The road to the breaker's yard is paved with good intentions. This was the original Allegro design concept from Paul Hughes. Looks a bit like a Peugeot, but you can see a slight Allegro-ness in the doors, windows and roof.

This design from Harris Mann was chosen in the end. If you squint and take psychadelic drugs, it looks like an Allegro. I wish they'd made it like this.

Can't decide which type of headlights to fit? Why not fit both! In the end they made the wrong choice, using off the shelf parts as seen in early Capris. Twin headlights returned late in the life of the Allegro, but somehow they made them look awful.

The Allegro was considered rather newfangled and modern, so it was the perfect test bed for new ideas such as this cray-zee grille on the right. Other ideas included a square steering wheel and a bifocal windscreen (I made that last one up).

Early Allegros were made out of clay, but tended to go hard if parked in the sun. Later versions were made from gravel, sand or compost.

Now this looks good, so of course they didn't make it. Known as Project Condor, this shows how those twin headlamps should have looked. It's a sports coupe, but it's hard to tell from this angle. I want to build one, where's my welder? Mine will have twin 1750s.

Picture: The Unofficial Austin Rover Web Resource Tile: Unknown

Copyright 2004 Bad Design Inc