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There is one question that Steve Waddingham is often asked regarding his 1975 Austin Allegro – 'where's the square steering wheel...?'.

Indeed, the early sales copy, with a touch of desperation, stated 'This must sound like a gimmick.

But it isn't'. The "Quartic" wheel gave the owner ‘much better look at your instruments when you're driving' but as LDV 620 P is a very late Series I – 'Some people call it a "Series 1.5"'- it sports a round steering wheel.

BL finally abandoned the Quartic device (which was originally devised for the Rover P8 project) but the conventional wheel does nothing to mar Steve's enjoyment of Allegro motoring.

'It's a bit slow off the mark, but cruises happily enough at 55/65mph and it does about 40-45mpg'. As for the trim level, it is 'really basic - rubber flooring, no radio, etc.’

But in 1975 anyone trading in a three-year-old Austin 1100 De Luxe would almost certainly have been impressed by the bottom-of-the-range Allegro actually having a water temperature gauge as standard.

Better still, the array of luxuries also included 'an alternator, an electric cooling fan, a heated rear window, underbody protection and radial-ply tyres'.

Anyone craving reclining front seat, carpets or a cigar lighter aspired to ownership of a Super but at least the Allegro De Luxe came with an 'Interior Bonnet Release' and 'a built-in steering column lock'.

The brochures, with more than a touch of hyperbole, urged motorists to consider 'When you're travelling economy, go first class'.

And the fact that it lists 'seat slides' as an item of equipment makes the mid-1970s appear very remote.

The press coverage of the early Allegro is even more intriguing than the PR material, for it is far more positive than popular mythology would suggest.

Car magazine thought the Allegro ‘fine for handling, comfort, styling – a good example of conventionally-shaped saloon', even if they did complain about 'its lack of performance'.

Autocar thought it was 'bound to be a very popular new model' and that it was 'a big step forwards in all respects' compared with the Austin 1300.

The Allegro press launch took place in Spain, where this Movietone newsreel captured the event, and some truly disastrous outfits, in glorious colour.

The chap from Motor Sport compared the elaborate presentation to 'a superb piece of show business and at least temporarily convincing even to the least gullible amongst us'.

However the writer's experience of the 1750 Sport Special resulted in him concluding 'All in all the Allegro is the best small car ever to come out of British Leyland', although the 1100 Deluxe was absent from the line-up displayed to the press in Spain.

The scribe thought this 'no great disappointment' as this was 'the cheap hack vehicle of the range, intended mainly for fleet sales'.

For some reason, one imagines him uttering those words in a Dennis Price accent.

Today the Waddingham De Luxe attracts a considerable amount of attention – 'people either love it or hate it!' - for the days when the Allegro was an everyday sight are now as remote as Bros records.

As a historian of British motoring, Steve is also more than aware of the 1973 vintage commercial in which Bill "Arthur Fowler" Treacher takes the new Austin through its paces.

He is also an aficionado of British cars although Steve 'didn't really set out to find an Allegro’.

In the event, he ‘fell for the story and the potential to have some fun with it (more the ownership than the driving dynamics!)'.

Mr. Waddingham came by the Allegro De Luxe ‘last year, and I'm its fourth keeper. The first owner had it for 30 years, then donated it to Stondon museum'.

The Austin remained on display for another decade 'before the museum closed. A third owner rescued it at auction, sorted out some bodywork issues but never drove it.

I bought it last April, I've driven about 2500 miles in it - and it's been a lot of fun'.

He also traced the Allegro's first owner, a Mr. Bernard Watford who is now aged 94 – 'and we are friends now!

I've also met and got to know Harris Mann, and he kindly drew the car for Bernard and myself'.

As Steve notes, Mr. Watford was a brave chap when he placed an order for a new Allegro as 'he lived in Luton, so buying BL didn't go down well.

He traded a Morris 1100 for it and wanted a basic no thrills car to maintain himself'.

Today, his Austin is a fascinating artefact of social history, and not merely because the survival rate for entry-level cars of this era is minimal.

Forty-five years ago, the likes of the 1750 were far less encountered than the humble De Luxe - the BL product that is as uber-1970s as a consignment of "Fizzy Lemonade" flavoured Spangles.

LDV 620 P will be starring at the Allegro Club International stand at the Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show with Discovery at the NEC.

It is a car with the power to transport motorists of a certain age back to a time when various neighbours would be utterly stunned at a new Allegro De Luxe fitted with the decadence of an electric cooling fan on your driveway.

Indeed, they would probably faint in amazement – even if it did lack a Quartic steering wheel…

WITH THANKS TO: STEVE WADDINGHAM

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