Basil Fawlty gave his a "damn good thrashing." And Telford teacher Ian Newton must have felt like doing the same to his own Austin 1100 estate.

It developed so many faults that he turned it into a mobile protest wagon, with signs in the windows laying out all his complaints about his British-built motor.

What was the worst British car ever made? To be fair to the Austin 1100, it was a best-seller in the 1960s and 1970s and, despite poor Mr Newton's experience, doesn't appear in "most rubbish British car" lists.

He bought his BLMC 1100 estate new in 1967, and the problems quickly piled up. After a couple of years, his patience had run out.

"Want to feel like a wealthy man?" read one of his stickers. "Then try owning one of these. You have got to be fairly wealthy to keep up with it."

In the windscreen was a list of what had gone wrong since he had bought the car. He had spent about £70 - a tidy sum in 1969 - on a succession of small, nagging faults.

"I believe my car is average. It's about time everbody did something like this," he said.

Mr Newton, who lived on Sutton Hill and taught at the estate's Alexander Fleming Junior School, aimed to make his fight against poor car construction a national issue. He called his car a "one-man motor show on wheels" and it grabbed attention wherever he went, with people coming up to him to tell him of the problems they were having with their own cars.

Ironically, he was a shareholder with British Leyland, who made the car, which were badged either as the Austin 1100 or Morris 1100 (we're taking a punt that Mr Newton's was an Austin - the cars were basically the same).

Mr Newton and his wife Margaret, who later became councillors on the old Dawley Urban District Council, moved to Manchester in 1974.

When it comes to lists of British-built motoring stinkers, the Austin Allegro, early models of which famously had a squarish steering wheel, regularly comes out at the top. Also often getting an unfavourable mention in dispatches is the Morris Marina - I drove a Morris Marina van once and the gearstick came off in my hand - and the Austin Maestro although my late dad, after a lifetime of trashing British cars, got a Maestro and liked it so much that he had three on the trot. 

My own least favourite was an early diesel Ford Escort, which would die a death at any junction unless you kept the revs up.

For fans of the legendary BBC comedy Fawlty Towers, the Austin 1100 is an affectionate memory thanks to an iconic scene when it infuriates Basil Fawlty by refusing to start, so he runs off and returns with a tree branch.

He screams: “You’ve tried it once too often! Well,  this it it! I’m going to give you a damn good thrashing!” Which he then does.

The offending motor is invariably described as an Austin 1100 Countryman, but when the car went to auction around 15 years ago it was described as an Austin 1300 estate, the difference being under the bonnet in the latter's bigger engine.