The Morris Minor was sawn in half lengthways and widened by four inches
In late 1947, with the factory already tooling up, Alec Issigonis decided his new small Morris looked wrong. He had the prototype cut down the middle and the halves pushed apart until it looked right. The production car ended up 4 inches wider, and early bumpers had a plate bolted into the gap.
Planning began in 1941 despite a wartime ban on civilian car production. Vice chairman Miles Thomas code-named the project Mosquito and kept it hidden from the Ministry of Supply and from the company founder, Lord Nuffield, who was expected to dislike its radical ideas. Issigonis, a suspension specialist at Morris since 1935, led the design with only two draughtsmen. He wanted an economy car an ordinary owner would enjoy rather than feel sentenced to, with room for people as large as those who drove big cars.
Everything served handling and space. Its 14-inch wheels were smaller than those of any production car of the day and sat close to the corners, while independent front suspension let the engine sit low and far forward, keeping the car stable whether empty or full. Issigonis, an admirer of the Citroën Traction Avant, specified torsion bars and rack and pinion steering. He also proposed a water-cooled flat-four that could be built as an 800 cc unit to suit Britain's horsepower tax and an 1100 cc one for export.
That engine proved too ambitious. Nuffield compared the prototype to a poached egg, the board demanded a launch at the October 1948 motor show, and the car received a lightly revised side-valve engine from the Morris Eight plus a conventional leaf-sprung rear. Thomas resigned over the affair, but the roomy cabin, forward engine and torsion-bar front end survived.
The Minor ran from 1948 to 1971 across three series, with saloons, a tourer, the wood-framed Traveller estate, vans and pick-ups. More than 1.6 million were built, making it the first British car to pass a million sales, and Autocar later credited it with helping get postwar Britain moving again.
Source: Morris Minor
