The Morris Minor is a small 4-seater car with an 850 cc engine manufactured by Morris Motors Limited from 1928 until 1934. The name was resurrected for another newer car for the same market in 1948.
Beginning in 1922 the tiny seven horsepower Austin had brought motoring to a new public and broadened the market. Against that Morris's Oxfords and Cowleys had taken 41 per cent of the entire 1925 British private car market. Morris sales had begun to slow in 1926. They were revived by a new face for the Morris Oxford and Cowley and an expansion of Morris's range both up and down the scale.
The same year William Morris realised millions from the sale and stock market listing of preference shares in his business and he privately bought Wolseley, founded by Herbert Austin, which until a few years earlier had been Britain's largest car manufacturer.
William Morris now had ample wherewithal to go after Herbert Austin's little car with his own small Morris. With a surplus of production facilities, and Wolseley's design engineers added to his own at Morris Commercial Cars, little time was taken for development of the Morris Minor. A more complex design than Austin's Seven, the all-new car was on the market before the middle of 1928.
Mechanicals
Engine
The new Morris engine was designed by Wolseley, by this time also personally owned by William Morris. It was largely a new design but following a conventional Wolseley SOHC front camshaft drive concept if much smaller than any existing Wolseley unit. The overhead camshaft was driven by a vertical spiral bevel geared shaft that passed through the dynamo carrying the armature. A single SU carburettor was fitted and coil ignition used. The engine produced at 4000 rpm allowing a top speed of 55 mph (88 km/h). The electrical system was 6 volt.
The Morris Minor's engine was produced in two versions. From 1928 to 1930 all the cars had an 847 cc overhead-camshaft engine designed and made by Wolseley. It remained in production for the more expensive Minors until 1932.
Morris's in-house engineers at Morris Commercial Cars led by Percy Rose, who had designed the chassis, devised a simpler valve train for the same block. This more conventional side-valve unit of slightly lower power output entered production in late 1930 at Morris Commercial Cars' new premises in the former Wolseley works at Adderley Park, under the supervision of the young Leonard Lord. Initially for the lower-priced cars — first for the £100 car, later for others — it remained in production until 1934.
39,087 of the overhead-camshaft type and 47,231 of the side-valve version were made.
Chassis
Although the company's main assembly plant was at Cowley, outside Oxford, the chassis and running gear were designed at another of W R Morris's private investments, Birmingham-based Morris Commercial Cars. Previously E G Wrigley & Co it was a former component supplier to Morris. He had bought and renamed it after it had fallen into receivership. Wrigley's had invested heavily and re-equipped its works to make components for a major mass-produced motorcar project, which had collapsed at the last minute.
The chassis built of channel-section steel has cable-operated four-wheel brakes and it rides on half-elliptic springs. The 26-inch wire wheels take tyres of 3.50-inch section. (by December the car tested had 27 x 4.00-inch tyres) The car is to be complete with all accessories including an engine starter. The central brake lever works a transmission brake at the back of the gearbox. The bucket-type front seats are adjustable, the passenger's side folds and tips. Equipment includes: automatic screen wiper – suction operated driving mirror shock-absorbers at both back and front full width bumpers at each end etc. safety glass by Triplex is available at extra cost petrol gauge electric horn speedometer
At first the only body types offered were a 2-door fabric-bodied saloon and a four-seat tourer, but during production up to a dozen different body styles were used. A big part of their success was that they were full-sized cars in miniature. The accommodation in the 2-door cars was described as "chummy" because of the unavoidable personal contact in the confined space.
From a cartoon of the day: First urchin: (surveying a small car parked at the kerb) "Its an Austin, I tell yer." Second urchin: "T'aint, its a Morris Minor." Third urchin: "S'neither, it's got pedals."