Three-quarters Front View of a Maroon, 1931, pre-War, Morris Minor 2-Seater, on display at the Quay, during the 2019 Sandwich Festival
The Morris Minor is a small 4-seater car with an 850 cc engine manufactured by Morris Motors Limited from 1928 to 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.
Size: 4698px × 3647px
Location: The Quay, Sandwich, Kent, UK
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -elliptic, -quarters, -wheel, 1931, 19bhp, 2-door, 2-seater, 2019, 26-, 4-cylinder, 847, 847cc, brakes, cable-operated, cc, channel-section, chassis, engine, fabric-bodied, festival, front, jemima, kent, maroon, minor, morris, pre-war, quay, rides, saloon, sandwich, side-valve, sidevalve, springs., steel, straight-4, view, wheels, wire
