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ADO 28 - What does it mean?

ADO 28 = 2- door/4 door saloons and all other derivatives, front engine, rear drive. Morris Marina range (also Austin Marina in the US), conceived in 1968 but announced in 1971.

 

 

 ADO 28 was the code name given to the Marina project. B.M.C adopted these code names for all their projects. The idea behind it was to keep projects secret from their leading competitors. ADO stands for Austin Drawing Office and the number 28 was assigned to the Morris Marina range (also Austin Marina for the US market) the Morris diehards at BMC preferred ADO to be known as Amalgamated Drawing Office. The ADO code name also makes matters simple when staff discussions and meetings took place.

The ADO code numbers don’t run in any particular sequence because if it did the Marina project would be a high number rather than a low number like it is. The ADO numbers weren’t always allocated just to cars, in some cases it might just refer to an engine or a gearbox or merely a facelift or derivative of an earlier model for example ADO 38 was the number allocated to the face lifted ADO9 ( B- series Farina range)  

The Factory

During the development of the Marina, it was decided that the Cowley plant in Oxford needed an overhaul - the result was that the production line was completely gutted, giving the plant the capability of producing some 5,000 cars per week. These photographs were taken to demonstrate just how much of Cowley was all-new, and that the cars coming off were of the highest quality.

Factory photos

 

     

                                                                                                 

                                                                        

 

                                  

 

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