colour Snowberry White

Not an idiot. A good Maxi was a bloody useful car.

Idiot😂😂

:P

Speed Bumps?? in them days they filled pot holes in the same day not wasted asphelt on speed bumps ;)

....and the gearbox is almost between the front wheels so raises over the bumps as they do. It's what's behind the wheels that catches as the suspension is still rebounding.

Not had the pleasure of a Princess/Ambassador yet sadly.

You're welcome to sample mine if we end up nearby one another at some point.

Ah, I'm heading to the North East middle of next month... Though I can imagine your Prinny garnering a right mixture of comments!

It usually does! I could well be free when you're in the North East too, there's nothing on my calendar deadline wise about then so.... we'll see. Wonder if the gearchange will be any better than the Mighty Dacia, or just on a par with it?

And the opposite in WInter when thick trousers were required!

My Dad had a 1968 Maxi 1500 in the 70’s Kept fouling number 2 plug every couple hundred miles & the notorious crappy cable gear selector cables that stretched so it kept slipping out of second & fourth. Something that they corrected with the later model by using rod selectors, but by then the car had got a bad reputation.

Don't ask me why it's a Y-reg!

It just happens to be that year

John Shuttleworth...

How about a very nice X reg Morris Ital?

Richard Smith I love your description of "a day out in the "Maxi." Magical nostalgia... Perhaps you could write more. Do you or anyone you know have a voice for a.s.m.r.? I remember the magic (as a child,) of the atmosphere, smells, noise and the uniqueness of (every) car, bike, truck, lawn-mower and domestic appliances of yesteryear. I can still hear the comforting clunk of my cousin's Austin A.30. the interior wasn't at all luxurious but the smell was leather enough for my juvenile "old factory" senses. The ping of the ignition, when the green (too late) oil light and the red no charge light came on. Curious for a low oil pressure or worse, warning light to glow a cosy green don't you think? Then the sound of the starter as the black knob marked "S" was pulled and the (asthmatic) "A" series lump "burst" into life. The ratchet (wretched?) handbrake (like the rest of the "plan your brakeing before you leave the house"* hydraulic/mechanical combo) was temperamental and inefficient. So we just left it in gear, saving the handbrake for m.o.t. time...It was a great introduction to double-de-clutching, actually and set me up, royally to drive the trucks of the 70s with their non-synchromesh 'boxes. The semaphore type indicators deserved a module of advanced driving instruction all of their own. We should have a had the front of a car, "Z" cars like on stilts with a screen fore and aft, for reality like...If you were in a lane of traffic stopped at the lights, someone crossing between cars could walk into them. They froze in the winter/freezing fog, so we carried a hot water bottle or two in the winter. Similarly, the carburettor used to ice up. And, at the best of times, the semaphores just stuck. So you hammered on the panel behind the door depending on whether you wanted left or right just after activating the (illuminated, but not winking,) switch. So, the routine (optional extra in highway code,) was, "mirror, activate signal, hammer on door panel if necessary - Manoeuvre!" Having a starting handle was a great luxury also, but a positive earth electrical system ensured there was no "in car entertainment." Just a "Roberts" radio sliding round on the back seat. As the baby Austin had an "A40" back axle, it could "fill the clock." A frightening enough experience when trying to take a corner or getting stopped in a hurry. It also meant you could say your 12 times tables, at leisure, waiting for the needle to reach the extreme right of the 'clock." * I stole the line about the retarding from "Ixion," "Motorcycling Reminiscences."

I forgot to say, during the "intention to stop, start, change direction..." After hammering on the inside of door panel to extricate the still-stuck-semaphore, one waits (patiently,) for the reassuring and resounding "thunk"* as the pendulous little "illuminated" arm pops out from the bodywork. So, again: "Mirror, activate signal, hammer profusely on door panel (if necessary,) await "thunk," - manoeuvre." *Mixture of "think" and "clunk." ...and I lied about the radio sliding around on the back seat. The "G" forces would have been quite insufficient...

Lane Hogger Haha I remember the clothes peg on the choke too! You were ment to turn the choke knob to lock it but it never worked!

I had forgotten that I used to wedge the choke open with a coin laid flat between the knob and the dashboard. Thank you for the memory :-)

Well, it's an alternative to a clothes peg!

And I thought it was only me had to use a peg! We had a 1971 Maxi. 5 speed cable shift. But only 3 worked and one of those was reverse!

What I remember of that BL era is that you were meant to twist the choke knob 1/4 turn clockwise and it locked. I never had a Maxi and maybe it did not always work.