I agree. And I see 'Classic' Italian Grand Touring styling in both front & rear - all round really. As an 'off the top of my head' for instance: The early 60's 350GT, 4000GT & 5000GT Maserati's. And the rear of the Austin is better, more attractively, thought out than the Jaguar 420G/Mk10. Having owned big Vauxhalls, & driven the big Fords, I can assure you that they were far under par for interior & build quality. Also only Jaguar, Daimler, Rover etc were better appointed on the inside - & as the lad says - the ride from Hydrolastic/gas has to be experienced to be believed. It was never matched by another car I owned until I bought my '95 Citroen Xantia in the early 2000's.

quite agree, the backend is spot-on and the design is generally good. I would suggest it suffered due to a lack of internal "luxuries" and power.

I'm not mad keen on the front view but from most other angles I quite like it! I actually think it has a bit of a 60s Volga thing going on (back when they actually had curves, they went very blocky later on).

I agree. It is a pretty decent looker and that interior....!!

@@hoolydooly5072 Well it only made 125bhp and weighed 1500kg, so it's not like there was a ton of performance going to waste!

🇯🇲🇯🇲 Back then ,Rich people had these cars . My fath.er had a Rover 2200 back in the late 60s That car was very quick .Seeing these British Cars brings back pleasant kids memories . Jamaica was sooo much better back then .

You were working for Dr No if I am not mistaken.

Yep. given the door/cabin constraints especially.

I tend to agree. People go on about THOSE DOORS, but there is actually nothing at all wrong with them. After all, they are similar to the Triumph 2000 doors, and no-one rants about them. The tail is a fairly conventional one, quite nicely shaped with tail lamps that actually look good. There's nothing particularly wrong with the shape of the front, from the side. People criticise the 1800 'landcrab' for having a particularly short nose. This car is longer and 'normal'. It's just that the headlamp + grill area is badly resolved. It's ugly from the front. I suspect that if the grill area was given a stronger cluster of minor lights under the headlights, and a smaller radiator grill akin to a Wolseley 1800 (the nicest looking Landcrab), it would look good. Just a minor facelift away from visual success, maybe. Many years ago I read that the self levelling rear suspension was a goof as well. It's set up to maintain the same level as at start-up - so if you load the boot for a trip, then start the engine, the car faithfully maintains a nose-up attitude. That could easily have been resolved by having a fixed reference point instead of holding the attitude at start-up. Another criticism is the wheezy engine. In many ways less good than the earlier 4-bearing C series - but MGC had the same engine, and such cars with Downton tuned engines were just fine. They needed a bit more development. So, I regard the Austin 3 litre as a fail, but a near miss. It could have been a good car and a success - like so many BMC cars of the era, it was put into production when not quite ready. Austin having been amalgamated into British Leyland, the management saw Jaguar and Rover as the big car makers, and were content to allow the Austin 3 litre to die ignominiously. Historically, Austin began as a maker of luxury cars of some note, and despite the move down-market with great small cars beginning with the Austin 7, had always maintained a foot-hold on the luxury market. It died with a whimper.

@@pashakdescilly7517 Well said.

@@kh23797 TY

Ed’s getting better and better! Solid fan here..

Thanks as always Peter, very kind of you to say :)

Hi Peter you didn’t let us into the secret of what type of cars do interest you?🤔

@@philtucker1224 My interests in cars is very varied but includes just about anything that is not a modern SUV or electric mode of transport, in the late 1970`s i worked as a panel beater in a vehicle body shop for a main dealers (Kennings Rotherham) who sold Austin/Rover group cars, i also have a great love for Italian cars...

@@peterthwaites5891 oh I see, (I think I misunderstood your original comments) best regards to you buddy.

It actually looks good in that colour

Thanks Phil :)

I think part of the problem is BMC's accountants were useless; wasn't every Mini sold at a loss? Perhaps if the 3-litre had been pitched at the same level as it's competitors it might have sold better' People in the market for a car like this would be more likely to boast about how expensive it was, rather than how cheap it was.

@@saxon-mt5by I'm not at all certain but my feeling is that boasting high prices was more of a Thatcherite thing, a decade & more after this car.

@@alanhat5252 Perhaps not boasting, but I can assure you that pride in owning something that was more expensive than your neighbour's was alive and well decades before Margaret Thatcher!

