In 1967, Joe Edwards of BMH managed to secure the services of Roy Haynes from Ford as a stylist at the new BMH/Pressed Steel styling studios at Cowley in Oxford. Haynes had previously successfully styled the Ford Cortina MkII and he applied the style of this design to his new project, ADO28 - what was to become the Marina. Below are some fascinating pictures that show the cars BLMC turned down - and the proposals by Haynes that won over Harry Webster, George Turnbull and Donald Stokes.

 

This proposal by Michelotti was favoured by Harry Webster who being ex-Triumph could be forgiven for harbouring this view as the Italian styling house had successfully created the Herald, 1300, Toledo, 2000 and Stag. It was eventually turned down because of the fear of it costing too much to build.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 
Pininfarina put forward this proposal, which was turned down because it was considered "too glassy" - and therefore would cost too much to build. Harry Webster supposedly said of this, "it's like sitting in a bloody goldfish bowl".

 

Roy Haynes styled this as the sports version of the Marina. A British car designed to fight the likes of the Toyota Celica - this car went under the name "Condor" and was known internally as the ADO68/28. Because the floorpan was simple, it was also very adaptable - and Haynes envisaged MG and Jaguar versions of this coupé being devised, many different versions being mocked-up before the whole project was stopped.

 
 

And a later development of the same car (November 1969). Note that on the far side of the car, the window line is standard "Marina", indicating that this car was in fact "double sided" for the benefit of back to back comparison.

    

This picture of the saloon also reveals it to be a vastly more appealing car than the Italian proposals. The design would make it into production with remarkably few alterations - there would be quarterlights on the side windows (to reduce costs), the rear screen was given more "wrap-around" and the rear side windows were given their characteristic "kink" at the shoulder line (October 1969).

                                               

The Morris Marina was conceived in a hurry, but designers consoled themselves in the fact that it was only going to last five or six years...

Here we reveal pictures of the ADO77, and discuss why it never came into fruition.

 

 
ADO77 body-in-white prototype shows how BL intended to extend the wheelbase and offer an exciting new body style.

The trouble with developing and launching a car in a hurry is that even before it hits the roads, you're already looking forwards to the not inconsiderable matter of its replacement. In the case of the Marina, its future was mapped out for it, and although it was a hastily conceived car, this was not so much of a problem as it would be significantly facelifted, and then replaced within six years.

And the Marina did perform reasonably well on the market, regularly featuring in the UK's top-five sellers. Buyers obviously liked its compct dimensions, commodious boot and lively performance.

The Marina's replacement cycle would come in two phases - the ADO73 facelift, followed by the ADO77 rebody.

Conceived shortly after the Marina's launch in 1971, the ADO73 comprised a front-end facelift and an upgrading of equipment levels. No definitive ADO73 style has emerged from the archives, but looking at those pictured in the background of Allegro and ADO74 styling studio shots, no firm scheme had emerged. All of those that have been spotted singularly failed to improve on the elegant simplicity of Roy Haynes' original.

Slated for a 1975 launch, the ADO73 came up against a number of obstacles in its development during 1972 and 1973. Notably the company's deepening financial crisis and lack of resources. The launch was put back, and in the end, the ADO73 programme (which did see the new dashboard and trim improvements come on stream) was revised to exclude the front end facelift - ADO73, in effect, was the Marina Series Two, launched in 1975.

ADO77 was already well under way in 1977. According to Graham Robson's account of the boardroom machinations of the time, by as early as April 1973, the ADO77 would also form the basis of MGB and Midget replacements - a reprise of Project Condor's role in the Marina development programme. The idea for ADO68 was fiendishly clever, and pretty much the brainchild of Roy Haynes, who proposed that the entire BL range could be served by five platforms, individually tailored to marque demands. So a mid-sized MG could use the same platform of that of the Marina - and so forth.

In 1968, this was radical stuff - and yet, Haynes was on the money with his plan. Today, it is standard industry practice.

So, ADO77 existed from at least 1973, but what exatly was it?

BL had new engines and gearboxes on the way. The LT77 gearbox, used in the SD1 and TR7/TR8 was, in fact a clever modular design. From it, a range of gearboxes could be produced, and the corporate plan was to produce it in '64mm', '77mm' and '88mm' form. In the end, only the '77mm' gearbox was produced, but when the ADO77 was in development, it was pencilled in to use the smallest member of the gearbox family.

In terms of its engine, the O-Series was also well under way in 1973, and it was always a given that it would find its home in the ADO77. In fact, it was hoped to find service first in the ADO73, but thanks to delays in the programme (detailed in the O-Series Story) - a common theme in the company at the time - it missed its planned launch date spectacularly. But as ADO77 was also slipping, it was still planned to use the new OHC engine in the larger Marina replacement.

The ADO77 was also going to be considerably larger than the car it replaced. BL (and it wasn't alone) had been been wrong-footed by Ford - because it hadn't forseen the Cortina's growth from a 1200-1600cc car in MkII form to a 1300-2000cc car in MkIII guise. Not only was the engine range lager, but the MkIII Cortina grew considerably in size - and yet, because the market was buoyant and the country's economy improving, buyers lapped up the bigger, more powerful car.

 

                 

 

The Marina replacement would therefore grow to meet the Cortina's challenge. The engine range would be pure 'O', in 1.7- and 2-litre form, and the wheelbase would grow from 93 to 100-inches in order to provide Cortina-rivalling room. It was also very useful to grow the Morris, as it was embarassingly close to the Austin Allegro in terms of size and pricing - and no matter how much BL denied it, the two cars were feeding off each other in the market place.

The two cars pictured clearly show where the increase in size was going to come from - the wheelbase. And the top picture, recently revealed by Classic & Sports Car magazine, shows that later in its programme, the ADO77 was going to employ much of the Marina's body structure, but enlarged to suit. The signs are there to see - the wheelbase has grown (you can see the modified from wings and rear closing panels - look at the gap between the rear door and wheelarch), and the front becomes 'lean back' in aspect.

The most interesting aspect of the design is at the rear, where an interesting fusion of Coupe and saloon has been related. It is far from clear as to whether this was a final design solution, but it cannot be denied that it is remarkably effective, and it mirrors much of what VW was doing with the Passat hatchback at the time, although this is clearly still a four-door car.

In the end, the money ran out, and in a post-Ryder Report climate at BL, the decision was taken to merge the mid-sized Rover-Triumph project, SD2, with ADO77. This took place in September 1975, and the the resulting paper project, TM1, (a joint Morris/Rover-Triumph car, based on a cheaper SD2 platform and using the O-Series engine and LT77 gearbox) never got off the ground. The O-Series engines did make it into the Marina, in 1978, but no other aspect of ADO77 was carried over. When the Ital came on stream in 1980, it retained all the Marina's body pressings, showing that panel changes were not really required to achieve a lean-back nose.

As for the ADO77, no pictures of the completed car have yet to surface, but it seems a shame that Cowley's Cortina never saw the light of day, because although austin-rover.co.uk's readership voted it the worst BMC>Rover ever, it really was guilty of no crime, other than living too long...