Minor

Our Video of the Week for this first week of June features another, and first of the well known, designs that took place under the leadership of Alec Issigonis.  This is the story of the Morris Minor. Over one-and-a-half million Minors were produced between 1948 and 1972. Initially available only as a two-door saloon and convertible, the range was quickly expanded to include a four-door saloon in 1950, a wood-framed estate (the Traveller) in October 1953, and panel van and pick-up truck variants from May of 1953. It was the first British car to sell over one million units and is considered a classic example of automotive design, as well as typifying “Englishness”. Eric Lord, the director of Morris Motors, said that Lord Nuffield thought that the new Morris Minor looked like a poached egg and that the car was narrow […]

According to Car Magazine, BMW is planning to take Mini back to its small-car roots – with a Mini Minor. This is great news for fans of the historic British baby, which has grown podgy under German ownership, and shows that the shrunken Mini Rocketman concept car wasn’t in vain. But it’s also an intriguing industrial development: BMW is planning to co-develop the baby Mini with Toyota. Product planners in Germany acknowledge that the Mini has grown tubby in recent years, stretching to 4005mm in five-door hatchback form. Hence the desire to surf the downsizing trend with a new smaller model, scheduled to stretch just 3450mm long. For reference, that’s the same footprint as the new Smart Forfour. The Mini Minor is likely to come to market in late 2018 or early 2019, CAR can reveal. ‘It’s still early days […]