BOX OF TRICKS
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: THIS COOL MORRIS J-TYPE CRUISER
J-type van proving once and for all that good things come in small packages
IT’S a surprise this wasn’t a character in the movie Cars. The black-painted front wheelarches are the shoulders framing a teddy-bear face with its grille-shaped nose and those sparkling eyes posing as headlights. It was this happy personality that first attracted Gippsland couple Amanda and Johnno Goodge to the humble Morris J-type van. “I bought a big-block Corvette about 10 years ago,” begins Johnno, “and Amanda was hanging it on me: ‘Well, what am I going to have?’ I said: ‘You choose a car and tell me what it is and we’ll get it for you.’ One day we were having coffee in Melbourne somewhere and a Morris J-type van pulls up out the front. That was it. Sold! She wanted one of those!”
The search for a J-van began, but finding one wasn’t easy.
“I got this one in New Zealand in absolutely rat-shit condition,” reveals Johnno. “Let’s say it wasn’t one that you’d want to restore!”
On the plus side, all the rust and rot meant it was a great chopchop candidate. The basic plan: upgrade everything underneath with a big dollop of the Morris’s original cartoonish character plonked on top.
“I began working on it in the shed with my son, Rian,” says Johnno. “Peter Bateman [legendary Street Machine photographer and Morris J-type nutter] was involved early; he helped me get it from New Zealand.
“I began discussing all the things we could do with it to build and customise it. Peter suggested that a Mitsubishi Express chassis was close to the correct wheelbase and track to fit under the Morris body. We got it to the point where the body was a sloppy fit over the chassis.”
It’s around here that Ron Smith became involved. Ron has a career background in factory automation – he was one of the brains behind some of the CNC machines that made parts for our Aussie car industry. These days he remains involved in automotive manufacturing, but in a much more fun and hands-on way, under his Kustom Bitz banner in Croydon.
“When Johnno and Rian first stepped into the workshop six years ago and started talking about their little project, I thought: ‘Oh no!’ They sounded like restorers,” recalls Ron. “But Johnno had measured everything and it was a viable project. He did a lot of research. He had the right attitude. The project was a real collaboration.”
The ex-kiwi van’s shell was rotten up to about knee height, so Ron had plenty to do. As well as grafting the body over the Mitsi chassis and conspiring with Johnno for a complete driveline change (more on that soon), other aspects of the van needed to be clean-sheeted. The interior floors are all built to spec, including the seat rail and
I WENT TO A WRECKER’S YARD WITH A TAPE MEASURE. THE SHORTEST MOTOR I COULD FIND WAS A COMMODORE V6
I WENT TO A WRECKER’S YARD WITH A TAPE MEASURE. THE SHORTEST MOTOR I COULD FIND WAS A COMMODORE V6
belt anchorages. The Morris’s troublesome ball-jointed original rear door hinges have been replaced with simple hockey sticks swinging two new handmade doors, and the four fenders are handmade.
Johnno wanted some no-nonsense retrotech-type grunt for Amanda’s cruiser. The Morris’s front-mid engine layout – with the motor behind the front axle line under the front seats – was a challenge. Sure, we’ve all seen V8s shoved into lots of things – 1970s Bedfords and Ford Transits, 1980s/90s Mitsubishi Expresses and Toyota Hiaces – but the 1950s J-type van is smaller, almost like a three-quarter-scale model.
“I had to find something that was going to fit, so I went to a wrecker’s yard with a tape measure,” says Johnno. “The shortest motor I could find was a Commodore V6.”
The decision to run with Holden’s Ecotec 3.8-litre had an added bonus in that both the cast-alloy intake and sump could be chopped
and welded back together, which allowed Ron to slice 200mm from the motor’s overall height.
“Most of these old small-van conversions compromise on cabin space and you end up cuddling the engine,” says Ron. “But not in this one.”
Dimensions and space also dictated the gearbox choice. Logic told Johnno to simply use the Holden V6-spec auto, “but the bellhousing [the same depth as the motor’s original sump] was too low,” he says. Instead, an ex-ford C4 auto was fitted using Dellow hardware.
There were fewer space constraints under the back of the butterbox when fitting the ex-jaguar independent rear suspension. The classic Jag rear end is proper old-school coolness that dates back to the Chiko Roll-chompin’, blokes-with-ponytails-a-flappin’, custom vanning era of the 1970s.
This Mitsubishi front end is popular in hot rods, as 1960s Holden front crossmembers once were. That snippet of trivia becomes a jewel of knowledge when you learn that Hoppers Stoppers makes a bolt-on big brake kit using Ford-spec twin-pot calipers for Mitsubishi front ends.
THE JAGUAR INDEPENDENT REAR IS PROPER OLD-SCHOOL COOLNESS THAT DATES BACK TO THE CUSTOM VANNING ERA
“It should handle pretty good,” reckons Johnno. “And it’ll stop well and it’s not too heavy.”
How about that cheerful green paint? Since the van was built for Amanda, she, of course, chose the colour. And, like many of us, she took plenty of time to decide!
“It went on for months trying to choose the colour,” Johnno says with a laugh. “She’s an artist! We painted scale models in acrylic a few times to get the colour right.”
The colour is a commercial hue known as Minty Fresh, and after Ron had nailed the chassis swap and body tweaks, the van’s paint was entrusted to Pat & Steve’s Restorations in Tyabb.
Now, there are two small problems that mean the van won’t see too much street cruising just yet. At the time of writing, Victoria’s recent COVID lockdown means the gorgeous J-van hadn’t yet been delivered back to its owners. And: “Amanda has been looking at pictures of it,” says Johnno, “and she reckons it’s too nice to drive!”