Austin Allegro Equipe – Driven To Write

Vroom the Bell Tolls

Desperate times – desperate measures.

It’s very much like the old look, so maybe don’t look too closely? Image: Troxel’s Auto Literature

Allegro 3 arrived onto the market in Autumn 1979 and the BL marketing machine, amid the grinding of E-Series gears, stirred into life. “SuperVroom”, the promotional copy declared, and a nation held its breath. Or perhaps not. Amid the lexicon of advertising taglines, it was no exclamative for the ages. Indeed for most casual observers, it meant little and bore even less relation to the product being placed in front of them. But amid the siege mentality that permeated BL’s Bickenhill corporate fortress circa-1979, the marketing teams, much like their equivalents elsewhere in the organisation had to Continue reading “Vroom the Bell Tolls”

Running With Scissors [Part Three]

Questions of style.

There are certain irrefutable qualities which help determine successful product design. Of these, appearance, while arguably the least important in absolute terms, is the most easily perceived, and clearly the most subjective, but it goes without saying that in the absence of a robust visual appeal, even the best wrought product will struggle. The Allegro’s appearance forms an essential component of its subsequent notoriety, but like most aspects of the car’s iconography, this aspect of ADO67 remains subject to varying levels of hysteria.

The Allegro’s style garnered little overt press criticism^[1] at its introduction. This would not have been unusual behaviour from the home team – but in this instance the UK press may have been a little over-keen to Continue reading “Running With Scissors [Part Three]”

Theme: Special – Or Not?

As February 2016 slides into memory, we bid a silent adieu to yet another theme.

Volkswagen Polo Harlequin special edition. Image:Hooniverse

So by way of round-up or merely a chagrined ‘how the hell did we fail to mention that’ groan, we return to the subject one last time to look at a couple of special editions we really should have got around to before now. First and most glaring (in every sense of the word) has to be the 1995 Volkswagen Polo Harlequin special edition. Between the Rock Tribute special editions we featured earlier and this duo, one can only speculate as to what those crazy guys & gals in Wolfsburg were imbibing? Solvents perhaps. But surely it can only have been blind prejudice and a staggering lack of vision that prevented VW’s European rivals from adopting this colour concept en-masse. Continue reading “Theme: Special – Or Not?”