Allegro

It is hard to believe that once, Britain was the world's greatest car manufacturer. Following WWII, there was little competition from Europe while demand for new cars in America and Australia outpaced Detroit's ability to supply them. In 1937, Britain made 15% of the world's cars; by 1950, a year in which 75% of British car production and 60% of its commercial vehicle production was exported, Britain provided 52% of the world's market. Well things went pear-shaped from '55 onward as our engineering unable to compete on production cost and design simplicity or elegance. The world wanted Herbie and 22,529,464 Love Bugs rolled off the assembly line (source: Wikipedia)

And this brings us to the Austin Allegro, pictured, which was profiled on Radio 4 this morning as the worst car ever made in Britain (Richard Porter notes in his book, Crap Cars, "the only bit of the Allegro they got even vaguely right was the rust-proofing.") The Allegra was Britain's attempt in 1973 to create a design "for the 1980s and beyond" while providing a small family car. It was manufactured by British Leyland until 1983. From the start the Allegro was plagued with problems and a commonly-given example of the the car's poor design that it was more aerodynamic when going backwards. Apparently, the car had a difficult time actually going backwards and the salesman would try to avoid this procedure at all costs during a test-drive. Back in the '60s, according to the radio, people bought British because, well, they were British and 642,350 Allegros sold during its ten-year production life. There are only a few Allegros left which makes me feel a bit more safe on the A3.

My first car BTW a yellow VW Hatchback which was shared equally with Katie when she got her driving license a year later. The car was a blessing since I was commuting 90 minutes each way between Berkeley and Walnut Creek for swimming. It also gave us freedom on the week ends - a remarkable gift from our parents, really. I recall driving to Redding for a swim meet with Doug seeing if the hatchback could break 100 mph - I don't know if we hit the target but the cop who overhauled our asses was going pretty damn fast and, without one friendly word, wrote a fat ticket+points on the license. Doug was driving. That same week end we slept in the back of the car at a Red Lion not wishing to shell out thirty bucks for a room. We tried to sleep, that is, until some drunk dude threatened to beat his naked girlfriend who had fled the hotel and locked into the car next to ours. We got out of there pretty fast.