World Beater: the 1100
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o the Mini was launched, the world had showered BMC with the acclaim that they so richly deserved, but in the months following the car`s arrival on the market, things were not all sweetness and light. Quite simply, fuel crisis or not, the Mini was not the car that the dealers wanted; servicing departments found it`s complication just a little disconcerting and, to make this seemingly bad situation worse, the first few Minis off the line at Longbridge were horrendously unreliable. Little profit was made on sales of the car for the dealers and warranty costs incurred by the car were also proving to be more than a little wearisome. At the time small cars equalled small margins and the dealers felt that they needed something at the other end of the market to balance out the administrative nightmare that was the Mini.

None of this mattered at the time to Leonard Lord, because he had unshakeable faith in Issigonis and his ability to produce cars that people wanted. Lord was pleased that BMC were seen as being right at the forefront of the design-led revolution in the car industry at the time. The Mini also expanded the BMC range of cars, generating big sales below the two cars that were previously at the bottom of the range, the Austin A40 and Morris Minor 1000 and not at a cost to either in terms of sales.

XC9001 prototype by Pininfarina was their idea for the ADO17, but it is obvious that what was passed over for the larger car would become a more than acceptable basis for the XC9002 (later to become the ADO16). More stylisedPininfarina XC9002 proposal was passed-over for further refinement after the cost implications of the complex tooling required to produce the door-tops and windscreen surround.Front end styling was also considered, "too fussy" (and it has to be said that the aerodynamics would have been questionable). The essential ADO16 character was very much in evidence, though (Note: the "tyres" on this Pininfarina produced mock-up were actually also made of steel, as the Italians could not source suitably sized items).

The next step in the rejuvenation of the BMC range was to produce a larger version of the Mini to plug the gap in the BMC range between the A40 and Minor in the one-litre class and the 1.5-litre Farina saloons at the other. While the BMC engineers were busying themselves enlarging the A-Series engine to 1.1-litres to create the power unit for this gap-filling model, Issigonis turned his thoughts to engineering a stretched version of the Mini. Because the new car would use essentially the same engine and gearbox package, the development of the new car, initially known as the XC9001 but eventually renamed the ADO16, was a fairly straightforward process.

Unlike the Mini that emerged pretty much unchanged from the original drawings produced by Issigonis, Leonard Lord decided that because the ADO16 would end up being a competitor in a more expensive sector of the market, he wanted it to be a much more highly styled car than the Mini was. To achieve these aims was a straightforward task that logically could be entrusted into the hands of Pinin Farina, following his successful work on the Austin A40. This proved to be another good decision on the part of Leonard Lord because what emerged from the Italian styling house was a crisp and well-balanced design that when launched, proved to be exactly the right product at the right time.

Just like the Mini before it, the ADO16 was developed in remarkably quick time and when the first full-size prototype appeared in October 1958, it already had the recognisable ADO16 profile. When Pininfarina worked their magic on the styling, the transformation from XC9002 of January 1959 to ADO16 of July that same year was quite remarkable. The Italian styling house had made no major changes to the structure of the car, but in terms of tidying the styling, the overall effect was quite marked, giving the roofline a makeover and tidying up the side and front.

Nearly there: Pininfarina work-over of their first proposal shows that the Italian styling house managed to work their magic: A few subtle changes to the car`s roofline and flanks managed to make it a genuinely stylish car. This version of the car was presented with the second of two frontal treatments - this one was unsuccessful.

In marketing the car, the policy of badge engineering was followed to the logical conclusion, which may have been to Leonard Lord`s liking, but it did continue a political situation that had been brewing between the competing dealer networks that had begun when the practice of badge engineering had begun in earnest a few years previously. When Lord entered semi-retirement, to be replaced by George Harriman, just before the launch of the first ADO16, the marketing situation had descended into a slanging match between the competing networks of Austin and the Nuffield group. The situation was getting worse rather than better because the Nuffield group dealer principles were looking at what Austin had to offer and could see that they had a more complete range of cars to sell.

In the days before Scoop photographs would become a part of everyday motoring Journalism, Motor Sport magazine published these photographs in October 1960, as sent in by a reader. It is obviously an early fully-engineered ADO16 prototype. Differences between this and the final version are abundant: Fuel filler location is on the offside of the car, rear lamp clusters resemble earlier prototypes - and the frontal treatment is slightly different, particularly resembling the ADO16 prototype (above).

