The split screen, the indicators poking up like perspex orange fingers, the notoriously rust-prone floors, the pootling exhaust note just some of the much-loved characteristics of the Morris Minor or Morris 1000. Designed by Sir Alec Issigonis back in 1948, in a sense it was Britains answer to the Beetle a bulbous little creation that was also Britains first mass-appeal car. Between then and 1972 when production belatedly ceased some 1.6 million were built. There were variants like the Morris Traveller (timber-framed estate car) and the Morris Million (painted pink), while the convertible was another popular choice. For thousands of newly-marrieds, or penurious students, it was their first car. It was also the kind of car in which the district nurse did her rounds.
In 2008, it is 60 years old, and Martin Wainwright (who proposed to his wife over the gear stick of a Morris Minor) gives us a quirky and fascinating history of this quintessentially British car. Youll find everything from the post-70s vogue for restoring and rebuilding Morris Minors (several garages still exist to do just that, to the alarming habit of their bonnets to open at speed and entirely obscure your vision, their unreliable trunnions, and not to mention the esoteric photo exhibition some years ago devoted to abandoned Morris Minors on the West Coast of Ireland.
Martin Wainwright is the Guardian's Northern Editor and author of Aurum's successful A Mini Adventure: 50 Years of the Iconic Small Car and Morris Minor: A Biography. He is well-known for writing on northern and countryside topics including a biography of walking pioneer, Alfred Wainwright (no relation), and The Coast-to-Coast Walk, a guide to one of the UK's most popular long distance trails, also published by Aurum. Martin Wainwright is also the editor of A Lifetime in Mountains and A Gleaming Landscape: A Hundred Years of the Guardian's Country Diary. He was awarded an MBE in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to the National Lottery Charities Board in Yorkshire and Humberside and lives in Leeds.
