The Morris Minor is an economy car produced by British marque Morris Motors between 1948 and 1971. It made its debut at the Earls Court Motor Show, London, in October 1948. Designed under the leadership of Alec Issigonis, more than 1.6 million were manufactured in three series: the Series MM (1948 to 1953), the Series II (1952 to 1956), and the 1000 series (1956 to 1971).
Initially available as a two-door saloon and tourer (convertible), the range was expanded to include a four-door saloon from September 1950. An estate car with a wooden frame (the Traveller) was produced from October 1953 and panel van and pick-up truck variants from May 1953.Paul Skilleter's book "The world's supreme small car Morris Minor" It was the first British car to sell over a million units, and is considered a classic example of automotive design,Nominate England's greatest icon, (from BBC news.com) Quote: "Design classics like Alex Issigonis' Morris Minor car could be competing alongside great artworks like Constable's Haywain and pieces by JMW Turner" as well as typifying "Englishness".The Morris Minor: A British miracle Strange to say for something that acquired a reputation for essential Englishness Telegraph.co.ukKathryn Hughes The Guardian, Saturday 6 December 2008 Article history quote: But if the Morris has a tendency to diminish physically as the years progress, culturally it has been busy laying down rich stores of fat. Indeed, so identified has the car become with a particular reading of Englishness
Although Morris launched a new model with a similar name and a similar market positioning, the Morris Mini in 1959, the Minor remained in production for more than a decade after that, and inearly 2020, its 23-year production run was counted as the twenty-eighth most long-lived single generation car in history by Autocar magazine, who called it: "... a primary way Britain got back on the road after the Second World War."Survivors: The world’s longest-living cars – AutoCar
Development
Origins The Minor was conceived in 1941. Although the Nuffield Organization was heavily involved in war work and a governmental ban existed on civilian car production, Morris Motors' vice chairman, Miles Thomas, wanted to prepare the ground for new products to be launched as soon as the war was over. Vic Oak, the company's chief engineer, had already brought to Thomas' attention a promising junior engineer, Alec Issigonis, who had been employed at Morris since 1935 and specialised in suspension design, but he had frequently impressed Oak with his advanced ideas about car design in general. Issigonis had come to Oak's particular attention with his work on the new Morris Ten, which was in development during 1936/7. This was the first Morris to use unitary construction and was conceived with independent front suspension. Issigonis designed a coil-sprung wishbone system, which was later dropped on cost grounds. Although the design was later used on the MG Y-type and many other postwar MGs, the Morris Ten entered production with a front beam axle. Despite his brief being to focus on the Ten's suspension, Issigonis had also drawn up a rack and pinion steering system for the car. Like his suspension design, this was not adopted, but resurfaced in the postwar years on the MG Y-type. These ideas showed that he was the perfect candidate to lead the design work on a new, advanced small car.
With virtually all resources required for the war effort, Thomas nonetheless approved the development of a new small family car that would replace the Morris Eight. Although Oak (and Morris's technical director, Sidney Smith) were in overall charge of the project, Issigonis was ultimately responsible for the design, working with only two other draughtsmen: (William) Jack Daniels.The Independent, 2 Dec 2004, Obituary. Jack Daniels. Draughtsman to Issigonis on the Mini The Guardian, 15 December 2004, Obituary. Jack Daniels, He realised the vision of Alec Issigonis for the Morris Minor and Mini Thomas named the project 'Mosquito' and ensured that it remained as secret as possible, both from the Ministry of Supply and from company founder William Morris (Lord Nuffield), who was still chairman of Morris Motors, and as widely expected, would not look favourably on Issigonis' radical ideas.
Issigonis' overall concept was to produce a practical, economical, and affordable car for the general public that would equal, or even surpass, the convenience and design quality of a more expensive car. In later years he summed up his approach to the Minor; that he wanted to design an economy car that "the average man would take pleasure in owning, rather than feeling of it as something he'd been sentenced to" and "people who drive small cars are the same size as those who drive large cars and they should not be expected to put up with claustrophobic interiors." Issigonis wanted the car to be as spacious as possible for its size, and comfortable to drive for inexperienced motorists. Just as he would with the Mini 10 years later, he designed the Mosquito with excellent roadholding and accurate, quick steering, not with any pretence of making a sports car, but to make it safe and easy to drive by everyone.
Original design features Issigonis' design included the same ideas he had proposed for the Ten before the war: independent suspension, rack and pinion steering, and unitary construction. In the case of the Mosquito, Issigonis was inspired by the Citroën Traction Avant, a car he greatly admired, and he proposed using torsion bars on each wheel, as on the Citroën, rather than the usual coil spring system. The French car, launched in 1934, had also been an early example of the use of rack and pinion steering.
