Printable View
The oil crisis was a factor , but the p76 didn't use any more fuel than say a Chrysler ,Ford or Holden of the same size , my old boss said the same , he had two F150s at the time , now did they use fuel ! I think Layland as a company were a mess . They were badly ran , struggled with unions , two many models , old plant . The main thing as mentioned poor build , plus reliability issues , none if this helped !!..Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh
According to that Wheels article, the P76 actually used significantly less fuel that any of its competitors.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimr1
Not that the fuel consumption is km/l.Quote:
The P76 did about 6.8 km/l while the others all did about 5.3. It had the best brakes and its gearbox was judged the best. It came first for driver position, seat design and general accommodation, with by far the best boot. It was the best equipped of the four.
In today's terminology that is 14.7 litres/100 km compared with 18.8 litres/100 km.
Thanks for this info , It is a good read , explains a lot !!.. JimQuote:
Originally Posted by vnx205
In the 1980's a mate of mine had a couple, you could buy them for a song.
Great cars, heaps of room, rode well and the V8's went well.
He had a six and an 8, he drove them for years.
I also know a guy who was a salesman, his family had a dealership.
He always said if Leyland had spent another couple of hundred dollars per vehicle on the production line they would have sold like mad. As it was you would be on a test drive with a customer and a wind screen wiper would blow off or other some other thing like a rear view mirror would fall off.
Cheers, Mick.
My dad bought one new, top of the range executive. I don't have a spare week to list all the things that went wrong with it.
It was a piece of junk. He eventually had a smash and wrote it off, thankfully,
as me being a spanner I had to fix it once warranty had expired.
How much fuel it used was not the issue - it was designed to look big, and did. With the fuel crisis, buyers were looking for small cars. V-8s were definitely not what they were looking for.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimr1
The styling was not a selling point, but then the same could be said for some of their competitors. I think, however, that the main reason for the failure was the state of the company, although the fuel crisis did not help.
John
A local long gone dealer in Perth (Illingworth Leyland) had one of only 10 P76 wagons made in their showroom and it really looked a good car as it done away with the ungainly looking boot.
It was possibly named a "P76 Targa" or something like that.
I had a loan of one of our company cars which was 6cyl. P76 to do a long trip out through Gippsland and it was a decent drive with fair handling on twisty gravel roads, decent brakes (first local car with front discs as standard) and comfortable seats.
Just a pity about the timing, the BL connection and trying to flog anything not seen as Australian back in them days.
AlanH.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ATH
Targa Florio was the sports version of the sedan, Force 7 was the coupe.
Here is the Station wagon and the Coupe force 7.
I've had 5 x P76's in my time, including 2 Targa Florio's. The problems they had are easily fixed and very minor compared to problems the other "big 3" manufacturers had. Must of them electrical related and due to their insistence of making them safer. i.e. they moved the fuse box from drivers side to passengers side after the first month of production so you were of the road if you had to fix a fuse. This led to massive volt drop problems as they just extended to wiring around the front of the car! Lucas wiring too...
They are still great to drive nowadays though, much better than the others were. 50/50 weight distribution, the heaviest model was 1280kg, about the same as a Torana (similar to a modern Corolla!). Rack and pinion steering, good brakes, coil suspension, Statesman sized interior and a 1020L boot space!
Half their problem was company oversight, when it won COTY demand for the v8 compared to the 6 was 4:1, yet the company thought the 6 would be the volume seller. Strikes plagued the factory too, Borg-warner went on strike and they couldn't supply enough cars because they didn't have enough gearboxes or diffs. But the workers also went on strike, sometimes as silly as not liking the flavor icecream in the canteen FFS!
People became frustrated when there became a 6 month waiting list for some models then a lot ended up parked outside the factory waiting for parts, which caused them to rust.
A great shame.