Start with what the BMC ADO16 is: a Four-door Sedan (automobile) / saloon / Two-door Sedan (automobile) / saloon / Three-door station wagon / estate with 1.1 L BMC A-Series engine, built from 1962 to 1973, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Sir Alec Issigonis / body design: Pininfarina.
How it came about
The BMC ADO16 is a range of small family cars built by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and, later, British Leyland. Launched in 1962, it was Britain's best-selling car from 1963 to 1966 and from 1968 to 1971. The ADO16 was marketed globally under various make and model names; the most prolific variant was the Austin 1100 and Morris 1100.
At the height of its popularity, it was widely known as the 1100 (eleven-hundred) in its home market, or as the 1300 when equipped with the 1275 cc engine. In production for 12 years, production of the ADO16 reached 2.3 million between 1962 and 1974, more than half of those sold in the UK home market. British Leyland phased out the 1100/1300 between 1971 and 1974 in favour of the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro.
The hardware
The engine is 1.1 L BMC A-Series engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 1834 lb approx. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 93.5 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the British Motor Corporation line-up the BMC ADO16 has a clear place: it replaced the Austin A40 Farina / Riley One-Point-Five / Wolseley 1500; it handed the line to the Austin Allegro / Morris Marina / Vanden Plas 1500; the factory was Longbridge, Birmingham. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Ferrari 250 GTO, the Alfa Romeo Giulia, the Volvo P1800. Its British Motor Corporation stablemates include the Austin 10 and the Austin 12.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the BMC ADO16 — 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.