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The Morris Minor, a cute little car, was manufactured from 1948 to 1971 by Morris Motors, a British company. According to Autocar magazine, it was “a primary way Britain got back on the road after the Second World War.”
During World War II, a U.K. government ban on civilian car production was in effect, but that didn’t mean the Brits couldn’t think about cars for after the war. The Morris Minor was conceived in 1941.
Morris had a promising junior engineer named Alec Issigonis whose assigned job involved suspension design, but he impressed his superiors with his ideas about general car design. They hatched a car project called Mosquito, and it was to be a complete secret with Issigonis and only two other draftsmen working with him.
One of the main concerns in building little cars is that they’re small on the inside as well as the outside. So what Issigonis and his team did was use smaller tires, which reduced their intrusion into the interior, and they moved the very small engine as far forward as possible for the same reason.
Another challenge was the British horsepower tax for economy based on an engine’s bore size. Of course, Morris was in business to make and sell cars everywhere, not just in the United Kingdom, so they came up with two engines, an 800-cubic-centimeter engine for Britain and an 1,100-cc engine for export. Both engines used identical parts except for the cylinder blocks, but both blocks could be produced with the same machinery.
Issigonis liked the styling of American cars, particularly the Packard Clipper and the Buick Super. But when he saw the prototype of the Mosquito, though, he was disappointed. He took that prototype, literally cut it in half lengthwise and made it 4 inches wider. Of course, that not only made the interior bigger but improved the styling as well.
What would this new car be called, though? Top management didn’t like the Mosquito name. With the approved bigger size, the Mosquito name seemed inappropriate, so the marketing department came up with the name Minor.
The new Morris Minor was introduced Oct. 27, 1948, at the British Motor Show at London’s Earls Court. During its 23-year run, two- and four-door Morris Minor sedans, convertibles, the Traveller (station wagon), vans and pickup trucks were made. In December 1960, the Morris Minor became the first U.K. car of which more than a million were sold.
Martinez resident Bobby Watawala has owned this issue’s featured car, a 1959 Morris Minor, for about 12 years. He and his wife, Marla, are natives of Sri Lanka who came to this country in 1989 for a better life. Before Sri Lanka was an independent country, it was a British colony called Ceylon. Morris Motors was a major employer with some manufacturing plants there, and the Morris Minor was very popular for retail and for taxis.
Watawala wasn’t looking for a collector car, but he saw this car while jogging near Diablo Valley College with a “for sale” sign and phone number on it. It touched a heart string, as his parents and other family members in Sri Lanka owned Morris vehicles. The sight of this car brought back memories of his birth home.
He and his wife wanted it and bought it for $3,500. Some engine and transmission work was needed; it had an oil leak; and it needed a lot of elbow grease just to clean it up. The car was in need of some new parts, and they were ordered from a plant in Sri Lanka.
The owner estimates he has invested another $3,500 in the car and says he plans on keeping it forever. Some unique features of this Morris Minor are that it has two glove boxes, one on each end of the dash board, and turn signals called semaphore-style trafficators, which are small electric arms that stick out on either side of the car behind the doors. The car is as wide as it is tall, 60 inches.
Watawala says he doesn’t want to make it a show car and won’t repaint it or polish it like many collectors do. He says he wants a car like he remembers from his childhood days in Sri Lanka.
Have an interesting vehicle? Email Dave at [email protected]. To read more of his columns or see more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.
