Classic Cars
VotW – The Wonderful MG 1100
Our Video-of-the-Week for you this second week of January is about one of my all-time favorite cars, the MG 1100. The video comes by way of Shelburne Films and their MG Cars Channel. […]
ADO16
Highlights
VotW – MG 1100 and Indy Liquid Suspension Racer
Most folks who own a television set are familiar with Dennis Gage and his show My Cassic Car. Well, our video this week is from a show he shot at the McPherson College C.A.R.S. Club show. It just so happens that two of the cars he featured in this episode are a 1967 MG 1100 and a 1964 Indy car racer featuring MG 1100 liquid suspension. The cars belong to Richard Morrison who has painstakingly restored them both. The footage of these cars starts at 5:40. For the 1964 Indianapolis 500 Kjell Qvale, who imported and distributed several British Marques, asked the head of his racing department, Joe Huffaker, to build 3 cars incorporating the hydrolastic suspension from the MG 1100 Sports Sedan. The cars raced at Indy as the MG Liquid Suspension Specials in 1964 and 1965. A. J. Foyt […]
Video of the Week
VotW – BMC’s Hydrolastic Suspension
Let’s get bumpy this week! Our Video of the Week this time is going to be a Morris 1100 television commercial from New Zealand featuring the car’s hydrolastic suspension. Made for the New Zealand British Motor Corporation (BMC) distributor Dominion Motors. If you don’t know, hydrolastic suspension was used on early Minis and the full line of BMC 1100 / 1300 cars, collectively known by their factory designation of ADO16. The ADO16s include the MG 1100, Austin America, Morris 1100, Vanden Plas Princess 1100, Riley Kestrel, and many more. At this point, BMC was huge into badge engineering. Hydrolastic suspension cars, at least in this form, use liquid-filled dampers at each of the four wheels instead of shocks and springs. Those dampers, which are basically large heavy rubber bladders, are connected front-to-back by hoses. This means that when the front left […]
Highlights
VotW – Magic Carpet – MG 1100
Our Video of the Week (VotW) this go round comes by way of the British Motor Corporation of 1962. It is entitled “Magic Carpet” and is a nice period marketing piece for the MG 1100. The BMC family of 1100 and 1300 sedans were the big brothers to the Mini. Designated AD016, they were badge engineered as Austin, MG, Riley, and Morris to name a few. They were enjoyable little people movers and were the top selling, or one of the top selling cars, in Britain for many years. Although they never reached that same level of popularity here in the US, there did used to be quite a number of them around. Long ago I had a website devoted to the MG 1100, and although I haven’t updated it in a long time you can still find it at http://justbritish.com/mg1100. […]
Austin
BMC 1100 and 1300: An Enthusiast’s Guide – Book Review
The British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) 1100 and 1300 model range was amongst the most successful in the Corporation’s history, selling more than 2.1 million of all types between its introduction in 1962 and its demise in 1974. Worldwide, the BMC 1100 was sold under eight different marque names and in two-door saloon, four-door saloon, two-door estate, and five-door hatchback forms – and very nearly as a van as well. In Britain, it was the country’s best-selling car between 1962 and 1971, being beaten just once (in 1967) by the Ford Cortina. The BMC 1100 and 1300: An Enthusiasts Guide by James Taylor looks at the design and development of a model range that at the time confirmed BMC as a pioneer of new automotive ideas and had a profound impact on other manufacturers. It covers not only the full standard […]