Dave:
Reminded me of my brother who owned an Austin 1100 in Wolverhampton.
The car was stolen, but found 1/4 of a mile away almost broken in two.
The cars were not well thought of over here. The mystique lives on
though.
Back in the 70s our scrapyard would buy Austin Americas for $50.00
still running. We would strip the doors and interior to make them lighter
then race and jump them over obsticles at a nearby building site. The
Hydroelastic suspension could lift the cars 4 -5 feet off the ground given
enough of a run.
Kelvin.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Hill [mailto:davhill@btinternet.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 5:02 PM
> To: Dodd, Kelvin
> Subject: Re: The Missing word.(is Magnette)
>
>
> Hi.
>
> This is very interesting to me because the Austin/Morris/MG
> 1100 and 1300
> has a chequered history here in the UK. Essentially an
> enlarged Mini, they
> were the preferred choice of older buyers.
> More importantly, they were one of the biggest rot-boxes on
> the planet; I
> once heard the quote (in a magazine), '24 hours with the
> welding torch and
> it still wasn't safe'. Also, on a TV programme, someone had a
> picture of an
> Austin 1100 which had been taken to a small garage for
> 'restoration'. They'd
> put it on a 4-pad chassis lift and the pic showed the entire front end
> hanging down, where the car had simply snapped across the
> bulkhead because
> it was so badly rotted out.
> The result of all this is that on the UK classic market,
> these cars are
> worth very, very little and aren't sought after. Perhaps
> another example of
> how lucky some of you in the drier states are - not having to
> deal with rot
> to this extent.
>
> Dave Hill ( c/w flameproof suit)
> York, UK.
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