Last rites for the Reliant Robin

By ALASTAIR SLOANE and THOMAS SUTCLIFFE

For most people it's the highest mileage joke on the roads - a particularly British confection of glass fibre, engine fumes and lateral instability that has given pleasure to millions.

For its considerably fewer drivers, on the other hand, the Reliant Robin is individualism on three wheels, and for them this is a sad time because in the next week or so - the production method makes it difficult to say precisely when - the last Robin will roll out of the Staffordshire factory and a long and bumpy ride will finally be over.

It was only two years ago that Reliant Motors said it had fought its way back from the brink of collapse and was heading for a record year.

In December 1998 it had a 12-week waiting-list for the cars, which had become a trendy city vehicle in Europe. Sales to the Netherlands, where more than 3000 were registered, were up and the Austrians were also queueing for them.

"They have become very trendy," says Vienna importer Jurgen Felber. "The young think they are funny to drive, particularly around Vienna.

"They are ideal for the old city streets. They are highly manoeuvrable and can turn in little more than their own length.

"We have a strong Green movement and the Reliants are popular because they use very little petrol and don't rust or cause much pollution."

But it was only a matter of time before the car was killed off. For 65 years Reliant's three-wheelers offered a rolling definition of the triumph of hope over experience.

No other vehicle could have summed up Del Boy's irrepressible optimism - in the teeth of repeated defeats - as well as did his battered Reliant van.

And in no other country, perhaps, could this unlikely journey have lasted so long. Only a nation that numbers the Charge of the Light Brigade and Dunkirk among its finest hours could cherish a vehicle so perverse.

"You know you're a Reliant addict when you have a towbar on your roll-away toolbox," reads an entry on the Reliant Owners Club website, a feature that cheerfully emphasises mechanical unreliability and intense driver discomfort as the marque's principal charms.

If Reliant hopes to leave such associations behind by stopping production of three-wheelers, it is nevertheless aware that its image won't be transformed overnight.

Asked how the car's faithful fans responded to the announcement last September that production would stop, company spokesman Noel Palmer says: "They weren't happy. There were lots of e-mails and faxes flying about."

They were also determined not to miss out on the company's commemoration of the car - a special edition Robin with alloy wheels, leather upholstery, walnut dashboard and metallic gold paint.

"In three days following the announcement we took 97 orders," Palmer says, although he points out that many will be disappointed.

The final car produced will be offered as a competition prize by the Sun newspaper - a tribute to the Robin's years of dedicated service as a tabloid gag.

The company will continue to produce spares for the 44,000 cars on the road.

"I think it's a shame," engineering student Daniel Lockton says. "They say it's had its day and the price is too high, but they have very little capital invested in it."

Lockton is writing a comprehensive history of the company from its foundation to its heyday in the late 60s, when it produced 20,000 cars a year and was the biggest independent motor manufacturer in Britain. Even Princess Anne learned to drive in a Reliant Robin.

Lockton, who plans to call his book Rebel Without Applause, doesn't understand why build-to-order production can't continue. "Bristol do it, Rolls-Royce do it, Morgan do it."

A gentle reminder that a Robin is not a Morgan, let alone a Rolls-Royce, causes little offence.

Robin enthusiasts have had years in which to develop their resilience.

"Not too many Robin owners are overly protective," Lockton says. "They feel they're standing up for an underdog."

He lists the virtues of this vehicular mongrel, from its meagre fuel consumption to a power-to-weight ratio better than most family cars - but then admits that it "may be dangerous." In an age of side-impact bars and airbags, such insouciance about personal risk has a certain dash to it.

One car magazine says of a late Robin model that "without a passenger, the weight on the right can cause the left wheel to lift off the ground, which is disconcerting."

For most drivers "disconcerting" wouldn't quite do justice to the tendency of the Robin to cock its leg when cornering, like a dog at a lamp-post, but Robin owners are made of sterner stuff.

Stern enough to treat the end of production as little more than a small pothole in the road. "I've got a feeling that something might resurface," Lockton says. "People pay a lot of money for design classics."