Retro Cars | British Leyland Allegro | Volkswagen Passat | Drive in | 1973 

I can't believe that the Volkswagen Passat had a computer diagnostic port back in 1973!

Tony is the main man! He puts Clarkson & Co to shame. Straightforward, no bs or stupid antics, car reviews. Sadly TB has passed on and we are left with Flintoff & Co.

Dear old Tony, a class journalist of his time. 👍👍👍

Great TV broadcast. Outdoor TV broadcasts were quite unusual in 1973, 99% were shot with poor quality film. The colors are quite vivid in this video and there ia a real "live" feel to it. Impressive for a 50 year old footage!

"both cars are remarkably similar, they both have engines and 4 wheels"

'The steering wheel works quite well..until you start going round a corner..' 😛

Welcome back, dearest Bastable, after, what seemed, almost a year!

marvellous, drive was a fantastic show and tony bastable was a great presenter

Never seen a motor show with a keener gaze than Drive-In.

This still looks so so modern! As if it was recorded last week or so. Unbelievably it was 48 years ago. 48 years before 1973 would be 1925! that is crazy. Way on the other side of World War Two. If they had made such a car review show it would look a lot more 'dated' (in fact it was before the era of Television!)

Prophetic words about the future 'front wheel drive, front-engined mini-car...' we came to know as the Golf. The Allegro's replacement, the Maestro, would end up using the Golf's gearbox because BL lacked the means to develop one.

I’d love to go back to this quieter time

Had the same passat not for long sold it to a mate he ran it for year's loved it 👍👌👏

Tony an excellent presenter

Nice Video.My parents got an Allegro and I had myself a Passat.

1973 Passat, the start of a legend

I thought Shaw Taylor was coming on to say the Allegro was totally criminal!

NKM 460M lived until 1990! Good innings.

Brazil made this first-gen Passat all the way to 1987, the last model had a 1.8 GTS trim with Recaro seats, a sought-after collectible nowadays.

My dad bought a Passat LS estate in 1975 when I was 11. Spent hours in the back of that looking out at all of the other cars on the road building a fascination of cars. Always preferred the foreign motors such as the Passat, Renault 16, Alfasud, the weird rotary Mazdas etc etc etc to the staid Marinas, Triumphs, Allegros and Maxis that were built in the U.K. Those early car memories stay with you and shape you forever.

Even new cars looked used back in the day..... but my oh my Tony steals the show yet again, with his matter of fact delivery and yellowness

That's incredible! computer diagnostics in 1973 for the Passat. Who'd of funk it?

I like the Allegro more it has some nice and funny looks that make you smile! The Passat should have compared to the Princess 1800 and 2200!

So now I see where the C8 Corvette interior designers got their inspiration from for the steering wheel. And as others have commented, shocking to see computer-based diagnostics available on an early-1970s car. Google says VW first introduced this technology in 1969!

Thanks for sharing

Tony Bastaple. He didn't suffer fools and he didn't put up with any nonsense

What a great clip seeing Tony Bastable talking about the cars of the day. Its so sad that he died young. OMG The Austin Allegro and a choice of 4 ENGINES!!!! Under the bonnet when a MAN could TINKER with it Its all diagnostics now and in the next 10 years no COMBUSION ENGINES - ALL ELECTRIC

Jesus, Even when brand new, Allegro's looked like they'd been on the road for 10yrs...

More of these please

If you see Harris Mann's original drawings of the proposed Allegro the look is very sleek and attractive. However, this was in the British Leyland days, and they seemed to have had a deep hatred of the motoring public, so, they spoiled the design totally. They gave it the appearance of a cartoon pig bursting for a shit. It wouldn't have been so bad if the berks in Longbridge could have nailed the thing together properly.

I wonder why they compared these two cars they're in two different classes. Volkswagen came up with the Golf a year later in 1974 and competed against the Allegro whilst the Passat against the Morris Marina.

I was going to buy one on Wednesday but this review put me off.

I can smell the vinyl seats and memories of 3rd degree burns off the vinyl seats on sunny days. The smell of the little ashtrays built into the side panels full of cigarette butt's. The smell of 3 star petroleum and a having my lungs pumped full of lead. Shit times best forgotten. 👍

Funny - the Allegro hardly sold outside of the UK has the windscreen wipers layout like on a left hand drive - while VW changes it accordingly.

A square wheel, that idea really took on.

My Dad had a '79 Passat, which was in shit brown colour unfortunately with a biscuit colour interior. It was quite a revelation and leap forward mechanically from his previous motor, which was an air cooled Volkswagen fastback. The Passat had a hatch and the 1.6 engine which put out 75 hp, so it would have been nippy enough in its day too, as it probably didn't weigh much. It had efi which made a distinctive whirring noise on start up, I can still hear it now in my minds ear!

Good the have the car segments back.....at last! Jeez - Passat would be £21 grand in todays money about the same as an A3 I guess

Really enjoy these old reviews - more please!

What's an Ordi?

I knew a Welsh exchange student my last two years in college in Colorado. We both liked cars and he introduced me to a lot of British domestic models I'd never heard of. When he showed me a picture of himself with an Austin Allegro (his car at the time), he never called it an Allegro, only a "Faillegro" as it was so unreliable his wrench turning couldn't keep up with it. Sadly, I lost track of him when he went back. Cool guy though.

