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May 21, 2012 14:48:52 GMT
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Hello folks... As a person who likes all things 70's I really cannot help myself when it comes to old car magazines, I have stacks of them...! I find them to be the most fascinating thing to flick through to be honest and they have some truly interesting bits & bobs in them. One advert that seems to crop up quite often is for Leyland ST and I am keen to find out more about it... It seems that Leyland ST is a kind of specialist department that you would bring your Mini, Toledo, Maxi or such like to in order to give it a bit more 'go' in the performance and looks department! It appears the 'ST' part stands for Special Tuning and the most common thing to do was for the Leyland bods to add the 'Plus Pack A' (whatever that was) in order to improve performance and economy...  Now can any of you fine people shed any more light on this part of Leyland's operations? do any of you have any brochures or other related bumf to share with us?! I'd be fascinated to learn anything about 'ST' to be honest with you... Thanks to you all in advance...      |
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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May 21, 2012 15:40:25 GMT
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You know about as much as I do about the ST department and I too would be curious to know more.
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Brian Damaged
West Midlands
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 9,553 
Club RR Member Number: 33
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May 21, 2012 16:16:42 GMT
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BMC (later BL from early 1968) Special Tuning was born in June 1964 as an extension to the BMC Competitions Department which occupied part of the Abingdon site where MG's were built. ST marketed uprated parts for road cars (designed/manufactued both in-house and by specialist companies like Downton in Salisbury), whilst Comps carried on their traditional role preparing race, rallycross and rally cars.
When the Competition Department closed at the end of 1970, Special Tuning then ran (unofficially, the term was 'supported') a limited competition programme from 1971 onwards with the ex Comps Dept Triumph 2.5PI rally cars, then rallied the Morris Marina 1.3 under the Team Castrol guise, with a 4WD Mini Clubman in rallycross and in 1973 made an official return to circuit racing with the Triumph Dolomite Sprint.
If you're after the whole unexpurgated story of BMC/BL's motorsport years, then look no further than Bill Price's brilliant book 'The BMC/BL Competitions Department'. No idea if it's still in print, but it's definitely worth tracking down. Almost 400 pages of anecdotes and rare photos.
And no, you can't have mine. ;D
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May 21, 2012 18:19:52 GMT
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The excellent Mk1 mini site has plenty information on ST and spec sheets. I really love the old price lists with pounds, pences and shillings  |
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 Click picture for more |
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fogey
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,592
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May 21, 2012 18:42:09 GMT
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I can also recommend the book mentioned by Brian Damaged and, no, you can't have mine either. ;D  |
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Last Edit: May 21, 2012 18:42:56 GMT by fogey
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May 21, 2012 19:23:36 GMT
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after abingdon closed, ST was moved to cowley works, funny enough the building is still there, but its now a valet centre, just across from unipart!
was lucky enough to see the prototype 6r4 developed there, exhausts exiting out of the bootlid and the howl from them as it shot round the test track kind of gave it away!
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v8ian
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,763
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May 21, 2012 19:38:37 GMT
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ST produced all sorts of stuff, I have seen a wide body Allegro, with what looked like Escort bubble arches, V8 Marina Kits-- part develloped with the much missed CCCmag Certainly Rally crossed those, and were superseded by the TR8
Plenty of obscure never listed stuff too, I remember my neighbour had a very nice Mk1? Cooper S, he decided he wanted to rebuild the back suspension, but could not remove the suspension cones, so he did what most people would do, he cut one off, got new cones only to find the ride height had risen by about 2" only then did he look and find the cone had a ST part number, contacted ST for a new pair, Oooooh no sir that number does not exist, and I have never seen any lowered cones at ST parts, oooops.
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Atmo V8 Power . No slicks , No gas + No bits missing . Doing it in style.