Nearly every feature of the Minor served the joint aims of good handling and maximum interior space. For example, Issigonis specified wheels for the Mosquito, with 5.20-14 Dunlop Crossply tyres, (145R14 is the radial alternative). These were smaller than any other production car of the time (the existing Morris Eight had wheels). These small wheels reduced intrusion into the cabin space and minimised the car's unsprung mass, giving better ride comfort and stability. For the same reasons, the wheels themselves were placed as far as possible towards each corner of the Mosquito's floorpan. The same went for the placement of the engine, as far as possible towards the front of the engine compartment. Most cars of the time had a front beam axle, which forced the engine to be mounted behind the front axle line. While this meant that, with only a driver on board, the weight distribution was fairly even, when laden with passengers, cars often became severely tail-heavy, leading to unstable handling and oversteer. The new Morris's independent suspension meant there was no front axle, allowing the engine to be placed low down and far forward. Putting the Mosquito's engine in the nose meant that the car was nose-heavy when lightly laden, leading to superior directional stability, and when fully laden it achieved nearly equal weight balance, so handling and grip remained good regardless of the load carried. Placing the engine further forward also maximised cabin space.
As proposed by Issigonis, the engine itself was also radical, being a water-cooled flat-four unit. One of Miles Thomas's few restrictions on the Mosquito project was that it had to have an engine that would not fall afoul of the British horsepower tax, which taxed cars under a formula relating to their engine cylinder bore. At the same time, Thomas wanted the car to appeal to the all-important export markets, which had no such restrictions, and generally favoured larger-engined cars. Issigonis' solution was the flat-four engine, which could easily be produced in two versions – a narrow-bore 800-cc version for the British market and a wide-bore 1100-cc version for export. Both versions would use identical parts, except for the actual cylinder blocks (which could still be produced on the same machinery) and the pistons. The flat-four layout reduced the overall length of the engine, further increasing potential cabin space, and reduced the car's centre of gravity for improved handling.
Pre-production changes The engine was to prove a step too far for the Mosquito project. As the car approached completion in 1946, the war was over and secrecy was no longer necessary or possible to maintain, as more and more Morris staff and executives had to be involved to start production. Many were pessimistic about the radical car's prospects and especially the huge cost in tooling up for a design that shared no parts with any existing Morris product. Lord Nuffield himself took a strong dislike to both the Mosquito and Issigonis, famously saying that the prototype resembled a poached egg. Nuffield preferred to continue production of the conventional Morris Eight, which succeeded very well before the war, with some minor styling and engineering improvements. He particularly objected to the Mosquito's expensive and unconventional engine design. Whatever Nuffield's personal views, all of the Mosquito's radical features were looking increasingly unlikely to be implemented while maintaining an acceptable final purchase price and without incurring too much setup costs at the Cowley factory. Thomas and Vic Oak drew up a plan to create a three-model range of cars using Issigonis' design – the Mosquito with an 800-cc engine, a mid-sized model (tentatively designated the Minor after a previous small Morris launched in 1928) with an 1100-cc engine, and a new Morris Oxford with a 1500-cc version of the engine, all sharing different-sized variants of the same platform and with sporting MG and luxury Wolseley versions to achieve further economies of scale.
There was also the matter of timing – a big rush existed for British manufacturers to get new models to market following the end of the war. Austin was known to be working on an all-new but conventional car, the Austin A40 Devon, which would be launched in 1947. The Mosquito was proposed for launch in 1949 and that deadline was appearing increasingly unlikely due to the untried nature of many of the car's features. The Morris board insisted on launching the Mosquito at the first postwar British Motor Show in October 1948.
This meant that several of Issigonis' proposals were reviewed – first the all-independent torsion bar suspension was changed for a torsion-sprung live rear axle and this was then substituted by a conventional leaf-sprung arrangement. All of Miles Thomas' suggestions for spreading the cost of developing the new car and broadening the design's appeal were treated sceptically by the Morris board and vetoed by Lord Nuffield. It became clear that the only way to overcome the personal and financial obstacles to the project was to adopt a lightly revised version of the Morris Eight's obsolete side-valve engine. Thomas resigned his position at Morris Motors over the debacle. Despite the changes the fundamental principles of Issigonis' concept – a spacious cabin, small wheels at each corner, a forward-placed engine, rack and pinion steering, and independent torsion-bar front suspension – remained.