Thanks mate :)

It's like a pretty smaller Checker Marathon.

Like the rear,how it blends in the rear lights!

It’s quite like the big Rootes Humbers… Super Snipe etc. So it’s definitely accepted styling for the time, and a family resemblance through the car range like BMW in their 80s / 90s heyday…. The rear end is nicely done… very RR Shadow….

My dad owned one manual with overdrive great for overtaking in 3rd gear and in overdrive on 4th it cruised quite happily at 80mph.

I have met this young fellow at a UK car event. For one so very young, he impresses in every way. He is useful with the spanners too. Double bonus.

Thanks mate :)

Nonsense!

Thanks as always mate, and as I'm sure you know already, you just have to do it ;)

@@TwinCam Oh, my poor suffering wife!

Thanks mate, that’s very kind of you to say 🙂

Pragmatic comments and refreshing from 👉 🇺🇸 This young man avoids the razzmatazz, there's no quick camera work bla de bla. Regards 🇬🇧 🤝 🇺🇸

As a Brit who lived in Houston TX for many years I went to a British car owners club show, so I know what you mean by the sort of British cars they are interested in, and they are indeed the fifties and sixties classics you are talking about! That said, these American owners were proudly showing the best examples I had ever seen, and to say they were pristine is an understatement!

Thanks George :) It's certainly aged very well compared to how outdated it looked in 1967.

I really like the front and rear styling and the quad headlights, but the land crab centre is the least attractive part of the design. Ithink they are much better looking than the Farina cars, but it is all about personal preferences.

Thanks mate, that's very kind of you to say :)

My father had a Cresta too. 6 cylinders! We could all fit in the boot! It snapped a rear leaf spring in the middle of nowhere in Southern France in a camping holiday.

I've had three Cresta's all PB , the best being a 3.3 manual with overdrive, although my 3.3 hydromatic auto was really smooth to drive.

Thanks mate :)

Thanks Mike :)

Thanks as always mate :)

I think that's because air suspension seems to be the thing these days, but from what I've read, it hardly ever produces the "riding on air" experience one might expect. Other suspensions like Citroen's was probably ditched because of cost and fearsome complication, although I don't think the aforementioned air systems are that reliable. I seem to remember reading some while ago that the late Sir Alex Moulton, inventor of hydrolastic and hydragas, was working with Toyota, but it doesn't look as if anything will ever come of it.

Thanks as always mate :) Hydrolastic and Hydragas deserved so much more funding.

@@TwinCam Not so sure Hydrolastic/Hydragas needed that much funding or development - as you have explained so accurately in the video, the principles of operation are simple and straightforward enough (but so often misunderstood!), as are implementations. What was really needed was wider adoption - in other words, by the other manufacturers. By the way, I think your videos should be on national TV - the content and technical quality are both easily good enough. Keep up the good work!

Thanks mate.

The Mk 4 Executive/Zodiac/Zephyr range was the end of the British designed big Fords. Its replacement was the Mk1 Granada/Consul range, that was largely designed by Ford Germany. As you say, no oil painting, and not that strong a seller either. The Granada range turned round that market segment for Ford.

Difficult to imagine BL management after being shown that front end styling, standing back and saying "that's really great - make it like that - it will be a world beater!"

I think the 3-Litre has gotten much better with age. The late '60s and early '70s saw a boom in wedgy and rather flat car designs. See the Mk2 Escort and Mk4 Cortina as the peak of this. As a result, cars like the Zephyr were perceived as modern, while the 3-Litre was considered dated even at launch. But with our perceptions having moved on, I think the 3-Litre has come back around.

Ah, but the poverty Zephyr 4 had space to stand inside the engine bay which was useful if it broke down in the rain.

Thanks Douglas :)

Amen to all that.

Is this 3 Litre another engine that starts rod knocking (Freeway Knock) at 25K miles?

@@BuzzLOLOL Only if the uncaring owner neglects Oil checking and correct maintenance. Just like any other engine neglected in fact. Ancient and modern. My near neighbour drives one of those big yellow roadside rescue Vans for a living. Time and again when attending a roadside rescue. when asking the stranded motorist to pull the car's bonnet/hood release, he is met with a blank stare. Anyway my car is not British but German / Japanese etc and they are so reliable they do not need checking. Hands up all those that think i made this lot up. Errr.. You know about cars, what that funny knocking sound my car is making?

