After we crossed the 7:30 PM ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend on Puget Sound, we headed south looking for a place to camp. It was getting pretty dark, but I had to stop and pull in when I saw this. It looks something like a used car lot, but the cars are all Morris Minors, but the sign suggests another popular small car from the times.
It’s a very fine collection, as almost all the body styles are represented except for the four door sedan (update: and the wood-framed wagon Traveler). There’s a mixture of Series IIs (1952-1956) and Minor 1000s (1956-1967, in the US). The Series II cars have the mesh-type grille, and the 1000s have the horizontal bar grille.
Here’s a convertible, van and two door sedan. All appear to be LHD, and thus original imports. The Minor was a quite popular import in the 50s (some day I’d like to have detailed import sales from the 50s available), but soon became overshadowed by the VW after 1955-1956 or so. But it continued to find buyers who had become fond of the little Minor.
On the other side is a pickup and two more sedans. Roger Carr has written up the Minor’s big story here. He called it “Britain’s Favourite Car”. It certainly was popular and an evergreen, thanks to sprightly handling and good performance once the BMC A-series ohv engine was fitted in 1952.
We hit the road and found a lovely little county park on the edge of a lake where we stopped for our last night. I would have gladly taken that pickup or van home with me.
What an unexpected little collection! There was a Minor parked at a mechanic’s garage near me a year or two ago. I had meant to get pictures but never did. It was in way worse shape than these anyhow.
The Minor’s styling is virtually perfect. It is fully British and also timeless, in an old-fashioned sort of way. Its looks have aged so much better than most other ordinary English cars of its era.
Issigonis looked very hard at American cars, especially Buick, when he went to actually design the styling of the Minor. The early low-headlight version makes that even more obvious.
Wow, neat! That surely is a gaggle, all right, since it’s at least three of them. You could even say you have two gaggles there.
I think the panel van is my favorite here, but they all look interesting, even more so as part of this flock. I wonder what the owner’s objective with them is.
The collection is missing the best one – Traveler.
True that.
Back in the 60s our local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer’s wife had a yellow Minor convertible. I lived In a small town, and even though the Buick-Oldsmobile dealer sold Vauxhall and then Opel cars the number of foreign cars in my small town could be counted on one hand. So I always wondered what kind of grief that Chrysler dealer suffered due to his wife not owning/driving a Chrysler or even American built car.
It sure looked cute though.
Some of the later s.II cars had the bar grille, but all ‘1000’s have one-piece front screens. My Uncle had a s.II convertible when I was young in a slightly pinkish grey colour, here seen in distinctly unsuitable weather.
Ooops, picture here.
The convertible is interesting. I don’t have the knowledge to i/d it fully, but the combination of the rather lumpy roof and fine grille but with fixed side back windows instead of sidescreens means it could possibly be either a series 2 or a late MM, still with the powerhouse Morrie sidevalve and drivetrain. Confusingly, the first lowlight models are called MM’s but so are the first few years of the Highlight: worse still, the convertibles continued with pure Morrie SV drivetrain until mid-’53, when the Series 2 sedans had got the Austin driveline in ’52. Anyway, the point here is it is an early car, and possibly quite a rarity.
Alternatively, with the funny roof and dropped door, it could just as easily be a conversion, as it’s reckoned these are more common than the originals.
In any event, it seems without rust, and most likeable, though if actually sidevalve, not really driveable today because of its 1930’s level of go.
Btw, the correct term for a collection of Morris’ Minor is derived from the drunken trumpeter exhaust notes of them collectively, therefore a flatus of Morrie Minors.
Bought a Minor 1000 sedan for my mother, brand new in 1961. She never cottoned to it.
So, in 1967 I drove it from New York to Eugene for eventual resale.
Burned a valve in WV, but it kept soldiering on for the duration on just 3 cylinders.
The electric fuel pump had the nasty habit of refusing to operate periodically.
If you waited an hour, it would work again.
The electric pumps have a set of contact points that need to be cleaned and adjusted periodically, just simple maintenance.
All very well Bryce, but this was 1967, in America, and pre-internet. In other words, it’s “just simple maintenance ” if you have the info. I admire Norm’s sheer grit in driving a 3-cyl Morrie that far. The things were underpowered on four!
And the cleaning-the-points thing wasn’t always convenient, and even into my time, people with Minors often had a lump of wood in the boot with which to reach in and whack the silly pump when it stopped. That worked too, you know!
Peter Egan quote from a story about a road trip in a 289 Cobra:
“We had spark, but no gas to the carburetor. We emptied out the trunk and checked the fuel pump. It looked like an American-made pump, but I smacked it with a wrench anyway, just in case it was English. Nothing.”
In my 55 Morris Isis I used to pull onto the rough shoulder at speed when the pump stopped working the shaking would kick it into life again but that had a rear mounted high pressure delivery pump rather than the Minor high vacuum low pressure delivery pump, if that didnt work a thwack from the jack handle would get it going.
A used pump from a Jaguar solved the problem in the end it turned out to be the same SU model
Funny, but the only Minor I ever got to drive was a three-cylinder one. At least it was a Minor 1000 – both the SV and the early OHV models would have been pretty gutless.
I remember a teacher at school , one day in the 1950s, explaining to the class that the Minor 1000 got its’ name because it was 1000cc, and I thought he was pretty stupid because I knew it was only 948….
“(some day I’d like to have detailed import sales from the 50s available)”
I agree, and it seems like we’re fast approaching a cliff where this data just falls off into the abyss.
Importers from the fifties tracked each others sales and knew the individual model sales, but most have left the market or disappeared completely. Detroit may have tracked import sales as an overall total, but even if they tracked individual marques, I’m sure the data is either gone or buried deep in an archival warehouse.
Another issue is the internet- Very little data gathered before electronic records ends up here, and no one has much interest in converting paper records over to a usable format. Add to that all the enthusiast sites posting the stories they share among themselves as data. All very understandable, but with every passing year the recent electronic stuff piles up higher and adds to the “noise.”
Finally, the human resources are quickly aging out as well. When wading through the data, I’m sure there will be conflicting numbers. There are probably simple explanations for most of these conflicts, but we don’t have the people who lived through that time and can provide context.
Love them all, especially the truck and panel van. Great find, Paul!
Around 1968, when I was a lad, my Dad picked up a 1959 (or 1960?) convertible from a colleague for $100. He installed a set of dual SU’s, no doubt in an attempt to squeeze out a couple of extra ponies from that 998cc mill. Even as a kid, I thought it looked doofy with the top down and those window frames sticking up.
After a short ownership, Dad sold it to another colleague…once again for $100 if memory serves. The guy eventually punted it, but it ended up back in his family a few years hence when his sons and I were in High School together. They sprayed a bright, metallic blue over the faded, light blue. I doubt the sportier color did much for the little Minor’s performance, though.
Dad’s replacement for the Minor was a brand-spankin’-new ’69 Fiat 124 Spyder. While notably better in the power, looks and handling departments, I’m not sure it was any improvement over the Minor in regard to reliability.
That brings back memories of our trip to Whidbey Is a year ago. A saw the Minor collection and wondered about it. Didn’t stop, Ft Casey beckoned.