Vintage Thing No.23 - Austin Allegro
It's mainstream and the accepted thing among motoring fascists to hate these cars so immediately I don't. And having sampled one for myself I can see the merits of an Austin Allegro The Austin Allegro has been voted the Worst Car Ever and I feel compelled to leap to defend this much misunderstood little car. Allegros are far too mainstream to normally feature as a Vintage Thing but if those of us who make the rules can't break 'em, who can? Aye, and there's the rub. Everybody's heard about Allegros, especially after this dubious accolade. They are famous for all the wrong reasons. But at least they are famous. Who ever remembers the Chrysler (later Talbot) Sunbeam? Or the Datsun Cherry? What about all those grey porridge Japanese cars like Datsun Cherrys and Mazda 626s that sank the likes of British Leyland? Okay, so they may have had some help from cars like the Marina, the Maxi and - yes - the Allegro but hundreds of thousands of these ostensibly better...