Morris and the Travellers

I would like to point out one thing in your recent The Way We Were, Wigan

1960 ( CCW, 6 December about the production of the Minor 1000 Traveller. It’s quoted in the piece that they were part made at the Cowley plant, then moved to Abingdon. Unfortunately, this is quite wrong.

On behalf of the several hundred people who worked on the Traveller at Morris Bodies, Quinton Road, Coventry, we produced the rear end of the Traveller. We had a wood mill on site, preparing the wood for the assembly line. They were also panelled and glazed before leaving Coventry, to be sent to Birmingham and completed on their chassis cab assembly line. At this stage, they could become either a Van, a Pickup or a Traveller.

During my 11 years at Morris Bodies, we also produced the bodies for the MGB and MGB GT. They were pressed at Pressed Steel Fisher in Swindon, then sent to Coventry where they had all of their external panels fitted. They were then painted and fully trimmed before being shipped to Abingdon to be finished off on their production line. When I left in 1970, production of the MGB was still going strong.

I do enjoy Classic Car Weekly, but feel that I must defend the honour of those people I worked with at Morris Bodies, which I’ve long felt is a much-ignored part of the history of these grand old motor cars. Michael Walker, by email