Hillman Avenger Estate - the best British 70s estate car?! (Plymouth Cricket)

The Hillman Avenger Estate Conducting some market research to ensure they had all their bases covered and the buying public in general had what they wanted, Hillman as they were at the time, discovered a gap between the Imp and the Minx and decided they needed a robust 4 door design to fit in the slot. This led to the creation of the Avenger, a car which was slighter larger than what the competition offered but happily sat within the same market space. Keeping things simple whilst filling the space, the company followed the same basic layout as the Minx but pumped for a new engine, new transmission parts and a new four-link location system for the rear suspension. Despite the troubled waters of the 1970s, the car did really well and in the first 18 months, the press were reporting that over 180,000 of the Avenger had been sold. This was especially important, because the financial future of Rootes was looking pretty dicey. Bearing in mind this wasn’t just a car aimed at Brits, a lot of success came from overseas sales and in 1970 the 34% export percentage had jumped to 56% - with the majority landing in the USA where the car was sold as the Plymouth Cricket. Success leads to expansion and you then get the car we’re testing today, the Avenger Estate. The saloon had been well priced at under £1,000 and was a leading budget choice in the 5 door market. Even though the Estate was a little pricier priced from £1,016, every review of the time describes it as a well priced estate. It’s worth noting that this particular car would’ve cost slightly more than that being a 74 car and being the top spec. Two versions were offer and you got the deluxe and super - we’re in the super today and it basically means you’re getting better equipment including brakes - but more on that later. At launch, both levels were fitted with the 1248cc engine with this 1600 engine coming in a couple of years later - although if you paid extra you could hop up on both levels to a 1498cc engine. Now you’ll be able to see the back seats up and down to show off the rear space - but how much space is there really I hear you cry. Well, with the rear seat fully occupied there is a platform measuring 4ft 2 inches wide (3 and a half feet between the wheel arches) and 3ft 6 from front to back. Loading height is 2ft exactly so you can just haul the big stuff straight in. If you’re off to pick up some hefty G Plan or a new hifi, you can fold the back seats down and the load floor becomes 5ft 4inches. You can push the front passenger seat down to give a whopping 6ft 7 inches of space should you need to transport something particularly enormous too. They also advertise this as a means of using it as a place to sleep, but on that front, it’s no match for the Maxi. Fuel economy on these varies wildly from load to driving style and you’ll get an MPG of anywhere from 24 to 34 miles per gallon, but high 20s is probably round the average for all adventures considered. It’s got a respectable 10 gallon tank on it though, so there’s no worries of needing to stop every five minutes to refill. Sadly all good things come to an end and the Hillman name was swallowed up and the car was rebadged as the Chrysler Avenger from the mid 70s, alongside a fairly full on new front end and dash. The car then moved onto be the Talbot Avenger at the tail end of the 70s, early 80s before being gently retired with no clear successor. Today, Chrysler retain the name Avenger and they’ve used it on the Dodge and they’ve also used as Jeep’s electric model sold into Australia.