Concepts and prototypes : Allegro Equipe
January 9, 2013
· 
Keith Adams · 
26 Comments
Keith Adams, photography, Stephen Harper
In the lead-up to the launch of the series 3 Austin Allegro, newly-recruited Austin Apprentice Stephen Harper joined the team of young stylists tasked with raising the appeal of the Longbridge-built mid-liner. Harper had already come up with the LE limited edition, and the Equipe was a development of this theme – bold looking graphics combined with the two-door shell and 1750cc engine was to be BL’s answer to the Alfasud ti…
Harper recalls, ‘here are the original Equipe taping schemes; the chosen theme was in the background of these pics, done together with Tom Owen, who went to Jaguar soon afterwards.’
He added: ‘these wheels were the first (off the shelf) supplied by GKN, who later went on to manufacture the unique Equipe wheels… Also the four-door model was only a partial consideration. The focus was for the two-door, but the four-door was also a fallback in Marketing felt that the project would not sell enough units. Hence the different scheme, as the Starsky & Hutch Hockey-Stick didn’t fit around the rear door handles and pillar. The spoiler was a near to completion production part, but de-tuned later.’
Ex BL Public Relations man Ian Elliott was involved with the launch of the Equipe in the spring of 1979 – just weeks before the arrival of the series 3. He remembered: ‘The announcement of the Equipe coincided with a Northern Group of Motoring Writers Test Day at the Mintex proving Ground oop in Sherburn-in Elmet, Yorkshire. So we were detailed to take one up there as part of the Austin Morris test fleet. As usual, however, we were right at the end of the supply chain, and the car was delivered minus its lurid side graphics.
‘Since the graphics were really the entire point of the exercise, we ended up sticking the vinyls on ourselves, early in the morning! Quite a ticklish business putting such a big vinyl across four separate panels.’
The Equipe ended up with with a rather special customer – with a rather special version. Elliott adds, ‘shortly after it was announced, we had a call from Sir Douglas Bader (yes, the ex-fighter pilot) saying that he wanted an Equipe, but it had to be an automatic, for obvious reasons. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t possible, it wasn’t in the spec., but there were always people at Longbridge who could bend the rules, and a car was produced for Sir Douglas. One wonders if it is still around, a real one-off.’
If you know, we’d love to hear from you.
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26 Responses
Blimey Bader had an Equipe!!
Always had a soft-spot for the Equipe- its sort of the polar opposite of what a ‘Q car’ should be (understated but potent), yet still somehow manages to carry it all off- and not look incredibly tacky, as limited editions of that era often did. I wouldn’t want any other Allegro (apart, maybe from the ugly VDP).
Did they ever sort out the Equipe’s famously porous alloy wheels? If so, how? Perhaps by laquering the rims on the inside?
In my recent Allegro interest I’ve seen shots of the Equipe on various web sites. I’m still not sure about the side stripes but the grille, black trim and silver paintwork are great. They enhance the styling so much! I’d love to see a de-striped one on my drive. To me, in today’s world, it looks good!!!!
I’d have one-remember back in the day thinking they were pretty good to look at.
Alloys, a few bits of ‘aerodynamic’ black plastic dotted around the body work and some graphics.
Wonder where the inspiration for the Fiesta Supersport (the warm up act for the XR range) came from….?
Beyond installing the 2.0 O-Series engine, has anyone ever tuned the 1850cc engine of the Allegro Equipe so it at least puts out 100 + bhp?
I like the picture of the graphics proposals, class, that is
The front spoiler really tidies up the front, almost Granada Ghia-X like. Rally style wheels look good too.
I never recall seeing any Allegro in silver apart from the Equipe. I knew someone who bought one and had a catalogue of problems which needed addressing under warranty.
In those days I think most manufacturers only provided a one year warranty… not good if you had a troublesome car.
Good grief, Bader owning an Allegro!! Well, it makes a change from battling against Messerschmidts.
Which reminds me of the oft-repeated tale of Bader regaling the girls of Roedean with one of his War stories. Too rude for this site but a quick search with those 3 words (Douglas Bader Roedean) pulls up plenty of results…
How cool is that! I googled the Equipe again – quite an effective car – if it had been backed up with a bit more grunt under the bonnet it could have been a ‘Sud chaser! I also googled ‘silver Austin Allegro’ – the only ones that come up are Equipes – how odd – I would have thought that silver would be a very popular colour……come to think of it, I can’t recall seeing a 70s Marina, Maxi or Mini in silver either…..
Silver and all shades of grey metallic have been quite rare in the 70s – so the Equipe really stood out. On most non-luxury cars of the time silver was not even an option.
Bader in BL’s finest? – all the blood must have rushed to his head… Quite simply the Equipe is vile to me – it looks like someone took the most tasteless parts of the most tasteless cars in history and tacked them into one gruesome whole – that applique wood look is just hideous. It works on a Chrysler Savoy Wagon, it doesnt work on something that looks like the fat bird from Berwick…
Actually it was tested a few years back what effect the loss of legs such as in Baders case would do to the skills of a combat pilot and the results were interesting. Since the blood couldnt pool in the legs, since they werent there any more the pilot is more able to resist blacking out and can therefore pull substantially more G than an entirely fit enlegged individual (this is the idea behind the RAFs current ‘blow up trousers’ for fast jet pilots today, DVT eat your heart out). Theres some evidence to show that Baders performance was improved by this because the Spitfire was able (when not being flown like spun glass like today) to survive higher G than both meatbags and the 109, Bader could therefore take the plane closer to its limits which may have helped him gain some of his victories.
