Morris Marina

Built during a period when British Leyland workers were mostly out on strike, they were horrible cars.  Still, that didn’t prevent BL from trying to foist them on an unsuspecting public:

The cars were so awful that Top Gear (my favorite TV show, as you know) has made a cottage industry dropping pianos on them:

And, inevitably, there is a Facebook page where you can become a fan of dropping pianos on helpless Marinas. I am, in fact, a fan.

4 Comments

I don’t think you understand British cars. They are supposed to be crap so everyone can have something to whinge about. We had a Rover that did nothing but break down. We switched to Renaults and discovered what cars could be.

@Benedick: Jaguars became decent cars when Ford bought the company – sure, Ford didn’t add any passion, but they added a decent wiring harness and gauges that worked. Goodbye Smith’s instruments and Lucas wiring – hello reliability.

Among the many brilliant insights of what it means to be English in Fawlty Towers one of the best is Basil jumping out of his mini when it breaks down to beat it with a twig while shrieking “I’ve warned you about this before!” Perfect encapsulation of the attitude of Brits to their cars.

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