Austin A35van, very different------- but still doing it in style, going to be a funmoble
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May 21, 2012 21:55:54 GMT
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I have a special place in my head for Leyland ST. For years my dad drummed it into me that it was the holy grail for any leyland car. Years ago he found a brand spanking new, complete special tuning kit for his Maxi in an Auto jumble. He was like a jumped up kid in a sweet shop. The kit contained Twin 1 1/2 S.U's, Coopers air filters, tubular manifold, exhaust system, camshaft kit and rear bumpstops along with a nice little plaque which I still have. There may have been more but I cant remember. This kit was meant for the early 1969 cablechanger Maxi so contained twin 1 1/2 SU's to replace the standard single 1 1/2, but as the HL that the kit was destined for was already fitted with 1 3/4 SU there was a spare set of brand new Special Tuning SU's kicking about which soon found their way onto my Mini Clubman Estate once they were rejetted, which was nice  Heres the twin S.U's in place with the coopers filters on my Mini.  And a slightly shoddy scanned pic of the Maxi when it was fitted with the kit, plus a lightened and balanced bottom end. Note the stickers on the wings.  |
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May 21, 2012 22:23:20 GMT
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May 21, 2012 22:33:36 GMT
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I could bore you all with pictures of Works prepped Maxis.  I'd love to see you try... No, really! Please! |
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May 21, 2012 22:54:05 GMT
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Anything sponsored by Bovril is a winner in my book  I have learned things in this thread. |
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any ST fan will have one of these  which lists the parts that could be supplied, part numbers, notes regarding fitting in some instances,models, presumably ST dealer only, i have only seen one other  |
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Holy Moses, that is amazing... It seems that ST started as a dedicated competitions department and then became more customer (weekend tinkerer!) focused during the 70's...?! |
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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May 27, 2012 20:13:42 GMT
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Last Edit: May 27, 2012 20:25:53 GMT by bmcnut
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nice history you have there
i've consulted my bible....lol
and 0-60mph times std and with a stage 1 kit on were
1500cc
16.4 vs 14.9
1750cc
15.3 Vs 12.7
so quite a bit quicker with a stage 1 kit fitted, also listed for maxi''s were large port heads, exhaust systems and manifolds, glass fibre doors, perspex window sets and so forth
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May 29, 2012 21:38:57 GMT
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Thanks, its interesting to see the difference it made. The biggest gains would have been made as a result of changing the manifold alone, as the original cast iron job is so restrictive.
Does the bible have any infomation on the valve sizes used in the ST cylinder heads? I have a head that my dad originaly bought in bits that was beleived to have been a ST head. The quality of work in the gas flowing would help to back this up, along with the fact it has larger valves than standard. Dad built it up using what he had but never fitted it to a car, its clearly done very little miles and is currently sitting on a shelf waiting for something to happen to it. I also have a genuine ST oil cooler kit complete with its part number tags. It was fitted to a maxi for a while and from what I can remember it now leaks. Probably fixable tho, for use on a mini or something.
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BMC (later BL from early 1968) Special Tuning was born in June 1964 as an extension to the BMC Competitions Department which occupied part of the Abingdon site where MG's were built. ST marketed uprated parts for road cars (designed/manufactued both in-house and by specialist companies like Downton in Salisbury), whilst Comps carried on their traditional role preparing race, rallycross and rally cars. When the Competition Department closed at the end of 1970, Special Tuning then ran (unofficially, the term was 'supported') a limited competition programme from 1971 onwards with the ex Comps Dept Triumph 2.5PI rally cars, then rallied the Morris Marina 1.3 under the Team Castrol guise, with a 4WD Mini Clubman in rallycross and in 1973 made an official return to circuit racing with the Triumph Dolomite Sprint. If you're after the whole unexpurgated story of BMC/BL's motorsport years, then look no further than Bill Price's brilliant book 'The BMC/BL Competitions Department'. No idea if it's still in print, but it's definitely worth tracking down. Almost 400 pages of anecdotes and rare photos. And no, you can't have mine. ;D I drive thru downton everyday.... wouldn't know what was eger there unless some one said. No trace of downton engineering left. |
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Feb 20, 2016 14:45:33 GMT
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 just found this site ! This is my ex BMC Comps Maxi in the Manx Trophy Rally 1974 I collected this from ST in about '72 after Comps dept had closed it has many modifications from standard, much strengthening of body, isolated hydrolastic units with Koni spring dampers on added stubs, with f/g doors & Bonnet, perspex windows, welded in tailgate + cut to make boot lid + boot built inside 2 humps in bonnet to clear the tops of damper mounts, rubber aircraft 30gal fuel tank in boot. black crackle ally dashboard with red aircraft front dial illumination, double ended Jag fuel pump (main / stby), minilites Drove like it was on rails, excelled on rough & twisty club rallies with good ground clearance (shown with lamp bar removed for day stages, 3 bolts + rubber plug-in cable) |
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I have learned things in this thread.
