Morris Minor Owners Club

jonathon wrote: a chance for you to sample a passenger ride in an 'almost' standard minor with 240bhp and a few tweeks.

Not an 803cc I guess then Jonathon?

Nope !

jonathon wrote:John, this space frame Minor is exactly what we are working on over the next few years. Hopefully ending with a chance to run a series similar to the Beetle 'Fun Cup'. We can see a huge potential for this type of car both for road and track applications.
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I think a kit Minor with a fibreglass body would be a fantastic idea,:D especially if based on a space frame and designed to pass the BIVA test. O looke forward to seeing one. And once the molds are manufactured, making a glassfibre (or even carbon fibre??) Minor body shell would actually be quite a lot cheaper than professionally restoring a rotten Minor. I suspect that most modifiers/ racers are more interested in the mechanical side of things than cutting out rust and welding in new.

As it happens, I use my museum piece on the road drove it the last few days after the MOT pass and it is great to have it back on the road and with standard 1098 engine in good tune, I do not hold the local traffic up too much in East kent.

Oh- and to satisfy the petrol head in me, my next project is to get my 944S2 back on the road!!

Most interesting. How did I lose the crowd? No worries. Like I said, back to the drawing pad.

And now for replies:

im not sure if anyone has recently said or thought this but the PT cruiser kind of looks like a modern moggy, its just the front and rear wings and slightly the bonnet, just take a look...

...after the modern safety regulations it would need to pass (NCAP etc) the Minor would end up looking just like the Chrysler PT cruiser! And that is a car that is not to everyone's taste.

I disagree wholeheartedly! Chickenjohn, absolutely right that the PT Cruiser is not to everyone's taste (it is not at all to mine). But I feel that the PT Cruiser is decidely different in styling -- lacking the hemispherical boot, proboscis-like bonnet, and high-rise headlamps of the post-MM Minors, and of course as Rossrox said the expansive wings -- and in overall philosophy. (Naturally, anyone is free to disagree with me.) I also must disagree -- for my own efforts at the New Minor necessitate my disagreement -- that a modern Moggie design would end up like the PT Cruiser. It is entirely possible to model any body shape: shape, done properly, need not influence structural integrity or stability. The original styling, or the designs I have submitted, could be entirely safe and compliant with today's standards. (The only limitation thereupon is price.)

Nonetheless, Chickenjohn, I agree with you also that upgrading a historical Minor is probably the best way to bring the car into the 21st century. (Fiberglass [where you spoke of a kit Minor] makes me queasy, but that's just a difference of opinion. ) Indeed, I'm in the midst of my own upgrading.

But (as I've taken to understand it) this particular topic has become sort of a thought experiment -- if someone had the funds, and the time, and the will, what would a properly reproduced Morris Minor look like, and what would it include? I understand, of course, arguments against such an exercise. I can see how it would bother us on the messageboard. But why must it be impossible to think about it?

Also, Chickenjohn, I know you meant no disrespect (and none is taken), but if you disliked my design so much that it made you feel sick, why not doodle your own and submit it? I'm not the head designer of the forum, and I don't want to be. I'd dearly like to see some other designs than mine. And if you don't want to do a redesign, submit a doodle with potential additions or tweaks to the original, or a list of features you would change given an unlimited budget.

I thought id have a go at drawing something so i sat and drew this "modern minor" it looks ok i guess :S
btw i overdid it on the huge wheels haha no matter what i thought about i kept wanting to draw a normal minor hense why it looks extremely similar
[frame][/frame]

I've done a drawing that I'd like to show you guys as soon as I get home.

Not gotten home yet, then, Lime?

I haven't done any drawrings recently, but maybe I will. Only just remembered this topic existed.