Why I love the unloved Allegro

THERE are plenty of great cars I don’t particularly like. Yet it takes a different sort of topsy-turvy logic altogether to like what’s widely regarded as Britain’s worst car.

If you’re the sort of armchair car critic who’s had their idea of what constitutes a rubbish car cemented through a lifetime of Jeremy Clarkson DVDs then you might as well click away now. If on the other hand you’re prepared to give even motoring’s worst offenders a fair trial, then you’ll be shocked by the verdict.

I’ve just spent the past three days hoofing about in an Austin Allegro – and I really enjoyed it.

It’s fashionable to give the poor old Allegro a kicking. In the past couple of years the tabloids have picked up on at least three surveys naming and shaming it as Britain’s worst car, in 2012 a Tory peer likened a poorly thought-out Government policy to one and Jeremy Clarkson could only think of the Morris Marina when looking for cars he hated more. In fact, I nearly joined them when a 1.1-litre Series 3 Allegro left me stranded on the M11 a couple of months ago.

So I wasn’t expecting much when a colleague chucked me the keys to his pride and joy – a V-registered Allegro 1.3 in a fantastically Seventies shade of brown with beige seats. Certainly, I wasn’t expecting to fire faithfully into life every time I tried to start it. Surely British Leyland relics from the decade that brought you the three day week and Terry and June aren’t supposed to do that?

Nor was I expecting it to go and steer in a genuinely entertaining way. I know from the 1.1-litre car I borrowed a few months ago that to drive they feel a bit like a Mini that ate all the pies, but this 1.3-litre car had just enough extra oomph to overcome the podge. I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but the right Allegro is a fun car to drive!

What’s more, it has room for five, the interior’s light and airy because its window pillars are so much thinner than today’s hatchbacks, and if you look hard enough you can still pick decent ones up for under a grand. Just about the only downsides are the lack of a hatchback – bizarrely, the logic was that giving it one would harm sales of the Austin Maxi – and looks that I think are cute and distinctive but most people hate.

So the world’s worst car is actually not all that bad. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it!

Rumour has it the Austin Allegro is 40 this year

SQUASHED tomatos and stew, and all that. In case you haven't seen all the birthday-themed graphics in tomorrow's edition of The Champion here's the news anyway - the newspaper celebrates its 19th anniversary this week.

All of which got me thinking of some of the more memorable motoring anniversaries heading our way this year - there's a bonanza of bashes, for instance, to mark Aston Martin's centenary. There's also the Porsche 911, which is 50, and the Corvette, which storms to 60. A few rungs back down the ladder and you've got the thirtysomething Peugeot 205, and the Hillman Imp, which hits its 50th this year.

Oh, and the classic everyone loves to hate. Believe it or not, but life begins at forty for the Austin Allegro!

If Churchill had lived long enough to see the launch and chequered career of BL's slightly misguided replacement for the 1100 I'm sure he'd have reused one of his greatest lines to sum it up. Never, in the field of automotive history, have so many urban myths been peddled by so many about one car.

There is, for starters, the one about it being more aerodynamic going backwards than forwards, which is true but only when you consider that lots of car which have those pesky air intakes and radiator grilles on the front have the same problem. There's also the persistent rumours in classic car land about wheels falling off and rear windscreens popping out, but this seems to be more down to a slim minority ending up in the hands of bad mechanics than any inherant design problems.

Yet none of these compare to the weirdest Allegro anecdote - an Allegrodote, if you will - of all. Apparently, the Allegro is banned from both of the Mersey tunnels because its chassis is too weak to cope with the prospect of being pulled out again in the event of a breakdown (something, which I know from personal experience of owning British Leyland cars, isn't that unlikely a prospect). A great story, but as far as a bit of Life On Cars research has showed so far, it's cobblers.

In fact, if you look at the actual rules and regulations covering the Kingsway and Queensway Tunnels (and there are, if you're feeling a bit of an anarok and don't have much of a social life, a lot to leaf through) there is not a single mention of the Austin Allegro being banned, or any other make or model of car. If you have any hard evidence to the contrary that doesn't begin with the words “Rumour has it...” by all means feel free to send it in but otherwise I can say there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the Allegro is banned from the Mersey tunnels.

Weird, but true.