Rather than tackling these issues head on, something that should have been done years previously, (as suggested in chapter two) Harriman acceded to the wishes of the Nuffield vendors and agreed to release the ADO16 purely as a Morris model and wait for a sufficiently long period of time before putting out an Austin version. This fop to the dealers may have seemed like a good idea at the time; a way of pacifying any dissenting voices, but in undoubtedly cost BMC sales and meant that the ADO16 may well have had a slower start in life than it may well have needed to.

So in August 1962, a mere three years after the launch of the Mini, the Morris 1100 was launched. Whereas the trade and the public treated Mini with a certain amount of suspicion, they had no such reservations about the 1100 and immediately took the car to their hearts, even if, like the Mini before, it was not the most reliable car in it`s class, not by a long chalk. In the years following the Suez Crisis, the British car market had changed dramatically, with the demand for small cars increasing hugely. This had the effect of shifting the centre point of the market downwards. Through a combination of luck and good judgment, the Morris 1100 hit this portion of the market square on.

The badge engineered versions followed thick and fast in good BMC tradition, but it is probably fair to say that the practice reached it`s peak with the ADO16. The first to follow on from the Morris version was the twin-carburettor MG 1100, which was more good news for the Nuffield group dealers. Austinhad their first bite of the ADO16 cherry when the Austin version was launched a year after the original Morris 1100, in August 1963.

A move up-market followed with the Vanden Plas version that saw BMC cash in on the fad for plush small cars, started by Wood & Pickett and Radford with their over-the-top Minis. BMC figured that the ADO16 was a far more realistic starting point for the wood and leather small car than the Mini was - and following a private commission by Fred Connolly (he of Connolly leather) in 1962, the luxury version of the ADO16 was born. This fact the people loved the concept of a more "luxurious" small family car was borne out by the fact that following the Vanden Plas, the middle class Wolseley 1100 and Riley Kestrel would appear in quick succession. Eventually, a total of no less than six variations on the ADO16 theme appeared (see picture above), all sharing the same bodies and only differing in front end styling and interior trim – badge engineering gone mad!

Estate version was just as stylish as the saloon: Practical and compact, it made a very appealing package.

In 1966, the estate version of the 1100 appeared and marked the end of any serious development on the car. This version was a practical load carrier and carved itself a nice little niche of the market, but it was saddled with one significant design flaw; it`s propensity for the tail to droop markedly under any loading. Unlike Citroen`s more complex fluid suspension system, the Moulton Hydrolastic design with it`s front/rear interconnection had no self-levelling capability and so compromised it`s ability as a serious load carrier.

Whatever the disadvantages of BMC`s marketing-led development programme for the ADO16 may have been, it certainly did not slow down the car`s sales. The ADO16 in all it`s six incarnations was soon being built in larger numbers than any other BMC car, before or afterwards. By 1965, the first full year that all variations were on sale, the ADO16 took an exceptional 14.3 per cent of the UK car market and was firmly ensconced as the country`s best selling car.

But where BMC went wrong with the ADO16 was that it was not developed in order to meet the changing tastes of the customers. As explained in chapter two, both the Mini and the 1100 were being priced so competitively, that there was little margin for profit in these cars and so, the ADO16 remained largely unaltered throughout it`s long and successful life. As the Sixties drew on, and the country began to become more affluent, the little car was left behind, through lack of development.

In a parallel career, Ford launched the Cortina model at just about the same time as BMC wheeled out the first Morris 1100. Both cars were instantly successful and pretty much fought head to head for the number one sales spot in the UK sales charts. The two cars were considered direct rivals, both offering similar accommodation and performance from their 1100cc engines. Where they differed markedly, was in their execution: the Cortina was a remarkably conservative car, but engineered superbly and costed by the accountants at Ford to make the company a good degree of profit – whereas, the ADO16 was technically advanced and not at all profitable for BMC.

