Description Only 22,900 miles from new; few owners; recently recommissioned following many years in storage; driven 60 miles to the sale; a proper little timewarp! The British car buying public are an odd lot.

Put them behind the wheel of modern Audi with a square steering wheel and they don’t bat an eyelid, but when BL tried it in the Allegro in 1973 it was as if they’d replaced the steering wheel with a live grenade! The ‘Quartic’ steering wheel was not the only thing that raised eyebrows with the new car.

Its bulbous styling was deliberately different, BL's management preferring it to a stylish wedge-shaped design along the lines of the elegant Princess, the justification being that the forthcoming ‘E’ series engine wouldn’t fit.

A second face-lift arrived in 1979 in the form of the Allegro 3, which used the new A-Plus engine destined for the Metro, a new grille and bigger bumpers.

Road tests were not unkind but the lacklustre styling, combined with constant press coverage of in...