page_title: Austin Allegro
section_title: Allegro 3 (1979–82)
hierarchical_section_title: Austin Allegro / Allegro 3 (1979–82)
caption_attribution_description: English: Vanden Plas 1.7 (1987)
context_page_description: The Austin Allegro is a small family car that was manufactured by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland from 1973 until 1982. The same vehicle was built in Italy by Innocenti between 1974 and 1975 and sold as the Innocenti Regent. The Allegro was designed as a replacement for the Austin 1100 and 1300 models. In total, 642,350 Austin Allegros were produced during its ten-year production life, most of which were sold on the home market, less than a third of 2.1 million 1100s and 1300s sold in the previous 11 years.
  It was built and sold by British Leyland alongside the hatchback Austin Maxi and the 1971 rear-wheel-drive Morris Marina. All three were eventually replaced by the Austin Maestro in 1982.
context_section_description: The Allegro 3, introduced at the end of 1979, used the "A-Plus" version of the 1.0-litre A-Series engine (developed for the forthcoming new Metro), and featured some cosmetic alterations in an attempt to keep the momentum going, but by then the Allegro was outdated, and was now up against high-tech opposition in the form of the Ford Escort III and Vauxhall Astra Mk.1/Opel Kadett D, both launched within a year of the Allegro's facelift.  The cosmetic alterations were fairly minimal; the Allegro 3 gained a new grille with the revised Leyland badge; it carried the 'Allegro 3' name, bore a larger bumper and gained additional side indicators.  The interior was modernised with new components such as a new round four spoke steering wheel. By now, however, British Leyland was working on an all-new car to replace the Allegro and Maxi during the early 1980s - the LC10 - which would eventually emerge as the Austin Maestro.
  British Leyland entered the small hatchback market – pioneered during the 1970s by the likes of the Renault 5 and Volkswagen Polo – with its Metro which was launched in October 1980. The Metro would be built at the Longbridge plant, which had just been expanded to provide adequate production capacity for the new car. But with BL hoping to sell more than 100,000 Metros a year in Britain alone, more capacity for production was needed and production of the Allegro and the Mini were pruned back as a result.  The base models of the slightly larger Triumph Acclaim - the first product of BL's alliance with Honda introduced in 1981 - also acted as a substitute for the Allegro until the Maestro launched.
  After 1980, it failed to feature in the top 10 best selling new cars in Britain, barely a decade since its predecessor had been Britain's most popular new car, though this fall in sales was compensated by the large sales figures achieved by the smaller Metro, as well as the fact that the slightly larger Triumph Acclaim was among Britain's top 10 selling cars by 1982.
  The Vanden Plas models were rebranded as the 1.5 and the 1.7, the 1.5 having a twin carburettor 1500 cc engine and a manual gearbox, while the 1.7 had a single carburettor 1750cc engine and an automatic gearbox.
  Some models of Allegro 3 (the early HL and later HLS models) were equipped with four round headlights, rather than the more usual two rectangular ones.
  Allegro production, which had lasted for nearly a decade, finally finished in March 1982. Its successor, the Austin Maestro, went into production in November 1982 and was officially launched on 1 March 1983.  The backlog of unsold Allegro 3 models remained sufficient to stock dealerships into 1983, well after the Maestro had launched.
caption: 1987 Vanden Plas 1.7
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