Development story

What’s left to be said about the Allegro – it never met sales predictions, earned a terrible reputation in the press and with buyers, and its fame far exceeded its influence in the automotive industry. British Leyland threw everything into making it a success, and yet failed dismally… […]

Unashamedly created as Cowley’s Cortina, we tell the Morris Marina development story – how this car was intended to lead Morris – and, more importantly, British Leyland – into a […]

The Mini development story tells the tale of how this small car changed the way we looked at economy cars almost overnight. It sent designers from rival carmakers scurrying back […]

Based on the Mini, the Austin Metro shared its A-Series engine, and when launched in 1980, it was hailed as the car to save British Leyland. It did, too… […]

Chrysler’s great white hope in the executive sector was the C9 project. However, events overtook its development, and Peugeot ended up finishing the job by launching the Talbot Tagora. And […]

The Triumph Dolomite development story – it started life as an upscale and technically interesting small saloon, but the Triumph 1300/Toledo/Dolomite ended up evolving in many fascinating and quite innovative […]

Designed for the US market, but introduced after the Sterling pull-out, the 800 Coupe was very much a car without a target audience. The Rover 800 Coupe development story tells the […]

The Rover 800 development story tells an interesting tale. It relates to how the first-generation 800 emerged as the result of an ambitious programme to produce new Rover- and Honda-badged […]

Revamping a model is never an easy task, especially when you are constrained by budget and the need to retain the underpinnings from an existing car.  However, as David Morgan […]

Updated: The story of the Rover 75-based Roewe 750. It had rather a lot of British input into it. That’s because it was developed by a number of ex-MG Rover engineers in the UK. But it was also based on an ill-fated plan to facelift the Rover 75 in 2006. Shame we never had a chance to buy it in Britain… […]

The Leyland Princess development story tells a rather confused tale. It never actually started out as such – but as a marque-confused Austin, Morris and Wolseley mid-liner to replace the […]

The Rover 200 and its 400-series sister were launched with much hullaballoo in 1989 and ’90, and proved to be every bit as good as its maker told us is was. Had Rover finally turned the corner? Was it about to make a miraculous recovery? For a few short years in the 1990s, it certainly appeared to be the case. […]