As the sixties progressed, Ford developed their car effectively and allowed it to grow in size to mirror the growing affluence of the market, responding to the needs of their customers. 1966 brought the Mark Two Cortina and with it, marked the end of the direct competition between itself and the ADO16 – Ford had grown the Cortina and the entry level engine was 1.3-litres as opposed to the 1.2-litres of it`s predecessor. Hindsight would suggest that Ford had read the market perfectly, correctly predicting the trend for larger, more luxurious cars, whereas BMC had not.

1966 Morris advertisement picture showing the benefits of interconnected suspension: look at the rear wheels in relation to the front - "The front wheel is tucked well up; the rear wheel is down. The car stays level. That goes for you too". So the copy went, anyway...... doesn`t mention the bounciness, though!

As the Sixties turned into the Seventies, the ADO16 was finally offered with the 1275cc version of the A-Series engine, but that really was the sum total of the development of the car. Unfortunately, BMC even managed to sour this experience, because although this engine upgrade was desperately needed across the range, it was initially offered only to the export markets – it was almost a year before Austin and Morris were able to offer the upgunned car. This slow build up of the 1300 versions was another sign of the malaise with BMC at the time and when dealers could not supply cars for buyers, it all smacked of arrogance and mismanagement by the company. An upgrading of the car was what the market desperately wanted and BMC had worked on such a project: a hatchback versions of the car, dubbed the YDO9 which was running as a prototype by mid-1966. For whatever reason, the company decided that it was not a car for the UK market and so, criminally, ignored this opportunity for expansion.

When production and sales of the 1275cc version of the ADO16 were finally up to speed, the lift in the sales of the range, as a whole, was all too apparent for all to see. In 1969 (the first full year of ADO16 1100 and 1300 availability), a year of poor sales in the UK, the ADO16 managed to maintain it`s domination of the sales charts, grabbing 13.8 per cent of the market.

So, BMC had committed the sin of not developing their best selling car, but they were in luck because sales held up well during it`s production life. The car`s basic flaws were numerous, but because it`s packaging was so effective and styling so likeable, an immense amount of goodwill was engendered by the car for it`s customers. But from a modern perspective, the reason that the sales of the ADO16 managed to hold up as well as they did cannot be simply attributed to it being a popular car: In it`s life, it stopped being a “middle market” car – the Cortina represented that perfectly – and became a well-established “small” car and as a result, was always going to find a ready market.

When Donald Stokes took the reins of the newly-formed BLMC car company, the desire was to cut the confusing array of badge engineered models and so, the Riley models were quietly killed, but there still remained the Wolseley, MG, Vanden Plas and Morris models, so the rationalization did not go anyway near far enough. Real signs of change happened when the Marina was launched in 1971 and with it came the end of the Morris and MG-badged ADO16.

The question of what happened to BMC and why things went wrong for them after the ADO16 was finally dropped in 1974 comes back to how the company developed and marketed the car. Thoughts that the ADO16 represented the desires of the middle market car buyer were finally extinguished with the Mark Two Cortina in 1966, and utterly buried by the arrival of the altogether larger Mark Three Cortina in 1971.

So the ADO16 had been left behind by what was once it`s adversary. This did not mark the death-knell for the ADO16 because in it`s size and proportions, it still perfectly epitomised the small family car, that breed that be would be so popular a few years hence. The sad thing here is that no-one in BMC saw this change in the market and decided to develop the ADO16 into a small family hatchback for the Seventies. The car was perfectly sized to form the basis for a supermini in the modern idiom, being of similar dimensions to the Ford Fiesta and VW Polo of 1976. So with a weight reduction programme and the addition of a hatchback body, the company would have been in possession for the ideal car to tackle the crisis-riddled Seventies.

This website contains a catalogue of missed opportunities for BMC and then British Leyland, but here lies another important milestone in their downward slide. With the benefit of hindsight a logical course of action would have been to develop the ADO16 into a supermini and further up-market, the Maxi could have been rebodied to occupy a slot that the Allegro was eventually designed to fill. The money spent on the ADO67, ADO74 and ADO88 programmes could have been more wisely spent elsewhere. Immediately post-merger, Donald Stokes stumbled towards a rational model policy, but the tragedy was that the path they followed led to the Allegro and Marina and all the inactivity of the Sixties was to be replaced by a misguided whole scale model replacement of the Seventies.

Copyright © 2002 Keith Adams