Unsung heroes: Austin Maxi

I haven't championed an unsung hero for a very long time so a new entry is well overdue but this one may seem an odd choice: the Austin Maxi. Have I lost my mind? Surely everyone agrees the Maxi was a terrible car that epitomises everything wrong with British Leyland? Well no actually, I think that reputation is rather unfair and the poor old Maxi deserves a lot more credit than it's given. I've been seeing a few Maxis at shows recently and become quite fond of them, so let me justify myself...

The much maligned Maxi. Pile of crap or unsung hero?

The Maxi (development code ADO14) has historical significance as the first new product launched by British Leyland and last production car designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, but isn't considered one of his finer moments and tends to be quietly forgotten while he is celebrated for the Mini and Morris Minor. The long wheelbase and dumpy shape caused by using the centre section of the ADO17 'Landcrab' were out of step with late sixties trends for straight lines and 'coke bottle' waists, and the lack of a saloon version hurt sales as the hatchback was too radical for many. Apart from its odd looks, was the Maxi really that bad though?

Hatchbacks may be everywhere nowadays but in 1969 this was quite revolutionary, and even when this one was made in 1980 they still weren't common.

When launched in 1969, the Maxi boasted 'all the fives'. Inspired by the trendsetting Renault 16, it was the first British car to have five gears, five doors and five folding seats, features that wouldn't become commonplace until the mid-1980s. The basic design of family cars hadn't really evolved since the war: conventional wisdom favoured a three-box saloon powered by an in-line engine driving the rear wheels through a four-speed gearbox, and steering boxes were still considered acceptable, so the Maxi's transverse engine, front-wheel-drive and rack-and-pinion steering were far more advanced than its rivals and gave it much better roadholding. There was no reason why the formula that was so successful in the Mini wouldn't work in a larger car, but the public seemed very conservative and stuck with what they knew, buying nice sensible Vauxhall Victors and Hillman Hunters instead of that radical new-fangled Maxi. 

The Maxi should have been a winning combination of versatility and driver-friendliness, but sadly the innovative five-speed transmission was let down by the horrible cable-operated gearchange that was said to be one of the worst ever made and was like "stirring treacle with a very thin cane". This was supposed to be the car's big selling point, so it had a terrible effect on its reputation and by the time the rod-change gearbox came along the damage had been done and what should have been a major attraction was instead putting buyers off. This single part must take a lot of the blame for the Maxi's failure - it ruined the car's otherwise excellent driving experience so if only it had a decent gearbox from the start, things may have been so different.

Tahiti Blue isn't such a bad colour for the Maxi. This is the range-topping 1750 HLS.

The choice of colour had a big impact on the Maxi's appearance. BL's palette at the time included some frankly vile shades such as Sandglow and Russet Brown that did nothing to enhance it, but in a nice dark colour such as maroon or black I actually don't think it looks too bad. The last Maxi of all, built in 1981, was painted Champagne Beige and looks quite hideously unappealing. It still exists in the BMIHT collection but I believe is currently on loan to the Atwell-Wilson Motor Museum, where it can be seen in all its dubious glory as a reminder of that unfortunate period in British motoring history when beige and brown were genuinely popular colours for some inexplicable reason. The fashion for these hideous colours can't be blamed on the Maxi though as it merely followed the prevailing trend and most other cars of the time were also so afflicted.

Who would want a car like this in 1981? A dated design in a horrible colour.
By Ianmax69 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Apart from the general negativity towards everything BL from the press and public, the Maxi suffered for two reasons. Firstly it was a typical Issigonis design, big on space but short on style. Although brilliant, he was a very pure engineer who favoured function over form and didn't care for such things as styling, luxury and marketing, so the Maxi was a technological tour-de-force that lacked showroom appeal compared with the conventional but more attractive and better-equipped competition. Secondly, BL did what they always seemed to do with a high-profile new model: release an under-developed car and let the customers iron out the bugs, despite Austin-Morris head George Turnbull claiming in early 1969 that "the new car will not be launched until it is absolutely ready". By the time the Maxi came good and became what it should have been from the start, it was too late as the poor reputation of the early cars had stuck.

Another problem with the Maxi, through no fault of the car itself, was that its role in the company's overall range seems to have been a bit confused. BL gave the impression they didn't really know what to do with it, and left it to soldier on largely unchanged throughout its life so it never asserted a dominant position within the myriad of models they offered. Its engine options covered the 1500 and 1800cc markets and buyers wanting such a car could also choose from the Allegro, Marina, Dolomite and Princess, plus the ageing Austin Cambridge that the Maxi was intended to replace but hung on for a few years afterwards. It may have been seen as an unwanted step-child, having been designed by BMC but launched only after the merger with Leyland.

