Sometimes figures don’t tell the whole story, and that was certainly the case for BMC 1100/1300 range. The ADO16 may have reigned supreme at the top of Britain sales charts for eight years between 1963 and 1971, but while it was the darling of the private motorist, the lucrative fleet market shunned its front-wheel drive and complex Hydrolastic suspension in favour of the simplicity and perceived reliability of stylish but far more straightforward offerings from Ford. And as BMC merged into British Motor Holdings and subsequently the British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968, an answer to the relentless march of the Blue Oval was needed – fast.
That answer was the Morris Marina – acar that would become Cowley’s Cortina. The 1100/1300 was a big seller but was always questionable from a profit point of view, so this time the focus was on taking a leaf from Ford’s book – asimple rear-wheel drive layout using components shared with other models, clothed in a highly stylised body. This was not a car to break ground, but to be bang on trend for the market of time. Heck, it was even styled by the same man as the Mk2 Cortina, Roy Haynes, who had been pinched from Ford in late 1967. Incidentally, it was the Mk2 that had managed to knock the ADO16 off its perch that year.
The idea was to give customers more metal for their money, but by the time the car had been put on sale, the Ford template had changed. Its new Mk3 Cortina was bigger still, well costed and very stylish. If their contrasting reputations are to be believed, the
