Thread: P76

Originally Posted by jimr1

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
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According to that Wheels article, the P76 actually used significantly less fuel that any of its competitors.

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.

Not that the fuel consumption is km/l.

In today's terminology that is 14.7 litres/100 km compared with 18.8 litres/100 km.

Originally Posted by vnx205

(For those too young to remember the P76, this is an account of its development and its demise.)
Leyland P76 - Australia's Own Car - Why It Sank

Thanks for this info , It is a good read , explains a lot !!.. Jim

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.

Originally Posted by jimr1

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 !!..

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.

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.

Originally Posted by ATH

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.

Targa Florio was the sports version of the sedan, Force 7 was the coupe.

Here is the Station wagon and the Coupe force 7.