More Than You Ever Cared To Know About The Morris Marina’s Door Handles
Shown here: timeless design classics. And some Morris Marinas.
Impress your friends! Be the life of parties! Wear that anorak with pride at the next BL spotter’s meeting!
The Morris Marina: "Britain's Answer to the Chevy Citation!"
The camp stove and piano cushion known to some as the Morris Marina can lay claim to one everlasting legacy that will live on past its untimely death: its vertically-hinged, metal door handles are modern design classics in the vein of Rams and Saarinen, in a strange, ironic twist of fashion that neither its designers intended, nor can be applied to the rest of the car. Well, supposedly, anyway.
"Jonathan Ive sucks!"
Austin Rover Online, always a great site to catch up on the follies and foibles of the British motor industry, has rigorously detailed the history of these humble handles, lauding these “innovative, distinctive, much-imitated design classic[s]” as “evincing an expressive but functional Bauhaus rigour.” Don’t label them simple, lest you face derision as a Philistine. You see, inspiration for these masterpieces of Corbusier-esque minimalist functionalism arose from “exotic” Italian influence in the form of the Fiat 124, 125, 127, and 128, even finding its way onto the Alfa Romeo Montreal and the Lamborghini “It’s Not a Kit Car, Philistine” Urraco. Of course, the equally humdrum Hillman Avenger and Ford Cortina MkIII (not the Lotus one, the Life on Mars one) also sported these, more due to legislation than Latin flair. And like most automotive things British, this “design classic” gets its inspiration from the Americans, in the form of—what else?—an AMC Javelin.
Still, like a GM corporate radio or salmonella, the Marina’s door handles managed to somehow burrow its way into everything—including the Austin Allegro, Triumph TR7, Lotus Eclat, Elite and Espirit, Reliant Scimitar, Range Rover, and Land Rover Discovery, like some depressingly shoddy union-built “Six Degrees of Automotive Separation.” Here’s another fact to add to your arsenal when impressing a boss or a beautiful girl (or hopefully the same person) at the next swingers cocktail party: the Marina’s indicator switches were later used in the Lamborghini Diablo. Hey, where else can you get this life-changing information?
Coming next to Hooniverse: a 26-page treatise on the postmodern-structuralist emergence of contemplative intellectual gestalt that manifests in the Chevy Lumina’s third-brake light. There will be no Cliff’s Notes.
The Wilmot Breeden Syndrome – Life and times of the Marina doorhandles (via Austin Rover Online)
[Image sources: Austin Rover Online, Flickr, Retrowow]
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All I can think of is how the guys on Top Gear savage these things.
Just call me Phil I. Stine.
Furthermore, these went on to inspire a generation of Samsonite designers.
Before I even hit the jump I thought, "hmmm, those look an awful lot like AMC doorhandles right there".
Same here. Which, much like Engineerd above, had nothing to do with my answer in today's Hooniverse Asks question. Weird how it all ties together sometimes. /meaningoflife
MKIII Cortina did not have these doorhandles. My mother had a yellow 1971 GXL and I remember the chrome bar thingy. However, my father did have a Marina and he despised it utterly.
<img src="http://www.philseed.com/images/ford-cortina72gxl.jpg" />
That Cortina makes me all funny feeling. What a good looking car.
Looking forward to the upcoming Lumina Brakelight Redux. The '93 3.1 Euro we hired from Alamo in Kissimmee intrigued me twofold, firstly the fact that that car had "Chevrolet" printed across the third light, and all other Luminas made do with just the bowtie, and secondly the way that the front grille extended over the marker lights.
In hindsight, my enthusiasm for that car may very well have stemmed from my being 12 at the time.
Also:- The Marina was later restyled (kinda) by Guigaro and christened the Morris Ital. If you read the recent book chronicling the history of Ital Design, it lists a great many cars, prototypes, experimental machines but makes no mention whatsoever of the Ital. Obviously an episode they wanted to forget.
When the Pontiac Sunfire first came out, I thought the illuminated "PONTIAC" across the rear was the coolest thing ever. I was 7.
From Austin Rover Online:
"Despite the long-held belief that Ital Design was responsible for the revised styling of the new car, it was somewhat less involved in the process – simply handling its productionisation. Of course, the story soon got out that the Morris Ital was actually the work of Giorgetto Giugiaro and, as one insider has subsequently said: '…why spoil the story with facts, we thought!'"
Hmmph. That might well be the first time I've ever actually been, ahem, Pwned.
Feels horrible.
Actually, I was going to defend myself here by saying I meant Giugiaro as in Ital Design, not Mr G himself, but seing as I actually mis-spelt Giugiaro in my post anyway, I'll stay hushed.
"Pwning" wasn't the intent of my post, but most of us are gearheads who like to be factual and accurate. Blame BL if you were fooled by the Ital's creation – looks like they did a little deliberate disinformation.
Blake: You certainly titled this post correctly!! But is interesting to see the Hemmings-like Six Degrees of Separation applied to door handles.
Next up: Citroen CX door mirrors.
Can we have a post on awesome door mirrors? Leaving the Zonda F aside, there are some absolutely fantastic mirrors from ages and cars gone by that all inspire joy and wonderment to all those who discover them. I just know there were thirteen thousand different mirrors for sale in America in 1958, or 63, or hell, weird stuff of every era. Opel Vectras from the 90s? Deloreans from the 80s? Millions of strange mirrors, let's have a post.
Being made up of mostly MGB-ish parts, I'd be all over one.
Making my '80 model handle like a slot car makes me think I could turn a Marina into a real hero.
I want to hear about the first-and-second-gen Fiat Ritmo door handles next!
If you look at the list of accessories BL sold for the Marina, you'll note that they considered a break-adjustment spanner an "accessory." But then again the breaks on the Marina were so bad that no amount of adjusting was going to help, so I suppose it was more of an add-on.
You mean brakes, right?
With a Marina, the difference is merely academic.
Aye, you do have a good point.