"Everything about the Allegro was wrong, from the lack of a hatchback to the ghastly giant square steering wheel. The German and Japanese cars felt like harbingers of a new technical age. This car, like the Triumph before it, felt like a shelf full of grandma's knick-knacks."
- James May on the Allegro
The Austin Allegro is a small family car that was manufactured by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland from 1973 until 1982. This vehicle was also built for a short time in Italy by Innocenti between 1974 and 1975 where it was sold as the Innocenti Regent, and a luxury variant of the car was built as the Vanden Plas 1500. The Allegro was designed as a replacement for the Austin 1100 and 1300 models. In total, 642,350 Austin Allegros were produced during its nine-year production life, most of which were sold in its home market, with less than a third of 2.1 million 1100s and 1300s sold in the previous 11 years.
It was built and sold by British Leyland alongside the hatchback Austin Maxi (launched in 1969) and the 1971 rear-wheel-drive Morris Marina. All three were eventually replaced by the Austin Maestro in 1983.
Apperances[]
- In Clarkson's Car Years "Who Killed the British Car Industry?", Jeremy compares the Allegro with the similar Morris Marina to decide which one's worse.
- In Clarkson's Top 100 Cars, Jeremy used an Allegro as one of the cars to be hit in a game of bar skittles.
- In Series 11, Episode 1 of Top Gear, an Allegro was used by the Top Gear Stunt Man to set a world record for car jumping in reverse.
- In the India Special, the Allegro was used as a Back-Up Car.
- In Series 2, Episode 1 of James May's Cars of the People, James May reviewed the Allegro, where he derided its ugly appearance and being sold as a saloon despite its hatchback-like shape. James also interviewed the car's designer, Harris Mann.
- In Series 27, Episode 4, Freddie Flintoff used the Allegro Estate as his car of choice for the Borneo road trip, while Paddy McGuinness used a Matra Bagheera S.
- In Funeral for a Ford, Richard Hammond mentions that due to him being born in Birmingham, a city dominated by British Leyland cars at the time, his father unfortunately used to own an Allegro Estate when he was little, in comparison to his co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May, whose fathers owned a Ford Cortina. Hammond referred to the Allegro as a "shoulder-sagging bag of disappointment", and after a rant, he proceeded to destroy the Allegro with a baseball bat and a sledgehammer.