Leyland P76 Owners 2022

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and some text and photos relating to the Leyland P76

ABC http://www.abc.net.au/perth/stories/s1233221.htm
Leyland P76 misunderstood
Saturday, 30 October 2004
Presenter: Sarah Knight
Mention the Leyland P76 and some people think of an unusual V8 motor car built in Australia in 1973. Most people think of a lemon.
There's a group of fans, however, who think that the P76 was merely misunderstood.
James Mentiplay is the President of the Leyland P76 Owners Club of WA.
His club has seventy members and he reckons that most would have multiple cars.
He has ten ( yep ten P76s ).
" I must admit , it probably would be an obsession ", concedes Mr Mentiplay, before effortlessly reeling off all the specs you could ever need about a car which can fit a 44 gallon drum inits boot.
James explains that the P76 has an unearned reputation as a lemon.
He reckons it was a good car at the wrong time : " ( manufacturer ) Leyland was virtually broke before the P76 was
released ..." , he says.
" The car could never succeed as the company was essentially broke.
There was nothing the car could've done to save this company ", asserts our car lover.
Never-the less, for a bit over a year the company manufactured around 1800 of them in Australia - including the first of James's fleet of ten.
Click onto our audio to hear his voice as he remembers his turquoise blue P76.
( Sarah Knight begins by asking how many members in his club ... )
Audio for this story is not available
As heard on 720 ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast.
Europe clocks off
The World Today Archive - Monday, 13 August , 2001 00:00:00
Reporter: Michael Brissenden
JOHN HIGHFIELD: Well, film festivals seem like a good indoor activity given the bracing summer weather that they're
experiencing in England at the moment.
But over on mainland Europe the sun is shining every day, and of course during the month of August the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Spanish, indeed any European who can, shuts up shop and heads out of town for the whole month on holidays.
As Michael Brissenden writes in his letter from Brussels, though even the tourists seem to have forsaken his European capital.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Europeans generally have a very different view of the world than Anglo-Saxons.
It's a broad brush to take, I know, but regardless of the mixing pot that is our population Australia, along with the US, the UK and Canada, could generally be regarded as having a similar Anglo-Saxon based culture and economy.
Certainly that's a delineation favoured by the French when they speak of Europe verses the rest of the developed world. And one of the most striking differences is the European devotion to holidays.
In Australia, we grew up with the derisive notion that we were the land of the long weekend, a country that likes to relax.
But as we all know, the really long weekend went out with the Leyland P76, and as for the Christmas holidays that used to stretch until Australia Day at least, it seems that most people now rush back to work straight after New Year.
In Europe though things are different. Here holidays are still sacred. Long weekends are more often than not four day affairs, particularly in France and Belgium where there always seems to be an extraordinary number of national holidays that fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday.
And it's almost universally accepted that everyone will 'fare le pont', a phrase that translates as making the bridge.
But it's not until it comes to August that Europeans get really serious about their holidays. It's been a long tradition for almost every resident of Paris, for instance, to take to the country for the entire month. At least in Paris, the streets are still full of tourists.
In August, Brussels is a ghost town. There never were many tourists in the first place, and while it's a given that the
majority of the workforce is either made up of Eurocrats or devoted to feeding, housing and clothing them, it's still a surprise just how quiet the place is.
Public offices operate on a skeleton staff, and the skeletons are almost universally wishing they weren't here.
Nothing gets done.
Many shops and restaurants close up completely, a quaint notion that rarely translates to our dollar-driven economy, and even parking problems disappear, almost overnight.
Such slavish devotion to the holiday period might seem an anachronism in the 21st century, but a good summer break is up there in European cultural terms with great art, great architecture and food.
Even national industries like car manufacturing shut down forthe month, although there are rumours that this year the
Peugeot factory in the Alsace will keep working for the first time ever, a notion that will no doubt cause outrage among the French elite who will quite rightly see it as another example of Anglo-Saxon imperialism.
ELEANOR HALL: Europe correspondent, Michael Brissenden who's one of the few people in Europe still at work.
ABC http://www.abc.net.au/perth/stories/s881540.htm
A car with a very big boot
Tuesday, 17 June 2003
Presenter: Eoin Cameron
Room in there for a 44 gallon drum, or a bale of hay...
They were not on sale for very long but the Leyland P76 had a huge impact on some car fanatics.
The Leyland P76 is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and Hal Maloney owns several. Hal loves the car so much he has even written a book on the subject.
Eoin Cameron spoke with Hal to find out where his relationship with this Australian icon began.
Audio for this story is not available
As heard on 720 ABC Perth Breakfast.
