BL R-series engine BL R-series engine The R series is a line of petrol engines introduced by British Leyland in 1983 for the then-new Austin Maestro. It was only produced in one capacity—1.6 litres. The engine was essentially a lightly modified version of the E-series unit found in the Maxi and Allegro. The main differences over the older engine are to the sump and gearbox mounting flange, which were adapted to accept a traditional "end-on" transmission unit which had been bought from Volkswagen in place of the traditional BMC transmission-in-sump arrangement. The R series was mainly a stop gap, and had a very
Electronic voice alert Electronic voice alert Electronic voice alert (EVA) was an option available on many Chrysler K-car-based vehicles in the mid-1980s. Using technology from Texas Instruments similar to what was used in the Speak & Spell, the EVA would automatically lower the radio volume and deliver eleven different spoken warning messages (24 on certain models) to drivers using a speech synthesizer. Generally paired with a digital instrument cluster and considered the height of technology at the time, many drivers grew weary of the system constantly admonishing them to fasten their seatbelts and turned it off via removing a fuse. Later models had