Morris Minor Owners Club

A version of the long lost Mosquito prototype engine?

Thought you might be interested to see this engine and racing car chassis from the fifties (actually just noticed one photo has 1948 in biro on it so if thats true he must have had access to the yet to be released Minor parts bin) described as a 'Les Redmond special' credit the Autosport bullitin board for the photos. more pictures and discussion on their website but heres a taster.

http://forums.atlasf1.com/lofiversion/i ... 213-0.html


Theres a picture of a horizontally opposed air cooled engine with gearbox and some of it in a chassis but just look at the front suspension bottom arms and the legs themselves look familiar?
Could this be one of the legendary Mosquito prototype engines?
Thesuspension legs look to have have been lightned by drilling holes on the centre line of the member and I'm not sure whats going on with the top trunnions as the hole in the trunnion looks a little large for the upper arm outer bolts.
But it does seem to show at least one bit of a Minor did get a horizontally opposed engine as origianlly intended.
Plus the gearbox, steering wheel and clutch arrangement are very Morris minor.



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Most interesting! in the final photo the car even has the early Morris steering wheel!

That 'lightening' would have saved almost nothing! But he has used the torsion bar suspension. As above - obviously they were just working on the top trunnion mount ! That engine looks like it may be a two cylinder - was the Mosquito engine not four cylinder ?

Very interesting!
There was a proposed 2 cylinder version I think, you need to read a few of the various Minor boks for anecdotal evidence as to wether it, or how many other prototype engines were actually built. I understood they were water cooled, but will reread and check on that!
The gear box looks much more A series related than Morris 8 being aluminium with built in bell housing which dosent fit in with the 1948 date at all.
I love mysteries like this...