Absolute Radio kill an Allegro

[MANTAMAN]

Absolute Radio station which serves in and around London are attending the Isle of White music festival

For a Radio feature they purchased an Austin Allegro to travel from London to the festival in, it appeared to be a quite reasonable example, straight with only a little sign of rust, good interior and ran well. they undertook the journey yesterday ( 21-6-2012 ) and on the way they stopped for fuel, only the numpty presenter filled it up with diesel, a mile and half down the road and it smoked to a holt (when it had used the petrol still in the float chamber i presume )

they had the poor car recovered and it was immediately declared a write off, only fit for scrap ( by who? ) this morning ( 22-6-2012 ) at 09:58 they had it crushed live on air at a car breakers

There is video footage of them test driving the Allegro around a london square and them making the journey and having it recovered on the Absolute Radio website, dont think i can link to here as you to register with the radio station to watch the footage, ( not hard to do )

I think Absolute Radio have blundered badly here, everyone who likes classic cars will now hate them, and alot of people who have little interest in classic cars will still think it is ashame that they have killed this car.

[Martin Evans]

Is Jeremy Clarkson the producer Perhaps if they have a lot of "Max power" listeners, their stading will increase, as those sorts of morons would tend to find smashing up, what they would see as "An old fart's car", to be "Dedd Coool". Some years ago, I used to belong to a classic car club (Gone down the pan a bit over the last few years) and the meeting place was overlooked by a road. In the dry and light evenings we would stay outside and some of the local dorks would shout abuse as they drove by in their prattmobiles .

[Luxobarge]

Perhaps if they have a lot of "Max power" listeners, .

Definately not, IMHO - it's a sort of commercial Radio2 type station. We're distinctly middle-aged & middle-class, and we listen to it a lot, (when we can get reception, the signal is very weak here). Not any more though, this sort of behaviour is appalling, they've lost a couple of listeners here that's for sure.

They should be made to find another car destined for the crusher and pay for its restoration IMO.

[Martin Evans]

I stopped listening to Radio 2 when Chris Evans took over from Wogan (I only ever listen in the morning). I could imagine Chris Evans thinking it was "Laddish" to smash up an "Old codger's car".

[JPB]

If there's even the slightest grain of truth to this story, it won't be the first time that a radio presenter has modified an Allegro, intentionally or otherwise.
Magic 1152 and former BBC R1 breakfast jock, Dave Lee Travis created a special 'Leggy for his publicity machine back in the day, as seen on another thread here and in Street Machine:

[Oldcarnut]

What a pair of knuckleheads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rX6X2BpBGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ6S4vr1zyw


http://player.absoluteradio.co.uk/core/ ... uts/59900/

http://player.absoluteradio.co.uk/core/ ... uts/59971/

[JPB]

It's easily done, after all, the nozzles all come from within a few Inches of each other and - as I suspected would be the case - there was no scene of destruction. Nor was there an engine in the car that was lifted off the truck at the yard. Chances are it's been fixed and is still around somewhere.

But that tit in the passenger seat is the same presenter who commissioned the "Chop Shop" Bacon Sandwich Bentley in that show and seems not to have much idea really.
LINK.

[Oldcarnut]

It's easily done, after all, the nozzles all come from within a few Inches of each other and - as I suspected would be the case - there was no scene of destruction. Nor was there an engine in the car that was lifted off the truck at the yard. Chances are it's been fixed and is still around somewhere.

But that tit in the passenger seat is the same presenter who commissioned the "Chop Shop" Bacon Sandwich Bentley in that show and seems not to have much idea really.
LINK.

Oh was that him? I remember that.He doesn't have a clue about classic cars the way he was talking when they first got the car.P....k

But would it be possible to actually do a repair on it? I would hope so anyway.

[JPB]

Yeah, I think that the entire episode was staged for youtube viewers' "benefit" since first of all, they seemed to travel far further than they should have managed on a float chamber full before the car started complaining. Then we never actually saw the engine being removed but the trim height of the suspension and absence of the gearbox being visible below the front valance told us that it had vanished somewhere, then the fork lift was very gentle with the car and took it around a corner, out of sight, where presumably, its engine and gearbox unit would have been popped back in, though quite why they took it out if accidental Diesel ingestion was all that was wrong with it is a mystery. SUs are much easier to decontaminate than fixed jet carbs, either way they're easy to remove without lifting the unit out.

Give it a week or three and that'll be on eBay.

[OneCarefulOwner]

The car's already been removed from the DVLA database, so a certificate of destruction has most likely already been issued. We've been following on the club forum, as well as the AR Online guys on Facebook, and it's just ridiculous what they did whether you're an Allegro fan, a classics fan, or just someone who can't understand destroying a grand's worth of car for no benefit.