My wife and I have recently been to New Zealand, for a second trip. The on road sightings will form some later posts, but these are too good to wait any longer, or to subsume into a general account.
First up, a 1950 Morris Minor MM series Tourer, imported built up from Cowley and therefore from the first year of Minor production, given the time duration of the supply chain to New Zealand.
Being an early car, it has the lights in the grille, and not on the familiar wing pods, as Paul Niedermeyer posted recently, and is probably the earliest Minor I have seen on the road (as opposed to in a show) for many years.
Power was from the 918cc Morris side valve engine, which dated back to the 1930s Morris 8, and giving 28 bp. Also evident are the blanking plates in the centre of the bumpers, to cover the fact that Alec Issigonis widened the car late in the development process, and Morris had to use the stock of shorter bumper blades.
Second up, and just 8 years newer the Minor as a design, the Citroen DS. The DS dates from 1956, but will still turn a head and has many features that were then futuristic, but often eventually adopted, like the aerodynamic design, the fluid based suspension and self levelling, and part composite construction.
This is a 1974 D Super, with the 2.1 litre four cylinder engine and four speed gearbox, the revised second generation nose with the covered steering linked headlights, and, of course, the hydropneumatic suspension, making sure that the tram lines (streetcar tracks) should be no issue.
And sitting quietly in the distance, a 1976 Honda Civic 1200 hatchback.
Like I said, great cars, and a great place too.
The Morris has been reregistered sometime recently 3 letter 3 number plates are quite recent, the DS and Honda wear original permanent plates, I see a gold colour DS quite regularly its somebodies daily car, then I met the owner when picking up a load of handpicked grapes from his vineyard, Theres a few early Civics still in use locally, yes we have interesting traffic.
My brain is confused by a 60+ year old design that still looks like it comes from the future.
The Citroën was so far out back then, that we still haven’t caught up with it.
New Zealand has some of the best car builders/restorers on the planet. Pretty remarkable for a relatively small country
As cool as both the Morris and the Citroen are, my heart throbs for that little Civic. My mother got these as loaner cars a few times around 1975-76 when her LeMans would go in for service, as Don Ayres Pontiac in Fort Wayne had taken on that little novelty called Honda. The dealership is still there – selling Hondas. Pontiac is nowhere to be found.
Anyway those Civics were a hoot any time we got one.
Do you recall, JPC, if the bumpers were a bit ripply, as this green one? I have never seen one where they were not. Scary Miss Cook had a Civic new in ’74 when I was in grade Prep (1st year here), but I didn’t dare go close enough to it to see.
Nope, the ones I saw were gleaming, undented new cars. Every one I remember seeing was bright yellow, though I am sure there were other colors offered.
We do indeed have a great country here, and abundant glorious relics of motoring past! Minors are still semi-common here, albeit the factory convertibles are rare, and ID/DS Citroens occasionally ooze past. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a pre-1990 Honda, let alone such an early Civic. Dad was a BL/Honda mechanic through the 70s and 80s, so as a youngster I was used to these Civics being around – I used to think the star on the Hondamatic gear selector was neat. Nice finds Roger!
Fantastic pictures — looks like you were pretty quick with your camera while on vacation.
All three of these are impressive in their own right, though the Civic was quite a shock to see. I think I’ve seen more Citroen DS’s and Morris Minors in the past decade than 1st generation Civics. I can’t ever remember seeing one in that Apple Green color, though — maybe my memory’s fading, or maybe the color was never available in the US, but it looks good on that car.
Looking forward to the road sightings from this trip too!
I lived in NZ for a while in the late 70s. High tariffs made cars expensive, so you’d see a lot of well-preserved old UK vehicles still on the road, at a time when such were all gone from Australia and the US was the land of vast barges. Probably due to sheer distance and isolation, there’s a great culture of mechanical tinkering and fixing stuff themselves.
First registration for the Morris was Jan 1 1950, morry Minors are still a common sight, cruising down the Hawkes Bay expressway this morning to my first delivery I saw a late 50s(big back window) Morry thou, it was just barreling along at 100kmh in traffic, of course being a Saturday it could have been a pampered weekend pet, but no they arent rare,
I got asked today if I wanted a one owner Citroen XM 2.5 diesel it has problems and the guy who asked just bought his dad who owns it an inferior Audi to replace it, I dont actually want it and I know of the car my English VW nutter mate lives next door to it. Those early lolite minors are not rare in sedan one was offered for sale on a FB page recently in solid rust free condition it was scrapped, nobody wanted it and another Minor sits atop a shipping container in a Christchurch scrap yard apparently for sale but no takers.
Nice Citroen…
If it’s a 4-speed manual, it should have the 1985cc (11CV) base engine. If it’s a DSuper 5, then it has the 2175cc of the old DS-21, but with a 5-speed box. Either way, swivel lights were only for the “proper” DS, not the ID/DSpecial/DSuper.
Really wowed by the Morris. Ugly little things, with that original grille, weren’t they? Something of that Minor in the Allegro, too…
I’m sure you’re spot on with your Citroen history and specs.
In my defence, my data came from NZ registration data quoted by http://www.carjam.co.nz which quotes the car as being a 1974 D Super 4 with 2148cc. Some NZ market only option, or a 45 year old error?
And both the Minor (though not this one) and Allegro had the 1100cc A series engine….
Ah, yes, the MM Morrie. The one with the split bumpers and widening panel in the bonnet, all as pointed out in Roger Carr’s superlative piece from 2014…which I did not re-read before making my excited comments about these things the other day. Apologies, Roger!
Someone is very brave to drive a 1,700lb sidevalve MM without a man with a red flag walking in front, at 28hp – when new.
I’ve never seen that green on the delightful Civic. In burgundy, it was my (very) 2nd hand first car.
A local guy has a 54 Minor convertible he bought it used in 55 last of the sidevalve motors he has twin SUs and headers on it and it goes better than you’d think.
there was one many years ago called the Morrari, an old Ferrari GP car rebodied with a MM 2 door sedan body not road legal though it was pure race car