THE POINT IS…
When the Rootes Group launched the ‘Arrow’ Hillman Hunter family in 1966, the car was right up to the minute – albeit in a somewhat conventional sense. Four years earlier, Ford had basically turned this market-sector upside down with the new Cortina. Rootes was the first of its rivals to produce a competitor: work started on it as soon as the Cortina was known and four years later it appeared – at the same motor show as Ford launched its ‘new’ Mk2 Cortina!
It didn’t take a degree in automotive engineering to see what this particular Arrow was targeting, either. Like the Cortina, it was a three-box saloon with Macpherson Strut front suspension, a live rear axle carried on leaf springs and a conventional engine-gearbox-rear axle mechanical layout. One interesting point is that the engines, though essentially reworked and much-improved versions of the existing Rootes 1.5/1.7 powerplant, were angled over 15 degrees from vertical, thus taking advantage of the wider engine bay that MacPherson struts allowed, in turn producing a lower and more swooping bonnet-line.
The cabin design was also light and airy with, as was the trend, greater areas of glass and through-flow ventilation.
There was also, though, traditional Rootesness aplenty. Like Ford, Rootes was a sales
