Filed Under: News
The break up and demise of the Leyland empire is probably one of the greatest tragedies of the British motoring scene. No one can say that during the years Leyland had some very desiriable cars,one of my favorites was the A39 and of course the RM Reily both cars had style.
I gave some thought to my one and only car from Longbridge, a 1600 Montego, a car with a identity crisis, it should have been a Austin but the company was about to get rid of the brand and it should have been a Rover, it lacked the quality of Rover’s of old, so it sold as a plain Montego. This car was marketed as opposition to Ford’s “Serria” and “Cortina” and Vauxhall’s “Victor” which had the most of the reps markets. This was a “Company Car”. Our little fleet of 12 Montego’s were delivered on Wednesday afternoon, 12 Montego looked very impressive on Southwark Bridge.
For Ted it meant no car to pay for,free of Tax and insurance,no servicing bills, free petrol, it was some pay hike. I was given the keys to F655LPL, a dazzling white four door automatic-saloon, the ride home in typical London rush hour was a doodle with the auto box.
On Saturday it refused to start,free AA, the Mechanic had a fiddle around and “LPL” burst into life, he described it as one of his teething problems. I went back in to get ready for a trip to the coast, came out and “LPL” would not start, AA help the voice at the other end said, we should have dealt with your problem, well you did but it came back again. Another mechanic came, had a look around , never seen this before, perhaps “LPL”was unique, the earth isn’t connected, it could have stopped any time, you were lucky you weren’t on the motorway.
Monday I was on my way to Swindon, down the M4, the Montego was going well, we weren’t hanging around, it occurred to me nothing had passed for a few minutes. I looked in the rear view, you have no doubt seen those naval war flims where ship go back and forward laying a smoke screen to stop the enemy seeing a convoy, well that was what “LPL” was doing. I pulled over onto the hard shoulder and was coasting to the nearest phone, suddenly the fog cleared, the engine was ticking over so very gently I increased the speed and eventually got to our destination, we came home no problem.
My doubts about the reliability of “LPL”were almost gone, a few minor niggles like if you had anything on the dashboard and nearside front window open any slight bend would cause such objects to sail out the window. The boot though spacious would not take much..Thehonymoon period didn’t last long, we had electrical problems on a constant basis, the engine would emit strange ticking noises, the smell of burning would manifest itself from time to time and the last straw being the “AA” man who refused to test “LPL” as the steering was shot.
From the Montego web site one would get the impression that the Montigo was the perfect car, however another site stated, from the 600 thousand units built only 8 thousand are still on the road, rust was so bad that many were too dangerous to do a restoration job. The VW autobox was considered to be atrocious and the electrics no better. Ebay probably has more Haynes Manuals than any other car, there are a good few spares but not one complete car, checking magazines has reveled a complete lack of car sales. It is no wonder that the Montego gained the unhappy title of Britain’s most scrapped car……
Given that millions were pumped into Longbridge and Leyland had some of the top engineers one can understand why the company folded, however the tooling for the Montego went to India where one can still but a Maestro Montgo car. no doubt made to a better standard than the original. It might be interesting to hear from anyone who still has one and the problems the have encountered. The Montego is just about at classic age but will it last long enough to enjoy the status
Ted Lay tedlay@gmail.com
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