@@BuzzLOLOL It's a completely different engine.

@@T16MGJ - The little British cars were made for twisty little roads at 25-35 MPH... after the Freeway came about, Freeway knock became common... owners manuals started recommending changing rod bearings at 25K miles... Of course, here in USA, the junkies next door got a rod knock in their newish Chevy Malibu at 60K miles... they couldn't afford the repair so I offered to fix it for the fun of working on my first DOHC 4 valves per cylinder engine... and a few $$$$$... went to drain the coolant... none... went to drain the oil... none...

Thanks Matthew, that’s very kind of you to say 🙂

Thanks Ian :)

Yeah right, not wrong about the checker cab I knew I'd seen it somewhere before And the paint scheme reminded me of an old Sydney Premier Taxi

Thanks mate :)

@@TwinCam you're most welcome. I look forward to more of your uploads. Have a great day

You're far too kind :)

Thanks Andrew :)

In an Austin 1800? Was it a Wood and Picket car? Maybe if it was a Wolseley version, but not an Austin

The first 2 sentences echo my thoughts exactly! It's a pity the middle bit had to be so compromised, but, strangely, it doesn't seem to matter too much...

Facel Vega! That's it. I KNEW it reminded me of something...

Thanks Ian, that's very kind of you to say :)

Wide mouthed Frogs have their advantages too. To my eyes, this car looks good from any angle. A nice place to be and drive.

I’ve just had a look at the VDP replica & apart from being stunning you are absolutely right!

Thanks as always mate :)

Thanks Arthur :)

That doesn't surprise me - as even in the UK they were very close to launching it as the new Westminster!

Thanks mate :)

Thanks mate, that's very kind of you to say :)

I'd love to give a Hydropneumatic Citroen a go.

​@@TwinCamDo it. I had a Citroen GS with that suspension. You will love it.

@@TwinCam You really should. I own a DS and it really is amazing!

A 2200 fwd version?

Unfortunately the 2200 engine didn't exist until 1972, by which point the 3-Litre was dead!

@@TwinCamThe transverse 2200 engine had a reputation for cylinder 6 overheating, as it was too tight a squeeze into the 1800 engine bay. I drove a 2200 Wolseley 6 in 1979 and really liked it. Lovely interior and a pleasure to drive.

Thanks Julian :)

Thanks Shane 🙂

Well said. I was there all the time and saw the whole thing!

I don't think anyone thinks this. At least, I certainly don't.

@@TwinCam I think an all embracing "anyone" poll is beyond your considerable talents Ed.🙃 The car was in a different segment to the range of Issigonis smaller designs using same doors. THAT is the difference. It was in the company bean counter purchasing officer segment class and they are always conservative so no risk bean count suppressed sales. It really was as simple as that. I was selling new cars when these appeared. Saw the whole thing. My fleet sales colleague confirmed this. Few were sold to regular "car consumers".

Thanks mate :)

He's too young and brainwashed to refer to unions and their despicable treachery

Thanks mate :)

Stephen - you're deluded if you think trades unions had anything to do with BL's immediate death. Ford had it just as bad at the time and survived, and Fiat over in Italy had it much worse. To think industrial action and 'treachery' is the central fault is to be ignorant of many other factors.

So you're saying there actually was one of these animal here in Australia ? Who'd have funk it ! I'm 65, ever since I was 18 I've always had an FE/FC never been without one in 47 years I've got a 1959 FC sedan delivery a van I found in Victoria in 1983 It's got the grill and molds and things from an FE so it looks like a 57/58 I know that road very well I can remember going to Blackheath on it in 1962 in my uncle Bobby's near new light blue FC sedan business model, it was full house for the time with a Lukey Muffler and wide chrome rims which for 1962 was pretty classy, yeah at that time you might have had wide rims but not wide chrome rims anyway we were ripping along and we came hooting around this bend to find a copper wearing an old pudding bowl helmet riding some ancient Triumph or BSA or something on the side of the highway booking a woman in a pommy car that looked a lot older than an Austin A40 The copper near got whiplash as we came roaring around the bend and we knew this copper was gonna be pissed about this Anyway Bobby, Bobby was driving and he knew the road well knocked it up to second and thrashing the thing through the next couple of bends made it to Bulls Camp with just enough time to get into the scrub at the back of the place to watch this copper go thrashing past missing us altogether and I thought to myself I've gotta get one of these

