What!!!
What about the beloved Leyland P76?
Designed, manufactured and built in Aust.
Check your history books.
And of the three P-76 Station Wagon Leyland built two were destroyed in testing. The sole surviving P76 Wagon was offered for tender when Leyland closed up shop. At one stage as well as having the garden variety P-76 an Australian Leyland Fan in Sydney also owned one of the eight Leyland Force 7V hatchback coupes sold at auction, a P-76 Executive and the only P-76 Station Wagon sold by Leyland.
The Leyland Force 7V is a vehicle I'd own in a heartbeat if I ever won Lotto and could tempt an owner to sell. The big Force 7V coupe was also the first hatchback vehicle designed and built in Australia for the Australian car market. The first locally designed and built production hatchback was the Torana a few years later. The Force 7V was very well designed and a vehicle ahead of its time, it would be years before the other three local makers thought about producing some of the features already in the Force 7V in 1974.
Wheels Aug 1974 issue had a photo of the Leyland Force 7V on the cover and a feature story on it.
Leyland had also penned a Bathurst version to race on The Mountain in 1975, called the Force 7R. It never got past the paper stage so it'll always be an "if only".
Leyland Australia was ordered by British Leyland to destroy all the Force 7 body shells except nine which were to be built to Force 7V specification and put out to auction in an attempt to recover at least some money from the project by banking on the "Rare" factor after reducing the numbers down to nine. This plan failed to generate the big bucks as the list below shows. The number of Force 7 vehicle body shells made has been debated for many years with various sources claiming body shell numbers of 44, 50, 56 and 58. Leaving the total number of body shells constructed debate behind, what is not in doubt is nine Force 7V vehicles were assembled. Leyland Australia kept one example in Nutmeg trim and sent the remaining eight to auction on Sep 9th 1975 at 34 Morley Avenue Rosebery N.S.W. To help whip up interest in the Force 7V prior to the auction they were displayed at the 1975 Sydney Motor Show. The Nutmeg coloured Force 7V drifted off into the ether when Leyland Australia was closed down only to reappear through the swirling ether haze years later.
The Ex-Leyland Nutmeg, Force 7V is on loan to the Birdwood Mill Museum in S.A.
A green, Force 7V lives in Greece.
A white, Force 7V is in the Perth Motor Museum W.A.
The other six surviving Force 7V are scattered around Australia and remain complete and most of the time registered and driven and by all accounts un-molested.
Here are the 8 completed Force 7V coupes sold at auction in 1975 and the hammer price. A 27.5% sales tax was applied on top of these prices.
Lot 1 Yellow / White trim V8 4 speed manual 000,069 km $10,010
Lot 2 White / Black trim V8 T-Bar Automatic 000,037 km $8,500
Lot 3 Orange / Black trim V8 4 speed manual 000,001 km $8,000
Lot 4 Green / White trim V8 4 speed manual 000,451 km $7,500
Lot 5 Yellow / Black trim V8 T-Bar Automatic 011,212 km $9,500 This example was a Leyland development vehicle which is why the higher km on the clock, it was also fitted with air-conditioning.
Lot 6 Orange / Black trim V8 4 speed manual 000,006 km $6,250
Lot 7 Green / White trim V8 T-Bar Automatic 000,069 km $6,500
Lot 8 Orange / White trim V8 T-Bar Automatic 000,002 km $7,500
And then there is this one! A Force 7V prototype was sent to England for evaluation then kept by Lord Stokes for his personal transport. This prototype was bought at auction a few years later by an English P-76 Fan. Yes, there is a P-76 Fan in England! This vehicle was then sold by the British owner and it now lives in N.Z.
One Force 7V coupe prototype in N.Z. and nine Force 7V coupes are the only survivors of an Australian vehicle programme that had the potential through the development of the proposed Force 7R to be one of our best Muscle Cars if not one of the best looking Aussie designed road cars if you like em' big and brutal and I certainly like em' like that, sign me up!
