OF MORRIS MINOR

Over the next 12 pages, we celebrate a car which has woven itself into the tapestry of British life unlike any other. Why was it such a hit? Why did so many of us buy them over the years, and what’s its legacy today? Read on...

Alec Issigonis had strong ideas about car design, and among them was that a car should carry the maximum number of passengers and their luggage within the minimum possible space. His superiors at the Nuffield Organisation headquarters in Cowley encouraged him to develop his thinking about a small car during the Second World War, while he was supposed to be working on armoured cars and other war essentials. A first prototype was built in 1943 and was called the Morris Mosquito. The Mosquito had a unitary bodyshell, a shape inspired by the latest US designs, torsion-bar independent front suspension, and rack-andpinion steering. It also had a flat-four engine that concentrated weight low down in the nose. Morris boss Lord Nuffield took an instant dislike to it, saying that it looked like a ‘poached egg’. Fortunately, Issigonis and the Mosquito were supported by Nuffield’s vice-chairman, Miles Thomas. His successor Reggie Hanks maintained that support and the Mosquito progressed to production in 1948, though with the ancient side-valve engine that Morris already had in production and with some extra width inserted at the last minute. Following a Morris tradition, it was called the Minor. The Minor became a huge success at home and in the vital export markets of the late Forties and early Fifties. It changed in many ways over the years, but its profile was always recognisable and it was a familiar feature of the British landscape. The Minor finally went out of production in 1971. It had retained the affection of the British public for all of its long production life, and still does today.