Rarest cars on UK roads are...

[Boomy]

LONDON (Reuters) - Once as ubiquitous as red telephone boxes, the humble Morris Marina has become the rarest car on Britain's roads, closely followed by the Ford Cortina, according to Auto Express.

Just 745 of about 807,500 cars made are still on the road, making Ferraris and Porsches look positively common for car spotters.

"Catching a glimpse of the Marina today is very rare -- you'd never imagine that it was regularly the third or fourth best-selling car in Britain throughout the 70s," the magazine said in its latest issue.

The magazine looked at cars from the 1970s, 80s and 90s that once sold in massive numbers but which are now rarities.

Using data from the DVLA and a formula that levelled the playing field for different vintage cars, the magazine came up with the top 10 of once-common vehicles which are now rarely seen.

At number two was the Ford Cortina Mark IV/V (1976-1982) of which just 2,101 remain working against over one million made while at number three was the Renault 18 -- 317 left out of a run of 131,241 in the country.

In contrast, the first incarnation of the Nissan Micra, along with the Mark III/IV Ford Granada (1985-1994) and the Mark I Volkswagen Golf (1974-1983) were all deemed to be among the best survivors with a high proportion still operating.

The 10 rarest list:

- Morris Marina (1971-1980)

- Ford Cortina Mark IV/V (1976-1982)

- Renault 18 (1979-1986)

- Renault 5 (1972-1983)

- Skoda Estelle (1977-1992)

- Vauxhall Cavalier Mark III (1981-1989)

- Austin/Rover Metro (1980-1994)

- Austin/Rover Montego (1984-1995)

- Austin/Rover Maestro (1983-1995)

- Fiat Uno (1083-1989)

[geelhoed]

QUOTE

Fiat Uno (1083-1989)

Medieval Italian crap!

[blankczechbook]

one of those in the list is THE most common car I see on the roads here...

bl**dy things are like mobile speed restricting chicanes on the roads :-)

perhaps the highway patrols should be given some to act as variable speed limits on motorways

[budmikem]

Its not suprising the Marina is such a rare car....no doubt they have all been written off !!

My dad had a 1.8TC 4 door...white with vinyl roof....lovely car in its day...but handling was terrible....as a young 19 year old, it gave me a few scary moments !!!

The 2 door version was worse!!....the van [my brothers]version seemed to be about the best handling one.

But these were the days when 3000gt Capris were the Subarus of the road....and they werent too quick around corners either...unless backwards.

[Boomy]

We went from a 4 door marina to an all-agro 1500 super!.Marina was maroon, Allegro was that gold colour with a brown vinyl roof and it had a cassette player!!!.

I declared that when i grew up, i would one day own the marina fastback in gold (with brown vinyl roof) and an allegro in the same colour.I thought they would look superb side by side on my drive  

[KerryS]

Thought a Mark 1 Vauxhall Victor would be rarer, they just soooo loved to rust....

Kerry

[Blatman]

Rover SD1?

[Peter M]

Rover SD1?

Maybe more soon

clicky

[Boomy]

Rover SD1?

The car i tried to convince my Dad to buy instead of the Allegro.

As a kid, i could never understand why something so big with so many buttons that went bl**** fast and looked so cool could be passed by and brushed aside on the dealers forecourt.

He didn't even want to look at it despite my protests.

I remember him saying something about it having high mileage though, but that meant nothing to me anyway.

I will never forget having to walk away from that car knowing it was not a viable option for the new family motor.

The 'cupped hands around my face' and 'squashed up nose' imprints i left on all of the windows are probably still visible in a breakers yard somewhere to this very day.  

[budmikem]

I remember one sunday as a child...we went to a garage to look at cars.....there was a fantastic lotus Cortina Mk1 ......I was drooling over it.

Imagine my face when dad turned up 2 weeks later with a Simca 1301 Special!.....only good thing was 2 spot lights fitted in the grill....and 2 types of horn..town & country !

As we had been carted around in Morris 1100 and 1300's ...it was certainly an upgrade

[Kevin Wood]

Having owned one (well, an Ital actually) I know exactly why the Marinas have all rotted away. The driving experience is so horrendous that they're not worth saving. The same could probably be said for most of the cars on that list.

Life's not too bad in a straight line (I had the 1.7 one so it wasn't totally gutless - unlike the 1.3) but I used to dread corners. A tonne of car sloshing around on torsion bar front suspension with cr@p lever arm shock aborbers and no anti-roll bars in sight, good old leaf springs on the back and 155 section tyres.

Try to provoke any RWD, live axle, crap tyres back-end-out action and the suspension would load up and then recoil, sending you off in a random direction.

Still, it was ideal student transport (mine was an estate ), easy to work on and it racked up 100,000 miles without letting me down.

Kevin

[steve_m]

My Dad had a 1972 Morris Marina 1.8 2 door Coupe SDL Automatic with a black roof     We went touring all through Europe in it.  Great car, only broke down once when a split pin broke allowing the gear lever to waggle around without moving anything in the gearbox.

I learnt to drive in that and a Talbot Horizon 1.3, very basic but solid.

[John Fisher]

I'm surprised the humble Hillman Avenger (same era as the Marina) isn't on the list - don't see to many around anymore.

Fish

[bhouse]

And the HA Viva - I can't remembr the last time I saw one of them...

[pistonbroke]

First transport

Austin A35 van ( dont see a lot of em now ) good old horse and cart suspension , leaf spring rear, torsion bar front , absolute crap .

1965 Vauxhall Victor 101 you could jack one corner up  and the other 3 wheels would stay on the ground . what a rustheap it was too  

Then came the company cars,  various Minis , Anglias , Escorts, mk 1. 2. & 3's.  Mostly estate cars and all fully funded by Thorn EMI , licensed to thrill

Lost count of how many I wrote off,  thus depriving the next generation of  classic car owner the oppertunity to aquire another bargain, carefully maintained ex company car .

 

But boy did I have some fun driving them