THE CAR I COULD AND SHOULD HAVE AQUIRED
Ramblings at Random
By Dean Sprague
About a decade ago when I was working and living down in Florida, my good friend Joe and I used to restore old British cars together. Both of us had fairly high stress jobs at the time so this became our primary stress reliever. We had just finished his 1964 MGB and my 71 Triumph Stag. He kept the MGB but I sold the Stag to cash fortify my 1953 MGTD and 1972 TR6 restorations. He had recently acquired a 1967 Morris Minor convertible. It looked pretty clean and ran OK but of course it was not perfect. Which was fine with him since he intended to use it as a driver.
We were having lunch one day sitting on his back porch consuming his wife’s famous fried chicken and potato salad. His Morris was sitting in the drive facing us. As I sat there eating my chicken I noticed something looked odd, one headlight looked a little higher than the other. When we finished eating I measured the wings (fenders) and found the left side was an inch and a half higher than the right plus it looked a little out of contour. We had never noticed this before but now every time you looked at the car it was all you saw, so he had to fix it. You have heard the phrase “in for a penny-in for a pound”? Well, it started innocently enough but soon pennies quickly materialized into many pounds. The original strategy was to simply order a new left wing, install it and paint it. Not so simple. When we removed the wing we found the entire left front had sustained a major collision. The sub-frame was bent and the steering camber was out almost an inch. Plus when we removed the carpets and seats we found the tin worm hard at work. Three license plates were screwed and tarred to the floorboards to cover some of the rust damage. Our “cleanup/freshen up strategy ” quickly metastasized into a major restoration. I think there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere. Maybe leave well enough alone?
A year or so later we had repaired, straitened and re-finished the entire car from the bare tub. We returned it to its original color combination of light blue with blue interior and white top. The problem; the car came out so nice Joe decided to go “all the way”. He even sent every piece of chrome out to be re-plated. I mean every single piece inside and out, $2800 dollars worth (that was a lot at the time). He also replaced the entire interior (everything from the bare tub) including a beautiful new convertible top and boot cover to match when you put the top in the down position.
It just so happened I had an old 1275cc A series Austin engine (from a scrapped MG Midget) sitting under my workbench. I was saving it for a future project. I was looking for an AH Bug Eye Sprite in need of an engine swap but I never found one so I donated it to the Morris Minor project. While we were replacing the old 998cc engine for my 1275cc Joe thought we should put in a 5-speed transmission conversation as well. Since he decided on the transmission change I thought we should install some wake up parts in the 1275 (you see how it starts). In addition to re-boring .020 over and replacing all the engine’s internal components and balancing it, I put in an upgraded hard rear seal and a complete unleaded head with oversized valves. Then I ported and polished the head. We installed a three quarter grind performance cam and a re-curved electronic distributor to match, a Falcon header and tuned exhaust. I doubled the carburation by using the SUs off the Midget, etc. etc. Now the car would go but how to stop it?
This involved substituting a set of MG Midget disc brakes for the old front shoe brakes. Which was another donation from my now defunct Bug Eye project. We also installed hi-performance rear shoes and front pads. Now it would go and stop but what could we do to get it to handle better?
We made this happen by modifying the suspension. We began by adding sway bars, front and rear, upgraded re-valve shocks in the front and a tube shock conversation in the rear. Then we replaced all suspension rubber with poly bushings. When finished this car was one of the nicest most drivable Morris Minors I ever sat in. It still looked like a modest economy car but drove like a sports car with a back seat. In essence, this car was a real “sleeper”.
When Joe retired his interests in restoring and playing with British cars began to waver. His focus was shifting as he spent more time playing with his guitar and making music. The more he played in his band the less he seemed to care about the Morris or the MGB. He finally sold the MG to a fellow car club member and offered the Morris to me at about half its real value. That was barely a quarter of the actual restoration cost. In the middle of this he had an opportunity to go on the road for a 3-month music tour. Before he left Joe asked me to finish the car, drive it enough to break it in and sell it if I didn’t want it. I put about 500 hundred miles on it, did the post break-in service and took it to a major British car show. The show part was just for the fun of showing it off. Everyone I passed in the car waived and smiled. It was that kind of car. She cruised effortlessly at 70-75 MPH on the interstate and was faster than a pre-emission MGB out of the hole. I have proof of this. I was leaving the show and a young man in a beautiful 67 MGB roadster was sitting to my right in traffic. When the light turned green he took on the mighty Morris. I heard the B’s engine roaring and tires chirping as he discovered the error of his ways. By the time I hit third gear all he saw were Morris Minor taillights. He was more than surprised (frankly so was I). Oh, by the way as an added bonus the Morris took 1st place at that show!
I always had visions of using the little Morris convertible to take my grandchildren out for ice cream or a picnic in the mountains on a warm summer’s day but the timing just wasn’t good for me. I was on the cusp of retirement and relocation with several cars of my own to deal with plus I felt guilty “steeling” his car even though he said I earned it. Still in retrospect I should have done it and maybe paid him a little more. I probably could have worked it out. Like my Father always said, “you only regret the things you don’t do-not the things you do”. I don’t think I have seen a nicer Morris Minor convertible since (or maybe ever). On occasion I still think about the little Morris and all the fun we could have had with it, my wife, grandchildren and me. Top down, wind in our hair (well they still have hair), sun in our faces with ice cream in hand watching the world go by in a Morris Minor 1000 convertible. Now what’s more fun than that?