Allegro and really Britih Car for ever and ever!

I'll have the ford consul Capri in the back ground as the allegro is being driven thanks

My! The Passat has grown!

Lovely weather

I had the clutch cable brake on a night out on with my old Allegro, I had to walk home about 6 miles in the Snow ❄️ nearly froze to Death. 😂

Wow! The prices...only about £1k ! When did prices take a massive leap? In 1985, I bought a 1982 Lancia Beta Coupe that had cost £11K when new. That’s more than TEN TIMES more than that Allegro only ten years earlier.

My head says VW but my heart says buy the 1500cc dogs dinner.

Passed my test in an Allegro😊😊

That Allegro sounded 15 years old already, strained engine, gearbox whine and creaking suspension!

A remarkable little view of the world of 1973. Like many in the UK, the presenter used the old "schoolboy Latin" pronunciation of "Audi". Rarely or never heard today. Neither car has a passenger-door mirror. The diagnostic socket was a rarity even in 1976 when iur family had its first Passat. The Allegro was a part of the death of the pre-nationalisation BMC/BLMC tragedy. Apparently built for export, but with almost no export sales. No tailgate, no folding seats... not much of anything. And continental buyers ignored it, even when they lived within 50km of a BL agent. Amusing to see the Passat before the 3/5-door body took over. As for the Allegro, the last of the 1100/1300 models were still in showrooms when thos was filmed. And... Apart from the (then) slightly dated looks, they were better cars in almost every way. And the Passat? It was already a decade ahead. Fabulous old footage, full of nostalgia and charm.

More storage space after two years. You could stuff your belongings in the new-established holes

Inch high Tony.... Much missed

The 1975 & 1977 models had round headlights & different grille 77 ; 75 just round headlights .

Whenever you see reviews of the allegro, marina or other filth released by BL in the 70s, you can see British presenters desperate to note they're utterly shocking, but holding back because the cars are British and they'd be accused of disloyalty.

Diagnostic box? For the computer? Is this really 1973?

The Allegro lasted until 1987, not bad for a seventies motor

still the golden times for Leyland. Passat was far from perfect, rosting etc. and Leyland had yet the money to build a new car at all. But the commentator was aware, what will come..... Golf was in sight....

Feel like calling a Union meeting now..

to buy this wide and airy car as the allegro nowadays you have to give at least 40k euros.

For a moment there I thought it was Peter Sellers at the very end

These cars are not really competing with each other at all. Most importantly, they'e in different price brackets.

2nd generation Ordi 80

You'd have to be insane to choose the Allegro over the Passat. In 2021, which model still exists? Says it all really!

Volkswagen for me I think , 🤔

A teacher at my school was still driving an Allegro in the 1980s and he was rightly widely ridiculed. The Passat looks miserable too.

Imagine if British Leyland had got its act together in the 1970s. Would we be seeing Mark 10 Allegros on the road today?

Alan Partridge would be proud!

The year I was born: eye level, can the can, watergate

My the paint work..... I bet that was the best the Allegro looked until it met a few months of UK weather....

If they'd done a long term test comparison, I don't think that the Allegro would have made it to the finish line.

Tony Bastable later changed his name to Alan Patridge.

"The German, front-wheel drive, front- engined, water-cooled mini-car" - Nah, Tone. That'll never happen.

I would kill to have a Maxi engined , 5 speed Allegro

classic alan partridge,brilliant

At 4:42 - "clutch foots"?

I spy a nice little Inka BMW 2002 looking out to see near the end of the review

Bastable is the real life Alan Partridge

The bonet in the allegro doesn't seem like it's closed properly

Looking back on UK cars produced in the 70's, literally makes me shudder.

Remarkably Similar……!!😂😂😂😂😂. He must be joking….The Passat is still going….

Wow - Pea & ham soup green

....computer! ....square steering wheel! ITS FUTURE!

why oh why are they still testing old cars that you can no longer buy? what is going on at Thames ?

Hard to believe that thousands and thousands of people saw this in 1975 and went, 'I'll have the Allegro.' Almost as hard to believe as manufacturers building hatchback bodies then fitting a boot with a narrow lid. What was *that* about?

look at the prices for new cars and the extorsion amounts for cars from then crazy

In Today's money, these are the price of an Audi A3... so in that sense, cars are SO much better for the money today its hard to conceive really.

By the way British Leyland was a creation of the UK government, a reason we should not let politicans micromanage the economy. There job is to create an environment where industry grows, creates jobs, promotes exports with effective regulation.

I'd have both cars

Diagnostic port in 1973?

The bonnet does not fit correctly on the Allegro.

Saloon? Those are just hatchbacks without proper rear door.

It's so small, the Passat

You could almost slide your hand through that bonnet panel gap on the allegro

Interesting. My dad bought an Allegro in 1974. It was bloody awful, and rotted from the inside out.

Hydragas suspension and still a choppy ride!!! strange!

I rather like the Allegro. It was charming and weird. Then again I've never driven or even seen one in person.

Is it bad to say I like the Allegro's green? It would look amazing compared to the endless grey / silver / black and white cars of the last 20 years!

One nameplate is still alive and one isn’t :D

Bah🥺 No Womble in the background

Top presenter but I like the switch in pronouncing Audi part way through from the anglicised way to what we know now!