Friday, April 28, 2006 - 02:11 pm, by: John Jantzen(Taslex)
P76 - Big, slab-sided Aussie Leyland 4 door sedan brought out prematurely in the early 70's, when Leyland was already in financial trouble. Very 'underdone' design - lots of minor problems mainly with fit and finish. Also used the 6 cylinder engine out of the Kimberley/Tasman models, but driving the rear wheels in the P76. Main claim to fame was that its boot could hold a 200Litre drum (why?). I've driven P76's when near new, and I think that, released fully sorted, they would have been good. The handling / ride of the P76 was better than Ford Falcons and Holdens of the time. The 6 was a waste of time though - too small an engine for the car. The ex-SD1 V8 worked very well in the car. Leyland's dilemma at the time was that they had a shocking build quality reputation and virtually nothing competitive against Holdens, Fords and the major Japanese companies, so they were going to the wall. They panicked and brought out the P76 to try to stop the rot - but it was more of the same and too late. There were 56 examples of the Force-7, (A 2 door hatchback P76) and 1 or 2 wagons, built too. Never released and thus extremely rare - almost all were crushed when Leyland went down.
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hehehehe