ABC http://www.abc.net.au/perth/stories/s1167508.htm
Lemons - Really Bad Cars
Tuesday, 3 August 2004
Presenter: Eoin Cameron
The Leyland P76. "Ultimately it was a bad car" says Tony Davis.
The motor vehicle industry was one of the great successes of the 20th Century.
For all its successes, there were of course some mighty failures.
Eoin Cameron gleefully wallows in lemons with Australian author and car connoisseur Tony Davis.
"There are so many definitions of 'lemon' ", says Tony , "outrageously ugly, financially unsuccessful , notoriously
unreliable , or prone to rust like the Alfasud ( the corrode warrior )".
And then there's the Holden FB. Despite its many fans , Tony describes a car with 1950s design released in Australia in the 1960s. Send in the fins.
Fortunately for Holden, Ford were having a lot of problems with their own model at the time.
Tony & Eoin both take delight at laying into the infamous Ford Edsel as the King of the lemons. According to Tony "it actually became a byword for failure".
In 1950s America it lost an estimated quarter of a billion dollars and was reported by Time Magazine as "looking like an Oldsmobile that sucked a lemon".
Tony of course doesn't ignore Australia's famed Leyland P76.
Mr Cameron suggests that many people nowadays think the P76 was a brilliant car...Tony Davis pauses, and then ever-so-politely responds "ultimately it was a bad car".
And further dodgy motors flow off the tongue - the Messerschmidt , the Morris Marina, the 'hideously ugly Valiant VH Hardtop', the Stutz , ....and the Nissan Pintara.
Mr Davis explains that this particular car signalled the end of Nissan manufacturing in Australia - despite the models on sale in Japan being called the Nissan Aussie and being marketed complete with stuffed koala in the glovebox.
And what about the car that Tony describes as looking "like the car that Scrooge McDuck used to take his money to the bank" ?
It was a Hyundai SLV and it wasn't a success.
And Eoin Cameron couldn't allow a lemon discussion to end without mentioning the fabulous Zeta made by the Adelaide based Lightburn washing machine company.
"The thing I like most about its stupidity was that it was a station wagon , but it didn't have a rear door", says Mr Davis.
"So convenient", observes Mr Cameron. (click on audio for a hilarious description of the loading process )
The Lightburn Zeta managed sales of 340 units at the time .
Australia's population was around seven million.
A worthy contender indeed for any book of motoring lemons.
(Eoin Cameron begins by asking Tony Davis how he managed to restrict his list to only sixty lemons ...)
Audio for this story is not available
As heard on 720 Breakfast. Lemon : 60 Heroic Failures by Tony
Davis is widely available in Australian bookshops
Last Updated: 3/08/2004 4:06:54 PM AWST
ABChttp://www.abc.net.au/newcastle/stories/s1783540.htm
Backyard car collector builds shrine to lemon
Wednesday, 25 October 2006
Reporter: Anthony Scully
'They're a lovely comfortable car, there's no doubt about that,' Mr Maloney says.
'And plenty of room in them; they were just a great road car to go touring in.'
There is a fine line between passion and obsession for Beresfield car lover Hal Maloney, whose enthusiasm for a
discontinued 1970s Australian fuel guzzler has overwhelmed his backyard shed.
Mr Maloney is the proud owner of not one but two Leyland P76 Executives - a much loved but often maligned example of
Australian engineering, considered ahead of its time for using many lightweight components.
But today Mr Maloney conceded he had far more spare parts for the vehicles than he could ever hope to use.
"What I have in the shed here is too many parts!" Mr Maloney said. "Absolutely, by a long way! What I'm going to do with them I don't know!
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Car hobby consumes a lifetime
Hal Maloney gently opens the door of his "aspen green metallic" Leyland Executive and sinks down behind the steering wheel into an accommodating bucket seat.
'They're a lovely comfortable car, there's no doubt about that,' Mr Maloney says. 'And plenty of room in them; they were just a great road car to go touring in.'
Fay Maloney reveals her husband's passion for cars has been a lifelong affair.
"I think he's always been very car oriented, ever since he was little," she says. "And ever since he's found that he liked these cars, he's just kept it going; constantly; all the time!"
How Leyland missed the market
Mr Maloney, who has written a book on the Leyland's history, concedes the P76 sales figures 'certainly show that they
weren't a success'.
'Just after the Leyland was released, the first of the fuel crises happened at the end of 1973,' Mr Maloney said.
He recalls an 'odd and evens number plate' system was put in place as fuel was rationed.
'People wanted smaller cars, the same as they're doing now,' he said. 'We go through these cycles.'
Photo
'They're a lovely comfortable car, there's no doubt about that,' Mr Maloney says. 'And plenty of room in them; they were just a great road car to go touring in.'