The Austin Maxi is a 5-door hatchback from British Motor Corporation, built from 1969 to 1981, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Under the bonnet: 1485 . Sir Alec Issigonis drew it.
The background
The Austin Maxi is a medium-sized, 5-door hatchback family car that was produced by Austin and later British Leyland between 1969 and 1981. Despite its practical design and space efficiency, the Maxi never came close to reaching its projected sales targets. 450,297 Maxis were built over a 12-year period.
BL management decisions involving the Maxi had significant knock-on effects to the rest of the car line-up. BL marketing decreed that the Maxi should be the only car in the range to feature a hatchback. This stance prevented the Austin Allegro and Princess models gaining hatchbacks despite those designs being capable of receiving them.
The engineering
Power comes from 1485 other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 2156 lb. It shifts through a 5-speed manual all-synchromesh / 4-speed automatic (optional from 1974). The wheelbase is 104.75 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Austin A60 Cambridge; its successor was the Austin Maestro; assembly was at Cowley, Oxford, England. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Range Rover Range Rover, the Peugeot 504, the Chevrolet Impala — show what else the money bought that year. Its British Motor Corporation stablemates include the Austin 10 and the Austin 12.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Austin Maxi — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.