Passion for British motors leads to Morris Minor Traveler
Cork Marcheschi was born in Burlingame and now lives in Pacifica. He has been a sculptor for more than 50 years, winning the National Endowment for the Arts award for sculpture and the Berlin Art Prize. He was a musician in the 1960s, playing with his band Fifty Foot Hose, and releasing an album for Mercury Records. Cork has taught classes at UC Berkeley, the San Francisco Art Institute, Minneapolis College of Art and has lectured around the world.
The Morris Minor Traveler is the Monty Python of Great Britain’s practical classic cars.
The Morris Motor Company filled post-war England with cheap, dependable little cars, perfect for working families. Debuting in London in 1948, this miniature station wagon with its structural wood back half became so popular it was the first British car to sell over one million units.
I first noticed these cars while I was in high school. I was already under the spell of the golden age of British motorcycles.
All of my motorcycles were Nortons. You learn a lot about a culture via their engineering, and I loved the bits-and-pieces approach used on these bikes. If you owned a Norton, you definitely had to learn how to wrench.
But like a high school sweetheart that repeatedly breaks your heart, you keep finding yourself going back for more. My early motorcycle habit turned out to be an excellent education for my British motors fetish, and my dream car became a Morris Minor Traveler.
After a back injury put an end to my motorcycle days, I turned my attention to locating a Morris Minor Traveler. Over the ensuing years, I have ended up owning four Travelers. With each one of the first three cars, I learned what it was that they lacked and what I wanted to change in order to make it my Traveler.
For one thing, there was never enough power. I lived on Potrero Hill and could only make it over De Haro Street in first gear. Also the seats were too low for my spine, the brakes were not up to modern driving and there was no synchro in first gear.
Two years ago, I had the opportunity to have a Traveler restored from the ground up. In this, my final Traveler, I have corrected the accumulation of ills that had plagued my previous cars.
My current Traveler has a Morris Marina 1275 engine. In order to give that motor the type of lower RPM power I like to drive, the car was fitted with a Moss supercharger, doubling the horsepower and torque. The front brakes are discs with a Servo booster.
The seats are Newton recliners and the ignition is electronic. The headlights are bright white instead of candle gold. It has a hydraulic clutch, and a 5-speed Ford Sierra transmission with a 3.9 rear end, which allows you to keep your RPMs down and cruise comfortably.
All of these changes have delivered a car that is a joy to drive. I now live in Pacifica, and when I head north, there is a good-sized hill that I previously had to take in second gear. Now I take that hill in fourth gear, and have even passed a few Porsches on the way up!
For my wife and I, the Traveler highlight of the year happens in late June when we participate in Woodies On The Wharf in Santa Cruz. This is one of America’s best Woody auto shows. It takes place on the municipal wharf, just north of the Boardwalk.
There are several hundred wood-adorned vintage cars on view, floating over bay waters. It is a beautiful site and a wonderful excuse for a weekend in Santa Cruz. One of the best parts of driving this car is seeing all the smiles it generates wherever we go.