Not meaning to sound louche, but who can resist a well-groomed Minor? Of the Morris variety, of course, lest anyone reading this harbour any doubt. I came upon this one, almost literally, as I strolled near the Imperial Palace, on a superb late September afternoon last year. Shapely yet diminutive – a potent combination for this petite anglaise that is the most popular classic of all in its home country and has quite a following abroad. All the way to Japan, apparently.
The history of the Morris Minor, devised and ambitiously engineered by the famous Alec Issigonis in the mid-‘40s and built down to a reasonable spec by the Nuffield group, has been gone into quite enough by the likes of Roger “Our Man In GB” Carr and many others (full reading list at the end of this post, as per usual.)
So without reinventing the wheel, just a couple of dates: Morris Minors was made from 1948 to 1971 and went through many changes. Early cars featured a very peculiar nose treatment that was (fortunately) gradually abandoned on all versions by early 1951. The Minor was initially launched as a two-door saloon and convertible (sorry: “tourer”!); van, pickup, woodie estate and four-door variants were soon added to the catalog.
There was literally a Minor for every use. No wonder this became the first British car to reach the one-million mark, which it did in 1960. This year was pretty much the model’s mid-life, or “peak Minor,” if you will.
The Minor 1000 was launched in 1956 and featured a number of innovations. Two important ones were the one-piece windshield and fitting a larger (but still only 948cc) 37hp A-series engine mated to a new gearbox in the evermore popular Morris, bringing the 0-60mph time down to 31 seconds. Our feature car is a Minor 1000 that I’m guesstimating could be a 1959 saloon.
In 1961, they took away the semaphores (they took their sweet time about these things) and the engine grew to a whopping 1.1 litres by 1962. The gradual BMC-ization of the Morris Minor was taking place, with more and more components being sourced from the conglomerate’s extensive parts bin.
Yet the Morris kept on keeping on through the ‘60s, despite the upstart Mini giving the RWD mid-‘40s streamliner a bit of a generational challenge. The Minor held on until 1969, when body variants started to disappear one after the other. The saloons lasted until 1970, but the van and estate made it to 1971 before bowing out to the inevitable, as well as abominable, Marina.
Folks of my generation who were brought up in the UK usually have fond memories of Morris Minors, as they remained quite ubiquitous even in the ‘80s, when we were impressionable children. I have heard people – and I mean normal, non-petrolhead people – wax lyrical about their grandparents’ Traveller, the postman’s van or their neighbour’s Moggie tourer.
I was not raised in Britain, but spent most of my younger years on the other side of the Channel, so I never developed the Proustian feelings some of my British friends have with these cars. But I can understand. The first old car that marked my psyche, back when I was about 7 or 8, was the Peugeot 203. And this four-door Minor is a decent 203 substitute, as the two cars are not dissimilar. The Morris is smaller and I’m more partial to the Peugeot’s fastback rear end, but they both debuted in the same year and certainly look like it (unlike, say, the Citroën 2CV).
Having spent a few years in Britain in the late ‘90s myself, I got to know the importance of the Morris Minor and appreciate how much they are loved by virtually everyone. They are like the Beetle in that sense – young and old, male and female, gearheads and pedestrians, everyone smiles when a Minor passes by. That’s a rare gift.
I haven’t been to the UK in years. I have family there, so it’s very likely that I’ll go back at some point. I just hope that some of the Britain I knew and loved remains, the last ten years (and especially the last two or three) notwithstanding. Are people still generally tolerant, witty and good-humoured? Is the brew still strong and hot, the cows mad, the Stones rolling and the dick spotted? And are there still a few Minors puttering about?
Well, as long as I can find the odd British CC, drink an occasional G&T and watch the original Italian Job or Withnail and I whenever I get the urge, I can wait. A little Blighty goes a long way, as this Minor shows.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1955 Morris Minor Series II – Britain’s Favourite Car, Bar None, And Rightly So., by Roger Carr
Cohort Classic: 1956-1969 Morris Minor 1000 – Has There Ever Been an Automatic?, by Geraldo Solis
CC Capsule: Morris Minor 1000 – Let’s All Play “What The Hell Is This Car Doing Here?”, by Jim Grey
CC Capsule: Monday Morning Rarities – 1958 Morris Minor 1000 Convertible, by JohnH875
Auction Capsule: 1967 Morris Minor 1100 – With 190 Miles And One (Very) Careful Owner, by Roger Carr
Automotive History Tidbit: The Morris Minor Got New Fenders and High Headlights Because of the US, by PN
Curbside Outtake: 1960 Morris Minor and 1966 Wolseley 16/60 – BMC’s Conservative Options, by Roger Carr
Cohort Classic: Morris Minor Ute – Even Cuter Yet!, by PN
Road Trip Outtakes #2: A Gaggle of Morris Minors – No, They’re Not VWs, by PN
Road Trip Outtake: The Cars Of Daylesford, Victoria, Part 2 – Morris Minor, by William Stopford
Dash-Cam Outtake: Morris Minor – Easy Does It, by Yohai71
Being an old Brit, still living in London, I’d answer yes to most of your queries.. not sure about the Stones though and far easier to get coffee than decent tea these days. Owned a few Moggies over the years, first being a split windscreen I had in the late ’60s, all having had many owners before me , most having been round the clock at least once and if regularly maintained went on to do many more. I’ve seen a couple of hot rodded ones as well, but not as many as the Ford Popular, the Moggie was always really looked on as a family car.
Still some in North Wales locally, including a slightly scruffy mid-1960s blue one for sale at £1600. My Uncle used to have a splitscreen s.II convertible when I was very young, but I don’t remember much about it other than it was a slightly pinkish grey colour with a red coachline.
