A common theme here seems to be how poorly built and unreliable many of these British-built cars from the 1960s and 1970s were. Made out of poor quality materials and lack of quality control at the factory seems to be the order of those days.
My favourite car, early in my driving ‘career’, was a 1970 Vauxhall VX 4/90. I was, at the time, an apprentice motor mechanic, working for a Vauxhall main dealer, and bought it, when it was only 3 -years-old for £600.
Reading the stories on here about continually having problems with motors from that era, makes me think that I must have been particularly lucky, because I hardly had to touch it, at least at the outset, and when it did need attention, working in a Vauxhall garage, I knew the ins-and-outs of it, and it’s odd little quirks.
As the years went on though (I kept it for about five years before having to sell it to raise a deposit for my first house), the vinyl dashboard split on the top corners due, I thought at the time, through sun damage - the seats had a similar problem, so had to buy some sheepskin covers - remember them ?
I saw an apparently fully-restored one in an advert of a classic car dealer a couple of years ago, and the asking price was £12,000 - that’s ten times its price when new !