The Austin Maxi was a medium sized 5-door hatchback car from British Leyland for the 1970s.
The Maxi (code name ADO14) was the last car designed under the British Motor Corporation (BMC), and was the last production car designed by Alec Issigonis. It was launched in the summer of 1969 shortly after the creation of British Leyland. It followed the five-door hatchback pattern of the French-produced Renault 16, which was European Car of the Year in 1966 following its launch in 1965.
Underneath the Maxi's practical and spacious bodyshell lay an all-new front wheel drive chassis which was interlinked with an innovative five-speed manual transmission. The latter suffered from notorious problems with its control linkage. Power came from a 1485cc, later 1748cc (from 1971) E-Series petrol engines which would later find their way into other British Leyland products like the Austin Allegro.
Despite the new platform, the Maxi's styling suffered from carryover door panels from the Austin 1800 "Landcrab", which compromised the design and dated the car. Another styling ambition for the car was a 4-door sedan counterpart - an ungainly prototype was built, but it never made production.
The Austin Maxi featured a spacious interior, comfortable passenger accommodation, competitive prices and lowish running costs. But the Maxi was let down by a dull interior and poor build quality, although it was not quite as notorious as the Austin Allegro and Morris Marina.
One unusual feature of this car was that the rear seat back, as well as folding forward as in a conventional hatchback, also folded back. In combination with fully reclining front seats this gave satisfactory, if spartan, sleeping accommodation.
At the end of 1981, the Austin Maxi's 12-year production life came to an end. Its replacement, the Austin Maestro, which also replaced the smaller Austin Allegro, was introduced in the spring of 1983.
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