That said why on earth would anyone be so desperate to have an allagro to the point of having a one off special made? more to the point why did he do that when he apparently was perfectly capable of driving a manual (although I would love to have seen the policemans face who stopped him).
I read somewhere Douglas Bader also survived a crash landing which damaged his artificial legs, but would have killed someone able bodied from the trauma of blood loss from their crushed & broken legs.
12. Jemma – the Equipe didn’t have any fake wood -those other pictures relate to alternative schemes that were looked at.
Look, if Bader wanted an auto, who were we to argue?
If you had to have an allegro, then make it a base model. The Equipe just made a strange/oddball looking car, look worse!
@5, Nate.
Downton did an E-series conversion putting out about 106 bhp. Here’s a Downton Maxi:
http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.uk/images/DowntonMaxi1750.jpg
This would suggest that Downton also converted an Allegro:
http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.uk/images/downton_last.jpg
@ 15 – Don’t agree. Yes, the side stripes are positively garish but the grill, spoiler, black trim are a big improvement.
@ 16 – JH Gillson
Interesting, been looking for info on what the E-Series is capable of in terms of tuning.
So in theory, if a standard Allegro 1750 Equipe with 91 bhp can do a claimed 0-60 in 9.8 seconds (based on the limited info I can find) than an Allegro with a 106 bhp version of the 1750 E-Series should be able to roughly crack 0-60 in the early/mid 8s, based on roughly calculating the 0-60 difference between the 95 bhp version of the Maxi and the 106 bhp Downton-tuned Maxi (a difference of about 1.6 seconds).
@ 18 – Nate
Read somewhere many years ago – in Practical Classics, I think – some guy who had an Aggro 1750cc as a student (because it was the largest engined car he could afford to insure.)
Said by the time he finished with it, it cranked out 140bhp. Said he applied the principles of Vizard’s tuning the A-series engine to the E, and got a fair few engineering students to help him.
The consensus seems to be that the E-series wasn’t a very tuneable lump – found some sniffy old “Car” road tests in which much the same thing is said – but I think that’s probably garbage: it’s just nobody seriously tried to eke a few more ponies from it because the cars it was fitted too were so unfashionable.
140hp was possible with the MG1600 unit. Flat spots caused by the fuelling system was fixed by using slightly smaller chokes.
Plenty of torque from this unit but was as harsh as a cement mixer really, and not very tough. -It, like few of the E/R Series engines, blew it’s gasket in the two middle rings (and that was with an official Austin part). And can I also point out that the water pump was a real bitch to get to….
@ 19 – JH Gillson
Isn’t Vizard the guy who managed to get the A-Series to put out very good fuel economy figures? Also, what were the principles of Vizard’s tuning?
It did not help that the E-Series powered cars were largely unfashionable though despite the engine also managing to ruin the original Allegro’s styling, BL could have at least regained ground by having the top Allegro put out Golf GTi-rivalling figures like on the 1750 E-Series Downton conversions.
Though having its own issues the related 1.6 S-Series (mostly) came good in the end and even managed to put 150 bhp in the Janspeed Rover 216 Vitesse Turbo.
@ 19 – Nate
Vizard is the guy who wrote the big bible of A-series tuning:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tuning-Engine-Definitive-Performance-Economy/dp/1859606202
Never consulted this book even when I used to own a Mini, but it is regarded as pretty much the definitive tome for those wanting to hop-up the A-series.
I would say a Downton style conversion for an E-series Allegro (or Maxi) would be the best way to go because Daniel Richmond’s work was very highly regarded back in the day.
Here’s the index for press reviews from that same website in case you haven’t looked through it all already:
http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.uk/downton_press_reviews.htm
It seems he was never bothered with headline-grabbing bhp figures but rather concerned himself with achieving a broad spread of torque, a philosophy that resulted in a Downton car (whether it be a Mini, 1100, 1800, MGB, MGC, Maxi, or Marina) being rather more refined, usually more economical and always much faster than the standard article.
So, yes, BL could probably have produced a harder-charging Allegro, but would the five-speed transmission have coped? As I understand it, it was a bit borderline with the twin-carb 91bhp 1750cc unit. Mind you, that’s not something that concerned the company when it launched the MG Metro Turbo…
Does make you wonder, though, how the Maxi’s five-speed gear-cluster managed to cope with the torque of the 1974 Lotus Elite. Badly, I would imagine.
I do remember Motor magazine testing one of these when launched with favourable comments.
The best one being along the lines of. . . .
will beat a 2litre Cortina from the lights and outhandle one also!
T
Outhandling a Cortina is not that difficult isn’t it? On a slightly challenging road my single carb Maxi 1750HL would be easier to drive fast than the 2.0 Litre V6 Taunus (read Cortina Mk IV) I once bought for a long holiday drive. The Taunus had a higher top speed and was much quieter – that’s about all.
@11 Alexander… I agree, most non luxury cars in the 60s & 70s were not universally available in metallics. Exceptions were the Cortina MK2, Zodiac MKIV and Vaux VX4/90 FD series. Granted, the Zodiac was regarded as a luxury car though.
Out of interest, does anyone have info on a 1977/78 Janspeed Austin Allegro 1750 Turbo?
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