Morris

More Morris Minors were sold in New Zealand, per head of population, than in any other country on earth. That is MOTAT’s figure, against more than 70,000 cars sold here. It is the reason this is the deepest part of our stock and the reason we know the breakpoints on it better than we know them on anything else.

The plants, because the confusion costs people time. Morris cars were assembled by Dominion Motors at Mortimer Pass, Newmarket, Auckland, and Morris light commercials at Dominion Motors’ second plant at Panmure, Auckland. Austin was the other organisation entirely — Associated Motor Industries on McKenzie Street, Petone, for the Austin Distributors Federation. Todd Motors and General Motors were also at Petone, on different streets, building neither. Ford was at Seaview and Triumph at Stoke, Nelson. Nothing in the Morris story happens in the Hutt Valley or in Nelson. Morris and Austin pooled as the New Zealand Motor Corporation in October 1970; Newmarket closed in 1978, Panmure in 1987.

Two New Zealand facts worth having at the counter. Only 385 CKD Morris Minor kits ever came to New Zealand, all four-door saloons, the last leaving Cowley in November 1962 — so from the mid-1950s, if you wanted a two-door, a convertible or a Traveller here, it had to be imported fully built. And the very last Morris Minors assembled anywhere in the world were vans and pick-ups at Panmure, in late 1973, years after Cowley had finished. About 42,357 1100s and 1300s were assembled here as well.

On the badge-engineered cars, body rubber follows the shell, not the badge. One front windscreen seal — ARA1392, sold here as ES35 — fits the Austin, Morris, MG, Wolseley, Riley and Vanden Plas 1100/1300, all six badges, twelve years, Mk1 and Mk2. On the Farina saloons one door aperture seal covers the Austin Cambridge, the Morris Oxford, the MG Magnette, the Riley 4/68 and 4/72 and the Wolseley 15/60 and 16/60. Where rubber splits, it splits by body style — saloon, estate, coupé, van — or by facelift. Almost never by badge. What the badge really changes is the carburettor: twin SUs on the MG, Riley and Vanden Plas cars, a single SU on the Austin and Morris.

And two engine rules that catch people out every year. Every BMC B-series has the same 88.9mm stroke — 1489, 1588, 1622 and 1798 differ only in the bore, which is why so much of the bottom end carries across. But a 1098 A-series is not a 1098 A-series: blocks are not interchangeable between the end-on gearbox cars (Minor, Midget, A40) and the in-sump transaxle cars (1100, Mini). Same capacity, different block, and it is the most expensive mistake in the whole BMC range.

One last thing in Morris’s favour, if you have a pre-war car. Morris went to Lockheed hydraulic brakes very early — the 1929 Isis was the first Morris with hydraulics, Cowley had them from 1927 and Lockheed supplied them from 1931. By the mid-1930s the whole Morris range was hydraulic while much of the British industry was still on rods and cables. A 1935 Morris Ten takes wheel cylinders and flexible hoses, not cable linkages.