@@hodaka1000 Hi there, I had a house up at Bathurst $17,000 to buy it in nov' 1976. Went up there on weekends to work on it, used to go via Richmond up the Kurrajong road to Bell & down into Lithgow, was way quicker than Gt Western Hwy. But there are some dangerous parts on the Kurrajong road, with bends that do no forgive a driver being clumsy behind the wheel. Now, back to the Austin 3 litre's yep they were nearly all special order cars shipped in complete from the UK, however there were a couple of BMC dealers that seemed to sell them too as showroom stock. I have never seen a "fire-engine" red one here on OZ' as most seemed to be in demure, discrete subtle colors older wealthy folk would have picked. Hodaka, these 3 litre Austins are big long wheelbase cars the size of a 1980-85 WB Holden Statesman. A lot bigger than the Aussie Kimberley's & Tasman's from the same time period plus wider than the Kimberley's & Tasman's too. These 3 litre Austins had possibly the words most high tech and best suspension we would now call active suspension with its fully self levelling hydrolastic suspension impressive now even today in 2023. The raw engineering plus body shell steel gauge and construction quality made the similarly priced Mercedes 300SEL 3 litre 6cyl a cheap German joke by comparison. I know why ED the young presenter had a grin all over his face, as when I drove one of these 50 years ago it was then even more impressive compared to cars in those days, a misunderstood engineering marvel. Poorly marketed it fell by the wayside, the first brochures show the car with fantastic evil looking big rectangular headlights, they looked great, modernistic only a 1964/65 Maserati 4 door Quattroporte had same lights and Maserati swapped to boring little twin 5- 3/4-inch round ones too along the street from my grandparents' house at Middle Harbour, Mosman lived the Pommy boss of BMC Aust, Chalwyn (can't remember his first name) he had a chauffeur driven one with the evil looking rectangular headlights. I even still have the brochure showing them from Yates BMC on Military rd Neutral Bay, so BMC had even made international brochures showing the rectangular fancy headlights, then killed them off late before selling the actual cars. In the BMC-Leyland "line-up" they were supposed to replace the giant Jaguars (like mine the mk10 renamed 420G's) in 1970/71. However the big Austin was a slow seller and had its throat cut and killed off in 1972. As sir William Lyons the ex-Jaguar owner made the long wheelbase series 1 xj's in October 1972 both as inline 4.2 litre 6 cyl's & the v12 versions rare cars now as introduced in the last year of series 1 production and these series 1 versions were way way more elaborate, in the last year of series 1 production Jag only made 2,600 of these longer heavy duty body shells out of 98,000 series 1's in over 5 years. With the release of series 2 versions being controlled by British Leyland all series 2 xj's had been "asset-stripped" and not of the same high-quality caliber.

@@gregharvie3896 Right, I know the Bells Line well also I now live at Grafton but have mates at Londonderry and we ride over the mountains on both roads pretty regularly I had a brother in-law who had a couple of Jags including a Mk10, just after he sold it in I think 1978 he died in a head-on while driving an RX3 coupe at Collector near Canberra, I've always said if he'd been in the Jag he would've gone straight through the other car I honestly can't say if I've ever seen one of those 3 Litre Austins or not that I ever noticed or remember but than I can't remember the last time I saw an 1800 or a Kimberly on the road

