NEW STATION WAGGON

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31006, 11 March 1966, Page 9

NEW STATION WAGGON

A VERSATILE addition to the B.M.C. front-wheel-drive range has been announced at the Geneva Motor Show, and the first Austin 1100 Countryman models are expected in New Zealand within the next few months. The new model has an allsteel estate car body with a countersprung, top-hinged tailgate, and the interior can be turned into a 6ft 6in long sleeper compartment when reclining front seats—offered as optional extras—are fitted. Although only 12ft 2Jin long, the Countryman has a 37.7 cubic ft load capacity. It is designed to the same specification as the Austin 1100 saloon, with hydrolastic suspension and front-wheel-drive.

With the optional reclining front seats, the squab angle can be adjusted easily through several degrees of tilt to the fully-flat position. The complete double-sleeper facility is arranged by folding the rear seat backrest down on to the luggage deck ing the rear seat backrest down on to the luggage deck and lifting the rear edge of the rear seat cushion to make a flat softly-cushioned platform.

There is a manually-oper ated light on the roof inside the lift-up tailgate, and besides the saloon-type frontdoor panniers the Countryman has bins with built-in ashtrays each side of the rear seat.

The Countryman engine and transmission is the same as that fitted to the saloon, and dashboard layout is similar, as is the disc-drum braking.

The announcement of new versions of the successful B.M.C. front-drive four-cylin-der cars is said to be further evidence of the corpora-

tions efforts to offer technical ingenuity and versatile design as an inducement for buyers to move from largerengined models of orthodox design. A spokesman for the Austin Distributors Federation, of Petone, said the emphasis B.M.C. was placing on the Issigonis-designed “compacts” was understandable in view of the requirements of important export markets such as Europe, where the corporation had earned £450 million since the Second World War.

However, the result of the emphasis was that smallerengined cars of advanced design were penetrating more deeply the market in such countries as Australia and New Zealand, where the popularity of medium-sized sixcylinder cars had been a dominant feature for years. In Australia fleet owners were showing considerable interest in the Austin 1800, which was the first fourcylinder car of compact dimensions to equal the carrypotential of the popular sixes. B.M.C. has announced a

Morris version of the Countryman, the Morris 1100 Traveller. It has also announced a Morris version of the Austin 1800.