Volkswagens!

[VWBeetle69]

Now then... we all know Volkswagen Beetles are superior to the Morris Minor, don't we.

Any other Dub owners on here?

[GAS]

I had a 67 split screen bus for about three years.
Getting rid of it was the best thing i done.

[MarkyB]

I had a half share in a 1955 beetle when I was a lad but it was just one of those phases teenagers go through, and I got over it.
Is that smell Troll?

[RobThomas]

I'm here. VW1835 to the left of the shot (inc stromberg carb and dual electronic ignition)[frame][/frame]

[limegreen]

silly things, always seem to be breaking - especially those buses!

[Blaketon]

I don't know about the ones built in Brazil and Mexico etc but the build quality of the German Beetles (And the cars built at the same time as them) was faultless. The early watercooled cars weren't quite so good but they got better. I had a 1987 Golf GTI and in many ways it was the best all round "Car" I ever owned. It wasn't the fastest but it had a good balance of performance, space, economy and the build quality was superb. It was also easy to work on; it hadn't been ruined with black boxes.

However I think this thread is directed more at the Minor's contemporaries. Alec Issigonis made some comparative notes on this, which were reproduced in his biography. Perhaps in some ways, geography played a part. Germany had built the autobahns many years before there were motorways in the UK. A Beetle could be driven flat out from end to end on any motorway. It was higher geared and the engine lower revving and so would tolerate this more than the Minor. However on twisty "British" roads, the Minor's vastly superior road holding/handling would make it the car of choice.

VW had the edge on build quality but the Minor is much easier to work on for the owner driver. VW handbooks always seemed to say "Take to dealer" where the BMC one told you what to do. It was the practice, in VW dealers, to drop the engine (Held in with just four bolts) to do a service, as this was easier than struggling to get at the engine in situ. I think this is a bit OTT for the owner driver style mechanic and so from this point of view the Minor wins hands down. I also think the SU carb is a lot better than the automatic choke jobs found on many VWs.

Six on one half a dozen of the other. A different approach to the same goal.

[PSL184]

I have owned 6 Beetles in the past and 5 Minors. I'm not sure which I prefer as although very similar in some ways they are very different in others.....

[RogerRust]

Somewhere I have a copy of Practical Classics from the early 80s with a pic of a youthful Ray Newall and an article comparing the MM with the Beetle.

[Kevin]

Never had a beetle but I have been told on many occasions that its very useful to have an engine that you can remove in half an hour, as they have to be removed quite often

[RobMoore]

Heretics

I had 2 Beetles in the early 80's both 1303s the 2nd one had air vacume assisted semi automatic gearbox
Great cars and dropping the engine was literally just that jack under engine undo bolts lift car up and push.
raming a porsche engine in there was easy also.
Much prefer the moggy though.

[ErnstBlofeld]

Why the Minor did not come anywhere near the Beetle's tally of 20 million units is desperately sad, and the blame can be laid at the door of Lord Nuffield - who tried to strangle the car at birth - and then BMC's Austin-centric management which was no doubt embarrassed that its best-selling car was built at Cowley by Morris Motors.

The Minor should have been BMC's de facto small car and bequeathed its platform and running gear to the Nash Metropolitan, A-H Sprite, 1958 Austin A40, and the MGA. If there were to have been Wolseley and Riley B-series engined Minors then there should also have been Austin and Morris variants. But BMC - riven by commercial rivalry and personal, petty hatreds - would never have considered sensible rationalisation of that sort to have been sensible.

[Blaketon]

I think one of the reasons for the success of the VW was their success in marketing the car in the USA. Perhaps the long straight roads in the USA would have favoured the VW anyway?

I'm not sure about an MGA derived from the Minor; the layout of the Minor doesn't lend itself to being a sports car. However, the MGA was the first MG sports (Possibly the first sports car) car to sell 100000 units. The MGB and Midget, between them, went on to sell over 500000 units.

[MarkyB]

I think the whole reason we are even talking about this is due to a Troll;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

Still mildly interesting, but he only posted that one message so there isn't a dialogue going on, we are talking amongst ourselves.

[marcusthemoose]

believe me he is a troll- he did that because i am always telling him how my minor minor is better than his beetle- which did turn out to be correct as it has been moved on for reasons i am not going to disclose. i also out wit him with his poor technical knowledge. a case of sour grapes

[marcusthemoose]

silly things, always seem to be breaking - especially those buses!

you were proven correct- it broke down five times yesterday and ended up being towed home. think that the dynamo was not charging as well as it could of.