@@hodaka1000 Hi there your right re seeing BMC stuff on the roads in Australia now, as many of our Aussie ones have made the huge boat ride to the UK having been sold at auctions & bought by Pom's. Re your mate in the RX3, you are more correct tan you'll ever know. The Jaguar mk10 or later called Jaguar 420G by BMC is a road fortress. Stateside in the USA mk10/420G's hold the highest score for front structural integrity of any car ever crash tested by the NTSB. Then come around the side for the side impact test and again they win out above any other car ever tested. As hiding inside their massive high sill rails are 3 steel rectangular tubes laying epoxy bonded/glued laminated together (to stop rust) then the massive normal looking sills are welded over them, then there are massive east-west box sections across the car hiding behind the dash under the seats and on the rear fire wall making them one of the toughest most rigid passenger safety cells ever fitted to a car. Add to this the front A pillars are a solid cast steel piece like a spanner, so is the upper B pillar they then weld to a cast steel frame that holds the roof and the roof skin is SPRUNG steel, same with the bonnet and the boot lid skin. This is why with no weighty air conditioning units a standard one is still two and a half tons, because of its massive overkill construction. Even take off the door upholstery and look into the door and see how that is built. The massive thick chromed brass window frames form almost a structural spine for the door as they go right to the bottom of the doors and bolt into the doors giving the doors the extra rigidity too even the door hinges are huge cast steel ones massive to any other car, plus they are spring loaded so when you close the door you wind the spring up, then it helps open the door as they open "uphill" like no other car,, even the door hinges have grease nipples on them too!! But one of the best features on a MK10/420G is to lubricate the front wheel bearings there is a grease nipple on the hub so you do not heed to pull the whole thing apart to repack the wheel hubs. Just pull the hub cap off get the wheel to correct angle and pump full with grease gun.

@@hodaka1000 Re the FC I'd owned mine for over 10 years before I'd put steel belted radials on it, I couldn't believe how better it handled, better than my girlfriends new Totota Corona. Mine was a hand me down, had belonged to a great aunt who had died, her hubby grandad's youngest brother gave it to me at the end of 3rd form in high school as a project , as he was going to sell it , hadn't been used nor started for a few years , he'd cleaned the points , put in new sparks & new big battery tried cranking it and pulled a rod or two. At the time the value of the car was less than fixing the engine, so it was given to me as a project. As my other grandad, mum's dad was an industrial engineer, so Pa & I pulled it to bits and fixed it. A very early 1958 FC so it had rear red blinkers and the little white lights under them were reversing lights & quite bright with 32 cp bulbs. Plus as a '58 FC it had the mega treatment 2 tone paint scheme Adobe beige lower and Olinda green upper , a real nasty vibrant color I always hated. It took me and my girlfriend in 1974, 1975 and a second 1975 trip to western Australia, Broome, Devils marbles, Ayre's Rock, Katherine gorge and the Needles, Darwin and on the third trip coming down from Darwin we took a road that goes almost straight across to the back blocks to Queensland, pulling a box trailer with fuel and water drums in it. The little bugger never missed a beat, taking us to some of the most remote places on earth it was utterly reliable, I had a sixth wheel also fitted with massive winter tread rural tyres for durability. Quite a good run from Bilgola Plateau, Avalon, NSW. We saw dead 4WD's & trucks but good old FC BPE-576 never missed a beat. I sold it to a then young guy that worked for me in September 1986 as I had just bought an immaculate 17.000mile one owner 1965 Galaxie with a super duty 390ci engine in it, it was like new, smelt like new & drove like new. I'd wanted one of these from when I was a 9 year old at the Sydney motor show. So at the 1965 Sydney Motor Show there were 3 cars that I wanted a 1965 improved 4.2 litre Mk10 Jag, a 1965 Galaxie, and a 1965 Lincoln. I've owned all three all lived up to childhood expectations, however the 4.2 mk10's and the latter BMC rename 420G's are exceptional the improvements over the original 3,8 litre version transform the car into being timeless, with the improvements to brakes, steering box, gearbox and cabin ventilation they drive like a modern car, or better. Plus the bronze head high output versions have no head gasket issues either plus have 340 horsepower.

Thanks mate :)

I had a mini, and also an 1100. Absolute rubbish, both.

Thanks Michael :)

I'm not surprised. How did the BL people react when your feedback challenged their complacency? I worked for a Telecom company that had a huge lead early on. Then Nokia arrived. They were killing us. We were sent samples of the new killer product line, some of which were dummies. When I argued that the products were totally outclassed, there was hostility. In the end Nokia killed us.

Thanks mate :)

@@TwinCam The car seemed to have a face only a mother could love.......

Thanks mate, that's very kind of you to say :)

Thanks mate, very kind of you to say :)

I think we need to return to a world where comfort is prioritised!

Thanks mate :)

Hahaha thanks mate!

Thanks mate :)

Yes, me too. From certain angles, especially the rear 3/4 it starts to get quite elegant. I always liked the early models with the ‘television screen’ front lamps too.

Thanks Phil :)