Tea is best made at home, using leaves in a pot!
Just about the only classic still regularly used as daily drivers in the south of England – MGs tend to get put away for the winter, and Minis a bit small for everyday use. Everything else is in the hands of enthusiasts, or has rotted to dust. If I’m out and about on the road, it’s a rare day when I don’t see a Minor. Our local plumber runs a small fleet of red Minor vans.
Plenty of them about here even the earlier sidevalve models arent particularly rare, a 59 Minor is what I passed my driving test in when I was 15 a very long time ago.
As a young kid these were ubiquitous in my British car books, and not uncommon on the road in California. The wife of a colleague of my Dad had a white Tourer with red seats well into the ‘70’s. I still see one or two a year here though I suspect they may be heading to or from a car show or meetup. Even more than the Mini, the Beetle or the 911, I think the Minor had a unique blend of attributes in the second half of its long life: old styling but some more modern tech like unibody, rack and pinion steering and (later) disk brakes.
Even my mother in the upper midwestern US knew what a Morris Minor was. I will always wonder if my parents would have found one more satisfying than the 1958-59 Anglia they actually bought.
Mum and Dad had a Traveller when they lived in Germany, Mum a Tourer back in the UK. We could see the road through the holes in the floor. As a 9 year old I was taught how to open the bonnet and hit the SU electric petrol pump with the starting handle if the car died at the traffic lights.
My first car was a Trafalgar blue 2 door, more rust than metal but written off by an accident.
What no one has so far mentioned is the distinctive Minor fart from the tiny exhaust. Yes they even sound cute!
And a distinctive whine in first. Very common in Ireland too
That, Hummel, is because it doesn’t fart on exhausting, not as such.
On accelerating – if that can be said to be true – they sound like a fat man trying to blow a tiny, weeny, moany off-key trumpet. When he takes a breath – when the driver lifts to change gear – there is weak, fart-noise like an emphysmematic geriatric breathing in, more dire than cute to these ears.
More “Aww, Jaysus!”, than “Aww, cute!”.
The Minor is going to have a future… as an EV. Perfect vehicle to be engineered for city use.
My Dad had a 1959 or 60 Tourer for a family of 5 (though some of us were quite small then), in what what looks likely to be the same colour as this car, and it was always the most fondly remembered car in the family archive, even if some could not remember it. To this day, my Mum’s id photo on my phone is a pale blue Moggie tourer. As you say, practically every family will have a Morris in their history somewhere.
Yes, every Minor driver will always get a wave for just about everyone and all car shows have to have one – I think it’s a legal requirement; it is Britain’s most recognisable car aside from the original Mini or the Rolls-Royce (all lumped together as one). Up there with the red double decker, black cabs and David Attenborough.
What is sometimes missed is that over 20% of the production was in van form, and probably a reason production lasted as long as it did. After all, Issigonis answered the same question he had answered in 1948 with the Minor in 1962 with the Morris 1100 ADO16.
Is Britain the same as it was the 1990s? Maybe maybe not, and we have exposed some rough edges for no national gain, but you’ll always be welcome Professor!
Excellent response Roger on Britain’s position in the world. Spoken as an Irish friend and neighbour. I feel your track in recent years is sad. Very well put to call them rough edges.
A lovely well preserved car in a delightful setting .
I have a 1960 two door I wish I could find a competent and honest Mechanic to re assemble for me .
-Nate
The Minor is a remarkably common sight here in Sri Lanka, and I’m pretty sure it was the most common car around at one point. Up until about the late 80s, Taxis were almost all Minors and they were the family car many as well. Driving schools used them well into the late 90s and everyone above a certain age remembers learning to drive in one (sadly by the time I got my license in 2006 they had mostly been retired).
The ubiquity means that they are still the most common old car, but numbers have dwindled a bit thanks to rust, neglect and donating their identities to dodgy Minis (that’s a whole other story!)
Parts are still fairly easy to find, and a few older mechanics still know them inside out. We even have a company that makes complete body panels and exports them to the UK. They still make for a decent starter classic and over the last couple of years a few have emerged with very high standard restorations.
A Bryce noted, these are still very common here in New Zealand, and some still in daily use. We had a couple staying in our lodge this week who have a Minor each – a ’55 and a ’67. Earlier in the year we also hosted a friend’s wedding, and the bridal car was their Morrie thou’, which they drive at least fortnightly. With baby blue exterior, white interior, lots of shiny chrome and white sidewalls, it really was a cute little bridal car! My childhood memories of my father’s ’71 Minor van were that it was extraordinarily slow, so that 0-60mph of 31 seconds sounds about right – that must be one of the slowest times of a mainstream car still sold in the late 60s…!
I can’t feel the love for these, and it’s not just my usual bolshie republican prejudice. I just really don’t much like them.
The place was awash with them when I was young, and I always wished the tide would recede (it has, but still rises in each old-car event). They belonged to grans and aunts, and later, at $200 each, to the motoring desperate. They were silly-slow, a bit pongy (out, but also in), they died easily, they were the best handler of ’48 in ’78 (and ’88), they sounded grievously unwell even when not, and they looked too much like a bowler hat with raised eyebrows.
The woody wagon is decent, and the convertible became the star of (arguably) the best comedy this country made, about a mum with early dementia – this IS Australia, remember – called Mother and Son, from ’83 to about ’90. (They tried selling it to the US, btw, whose potential buyers just sat aghast and said with US manners, “Err, not for us”. Personally, I thought and think it quite brilliant, but I get the cultural difference in thinking that). In fact, so popular was the show that the drop-top Moggie sat in the foyer of the national broadcaster for years after.
But they’re no star in any guise for me, just little and British. Nice photos, though, Prof.