In late October 2012 I purchased a morris minor and a 2003 Mazda mx5 and then decided to take a plasma cutter to both vehicles. I removed all the external panels off the mx5 and then started trying to fit the body off the minor on to the floor pan of the mx5. With the aid of a good fabrication engineer, plenty of blood sweat and a few tears I have been able to get a car that looks just like a morris minor convertible but drives like a very modern car.
Some of the main specs
*power steering
*ABS
*electric windows
*heated front screen
*modern washers & wipers
*modern lights
And the list goes on.
To put it simply all I have done is re-panelled a Mazda mx5. Trust me it was not that easy, and I own a garage!!
Here's some pictures, hope you like them.
Very neat work, it must have taken ages to make it all fit! Ive just send a link of this to a guy I know who edits the MX5 club magazine in Northern Ireland and also drives a white minor convertible.
I'm sure I saw you in that yesterday! Were you on a road called Greave around lunchtime?
And is Mitsiland the same place I nearly took my Toyota recently?
Really nice work. Impressed.
Chipper wrote:Nice work. What are the wheels? They appear to be standard Minor rims but have more of an offset, almost like front wheel drive car rims.
the wheels had to be custom made to help the tyres fit under the wheel arches.
warb21 wrote:I'm sure I saw you in that yesterday! Were you on a road called Greave around lunchtime?
And is Mitsiland the same place I nearly took my Toyota recently?
Really nice work. Impressed.
Yes that was me, my nephew is 11 and i took him for a drive, he loves cars. Yes i own mitsiland, i took me six months to get the car roadworthy, but trimming & sorting out other issues took twelve months. hope to see you around.
I'm struggling with free time at the moment, but if I get some free time if the weathers bad I may do a build thread. I hope we have a good summer so I can get out and take my mog out on nice sunny days.
Hi there mitsiland,
How did you get round the issue of the track width being too wide for the standard minor wheel arches.
I see in one of your photos the rear tyres sticking out , then in the finished item, they are flush.
Texas mongrel had the arches extended on his to cover the rubber.
I like this conversion, but really like the standard look..
We'll spotted, yes the wheel base is 50 mm longer on the mx5 and also 60mm wide at the rear. I had to extend the wheel arches on the front wings (see picture) & Extend the front bumper to make it look right. Custom made wheels allowed the width to be reduced and then I had to cut the suspension arms & driveshafts down 30mm each side. Finally reinforcing the suspension arms, collars on the driveshafts & fitting Polly bushes all round. I have seen loads of modified cars but I was trying to keep to the original external shape, but on modern running gear. Thanks for looking. Rob[frame][/frame]
