Classic Car Mart Spring 2016 189
Retro Shed: With Paul Guinness
COMPACT CAMPING
Torcars of Devon was famous forty years ago for its motor
caravan conversions based around British Leyland’s Marina
and Sherpa vans. According to this classic ad from the mid-
1970s, the Sun-Tor Marina Motor Caravan (to give it its offi cial
title) offered ‘saloon car performance’ and an easy drive:
‘Because it’s based on the Marina it handles like a saloon car’.
This might have been one of the smallest motor caravans of its
time, but Torcars reckoned it offered ‘maximum interior space
which neatly accommodates cooker, sink unit, cupboards and
wardrobe, with comfortable meal-time seating and sleeping
arrangements’. All for just £1332.
VOLVO’S BRITISH CONNECTION
Back in the late 1970’s and early ’80’s, Volvo was committed to using large numbers of UK-built components in its cars, a fact that
proved useful to its marketing folk at a time when patriotism was alive and well. That explains these two postcards issued by Volvo,
created to emphasise the cars’ British content. ‘Support the British motor industry!’ suggested the 1979 card: ‘Buy Volvo’.
The Swedish fi rm was ‘the largest single overseas buyer of British automotive components and parts’, spending £92 million
annually. By the time the second card was issued two years later, however, that sum had risen somewhat: ‘The total value in 1981 will
exceed £125 million’.
ANYTHING BUT AVERAGE
Anyone who lived Down Under in the 1970’s will have been
aware of the Leyland P76, the large saloon built by British
Leyland’s Australian division, described on the cover of this
period brochure as ‘Anything but average’. The P76 certainly
wasn’t short of power, with buyers offered a choice of 2.6-litre
straight-six or 4.4-litre V8 engines.
Previous attempts at launching big-engined Australian
saloons had generally been based around existing BMC and
British Leyland models, but the P76 was unique. Sadly, however,
it wasn’t a success, with just 18,000 sold between its launch in
1973 and its demise two years later.
Back in the late 1970’s and early ’80’s, Volvo was committed to using large numbers of UK-built components in its cars, a fact that