My fifth car- Marina (Rally)
The year was 1979, the car was a Leyland Marina two door coupe, I know I can hear everybody saying, ‘what’. And it’s not like I did not have others to choice from, there was a going, unregistered MK I Triumph 2000 at one of the local wreckers and at another wreckers there was a undamaged, partly wrecked out MK I Ford Escort. Now it’s easy to say what car I should off gone for and it’s also easy to say that the Marina should off been the last car on that list, but it was registered, and it was the easiest one. Sometimes I do wonder how my rallying would of turned out if I had gone down the Ford track, but I didn’t and I don’t have a time machine to find out.
The Marina was not that bad, with lots of rally mods, I fitted Datsun rear shocks with a small spring attached, (like a coil over of today), to the front and did some strengthening, I was always chasing cracks in the body work. It stood up pretty well, all things considered, the non finishes in rallies were down to other things, getting bogged, being struck in the middle of a creek, in the middle of the night, in the middle of no ware, in the middle of winter. It always go me home, it always got to the end of a rally (mechanically), it had that, ‘carry on’ spirit. It kept going with a blown head gasket, it even got me home with a broken crank shaft. At one point in time, it was my only car, it had a blown head gasket, a buggered started motor, a buggered battery, so I had to spray, ‘start you basted’ down the carbies and then bush. I drove it like that for four or five weeks. Given the treatment dished out to it, it stud up to it surprisingly well, not just the rallies, I lived on a dirt road, I built my house with it, at one point it had a box trailer on it for months. The end came while parked outside a wrecking yard, I was buying some parts when the wrecker’s owner call out to me and said, “a tree limb has just fallen your car”, I thought he was pulling my leg, he wasn’t. The tree limb fit the roof just behind the roll cage main hoop, breaking the side window and putting a fare size dint in the roof.
I removed the rally gear, Halda etc, and sold it to the wreckers, I then sold all my Mini parts and went to Sydney and bought what would become the Rally Dolly. For lots of stories about the Marina, go to, break down stories, or links, then, adventures of a rally driver. Tune in same duck time, same duck channel, for more adventures with cars.