Much of the views about cars of that period are subjective because of the lack of quality control at BL which meant two cars the same but made at different times were different beasts. I had a much maligned Allegro and never knew what the fuss was about, zippy, good handling comfortable and I came from a mini cooper . A friend had an allegro made a year after mine and it was a complete dog.
After all the comments about the The ATP and cars it seems odd it wasn't christened the Marina , in fact it was known as the Skoda but of course peopel would not recognise that today since an aircraft called Skoda today would probably have sold about 3000 models