In a similar vein - I have a road test article titled 'Surprise Packet' from The Autocar dated 16th December 1955 about a 1949 SV Minor fitted with an Austin A40 1200cc OHV engine. The engine was subsequently fitted to a 1953 803cc OHV Minor tourer (one of the first to be delivered to the home market) Reg No: WVW 74 around which the article was written. The conversion was carried out by Brown's Garage (Loughton) Ltd, High Road, Loughton, Essex at the request of Mr F W Brown director of the garage. Latterly it was fitted with the Austin A40 Sports cylinder head, twin S.U. Carbs, double valve springs and had 0.020" removed from the head gasket face. The performance was considered to be impressive.
Not only The Nuffield Group recognised the benefits of fitting the Wolseley OHV engine into the well handling Minor but Mr Brown also in the fitment of an OHV engine. The Wolseley 8 (918cc) and Austin A40 engine (1200cc) were of a similar size and configuration and there is a family link between Wolseley and Morris.
The article comprises 3 pages (A4 size) with photographs and before and after performance figures.
Is WVW 74 still around?
The 1948 Wolseley 8 was the first car I ever drove and was owned by my father (who went on to own a 4 door Minor 1000). The performance of the Wolseley whist not outstanding was satisfactory. So having driven both cars and comparing the two. - the Wolseley had comfort and reasonable performance - the Minor (SV) less comfort but better road holding whilst lacking in my opinion a reasonable performance.
Therte is also a reference to Minors fitted with Coventry Climax engines in the article by George Thomson on page 14.
Here is a Minor fitted with a Coventry Climax from new.
- Coventry Climax 3.JPG (64.1 KiB) Viewed 2466 times