Hillman Avenger

The Hillman Avenger is a five-passenger, front-engine, rear-drive B-segment/subcompact car, originally engineered and manufactured by the Rootes Group in the UK and marketed globally from 1970–1978 in two- or four-door sedan and five-door wagon body styles.

As a completely new design, the Avenger was a conventional, straightforward and economical design – the sedan distinguished by its four-doors, chair-height seating, four-link coil rear suspension and unique, J-shaped or "hockey stick" taillights.

The project was conceived in 1963; Design Director Roy Axe received his styling brief in 1965; and engineering began in 1966. The Avenger became one of the first automobiles to use computer-aided design (CAD) in the engineering of its unibody, and it was one of the first cars to address growing safety requirements, featuring a rigid passenger compartment with a front crumple zone, strengthened windshield glass, and heavily padded instrument panel.

After its press introduction in Malta in early 1970, manufacture took place at the Rootes plant in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, England, near Coventry which had been renovated at a cost of £8M (£154M 2025) — with bodies and body panels shipped by train from Linwood, Scotland and powertrains shipped from Stoke. Manufacture moved completely to Linwood in 1976.

Rootes marketed the Avenger for model years 1970–1975 soley under its Hillman brand, as the Hillman Avenger. After Rootes became a division of Chrysler Europe, the car was marketed for model years 1976–1978 as the Chrysler Avenger. After the sale of Chrysler Europe to PSA Peugeot Citroën it was marketed for model years 1979–1981 as the Talbot Avenger.

The Avenger would ultimately spawn a host of global badge engineered variants, including prominently a North American variant marketed for model years 1971–1973, the Plymouth Cricket; by Chrysler Brazil for 1971–1980 as the Dodge 1800 (notably in a two-door body style) and later as the Dodge Polara — by Volkswagen Argentina as the VW 1800.

Despite its conventional underpinnings, the Avenger was successful in motorsport, winning the 1971 Press-on-Regardless Rally (in Plymouth Cricket badging); winning the British Group 1 Rally Championship in 1975 and 1976 in Northern Ireland, winning the British Saloon Car Championship numerous times, and winning the 1976 Heatway Rally of New Zealand.

At its introduction, the Avenger's success was considered crucial to Rootes, and by 1981, final UK production had reached 790,000. While the Avenger was one of the most popular British cars of the 1970s, by 2016 reportedly fewer than 260 remained in use in Britain.