Not a Maxi but a Landcrab. Rather too similar-looking though.

Sharing the core of its bodyshell with the Landcrab made the Maxi too similar to that car and it had to be carefully marketed to avoid competing with its slightly bigger brother, so maybe it should have replaced the Landcrab instead of supplementing it. The presence of the Maxi also forced compromises on other models, most famously the lack of a hatchback on the wedge Princess, so there may have been some resentment towards it from those responsible for these other cars, and internal politics certainly seem to have played a part in the Maxi's downfall. Compare this crowded and confused range with the market leader Ford's clearly-defined hierarchy of Escort, Cortina and Granada, all utterly conventional but best-sellers, and maybe the Maxi would have fared better with less internal competition and a stronger position in the BL range.

Despite BL having announced a bizarre decision to avoid competing head-to-head with Ford, in practice everyone saw the Maxi as a Cortina rival. In this context, if you could look beyond the odd styling it actually made a lot of sense as it took a completely different approach from the competition and in many ways was a better car as a result. Cars in this class were typically wallowy barges with poor roadholding but the Maxi handled more like a scaled-up Mini, and the E-series engine was an all-new design too, whereas most of the rival powerplants dated back some years. The cavernous interior space was class-leading and the hatchback gave it much more flexibility than its booted rivals, which only offered similar space in estate form. The best-remembered gimmick of the Maxi is its unique ability to fold down both sets of seats and form a comfortable double bed - try sleeping in a Cortina and you wouldn't get much rest.

Looks like a hatchback but isn't, allegedly because of the Maxi.

Okay, the Maxi hung around too long and became very out-of-date, but BL's ongoing financial problems forced it to continue for many more years than intended, and an all-new car in the mid-seventies that built on the best bits of the Maxi formula could have been a winner. The Maxi 2 facelift of 1980 looked like what it was, an ageing design tarted up on the cheap in a vain attempt to make it seem modern, and the new wheeltrims and black bumpers couldn't disguise the dated 1960s shape that was well past its best and should have been replaced long ago. By the time the Maxi went out of production, Vauxhall had launched the Mark 2 Cavalier, which proved just how good a front-wheel-drive family car could really be and moved them into the mainstream. It's a shame the Maxi couldn't have achieved the same a decade earlier as it had the potential and was a sound concept but was let down by poor execution and the reputation of its manufacturer.

The Maxi even went rallying. This one is actually a saloon with the top half of the tailgate welded shut.

Back in their heyday, my dad and his brother-in-law both had Maxis and remember them as good cars. My dad bought his after owning a Cortina 1600E, then as now a sought-after and highly-regarded sports saloon but one he wasn't impressed with due to its crude and wallowy handling, and he found the Maxi much more pleasant to drive. The FWD layout gave the Maxi much better traction in poor conditions - his employer's company cars at the time were all RWD Fords and he remembers that after a heavy snowfall all the Fords simply sat in the car park spinning their wheels and going nowhere, while he just got in his Maxi and drove away with no fuss. Based on that experience, the Maxi is objectively the better car in the real world, yet old Fords tend to be fondly remembered while Maxis are slagged off as being rubbish.

If anything, the Maxi may have been too far ahead of its time. Think of a typical family car of the 1990s, before the big SUV and MPV boom, and chances are it will be a five-door hatchback with a transverse engine driving the front wheels through a five-speed gearbox, just like the Maxi of more than twenty years earlier. Although by no means a failure on the scale of some other cars I have blogged about, it is fair to say that the Maxi never achieved its full potential and didn't sell in anywhere near the volumes that were anticipated. Most of the ingredients for success were there, so with better looks, more focused marketing and crucially a better gearbox from the start, it could have revolutionised the family car sector in the same way as the Mini had done for small cars, but alas it wasn't to be.

Should the Maxi be welcomed as a classic? I think it deserves it.

It's taken a very long time but the Maxi has finally started to be appreciated as a classic: values are rising, people are getting nostalgic towards the old things and they are becoming more acceptable at classic car shows. It has even been unfairly overlooked by the model manufacturers; while all sorts of obscure things have been modelled, I'm not aware of any model Maxis ever having been made in any scale, in ready-made or kit form, which seems a bit unfair. I say it's time to reappraise the poor beleaguered old Maxi and consider that just maybe, despite all its problems, it represents one of the British motor industry's truly ground-breaking moments. That is why I feel the Austin Maxi is well worthy of inclusion among the unsung heroes of the motoring world.