Morris Minor Owners Club

Does anyone happen to know if crash testing was ever carried out on convertibles & travellers ? In respect of travellers, was it done with wood on or off ?

I very much doubt it, the first crash requirements did not appear until the mid 70's, if you want to make one crashworthy about the only option would be to fit a roll cage.

Thanks Kevin, I've seen pictures of Minor saloons being tested, I don't know if that was official or not. My reason for enquiring is that I am preparing a little article for our branch magazine basically around mods & safety issues.

i have a dvd on morris being tested its very funny will bring it to xmas bash

Thinking about it I have vague memories of seeing one crashed years ago as an example of how bad older cars were.

Thinking about it I have vague memories of seeing one crashed years ago as an example of how bad older cars were.

Hi,
There was a similar post to this on here a while back and I remember watching a 'you tube' link to a film of a 2 door that (if I recall correctly) had a arctic fall on it at a roundabout. To cut a long story short the old Moggie held (though it sadly had to be scrapped after) and the ladies children were released via the removal of the rear window and she escaped with a broken leg. The rescue services said that if it had been a modern they would have been allot worse off and she might have been dead.
Old cars, in good nick (this was her everyday car) are more structurally sound than some give them credit for and they take allot of stick, not all of it for good reason.
If some people are that worried about H & S perhaps they should sell their classic and buy a modern.
Best wishes,
Mike.

I remember the program about the mother and children and the artic falling on the front of the car when it was on TV years ago. Some series about lucky escapes or similar... They said the strength of the Minor bulkhead and dashboard stopped the drivers legs being crushed by the weight of the lorry. (they used two MOT failure Minors to recreate the accident iirc).
Generally Minors are pretty strong (lots of curved panels) and stand up to accidents pretty well. There's been a few postings on here of folk who've had accidents. But being pretty strong is not nessarcerly the right thing as far as the occupants are concerned, Moderns may crumple easier but its that deformation that slows the deceleration of the occupants and moderns are generally soft inside too which makes them comfortable to have accidents in. The delightful period interior of a Minor becomes hard and nasty when you arrive against it at speed! (My own van has a dent on the dashboard that lines up with my right knee for eg.... ).
There will be a few photos on this site of crash damaged Minors. I wouldn't have thought convertibles would be particularly good, travellers should be pretty much the same as saloons in a frontal, (got one in at work now with a smashed in front end to repair) but a rear end or a roll over could be nasty I expect.

Modern cars as in the ones being produced now are increadably tough, just look at the size of the pillars (of course this does not help wth visability which might avoid the accient in the first place), the theory is to build a very tough passenger cell and use the front and rear as crumple zones.

Having our 2 door to virtually a bare shell as said above the front bulkead looks pretty tough and the curved roof will be pretty strong, the biggest weakness has got to be the B pillar which shrinks to virtually nothing at the rear side window, I am even considering putting convertable reinforcements or something similar in the 2 door, I would like to come up with some way of strenghtening it and adding a upper seat belt mounting.

Having our 2 door to virtually a bare shell as said above the front bulkead looks pretty tough and the curved roof will be pretty strong, the biggest weakness has got to be the B pillar which shrinks to virtually nothing at the rear side window, I am even considering putting convertable reinforcements or something similar in the 2 door, I would like to come up with some way of strenghtening it and adding a upper seat belt mounting.

That is what I perceive as it's one weak point too. If you have it down to the shell I'd open up the pillars and reinforce them (with more metal) internally, before welding them back together and grinding back down to tidy the area back up.

Otherwise you may want to fashion some external strengthening, which will obviously require blending in.......

TOM ROY do a very good bolt on mounting for fitting inertia reel front seat belts on two door cars, I've bought a pair, now I just need a good pair of 1960's looking front inertia seat belts..............

In 45 years of driving moggies I've come to the conclusion that it's best to try to avoid accidents. Fitting a towbar can mitigate against people in 'moderns' hitting you from behind - I remember back in the early eighties being 'parked' in the outside lane of a dual carriageway waiting to turn right at an island and at the end of the 'incident' having to tow the Alfa Romeo which was impaled on my towbar round the island before we could jack it up to unhitch it. Fortunately we were very close to a garage at which a friend of mine worked and he was able to put my van on the four-poster and check everything for being square before I announced to the Alfa-man that he owed me for a new towball cover. Alfa-man phoned me a couple of days later to say that his car (less than a month old) had been declared a write-off by the insurance!

While it was parked a guy drove straight into the back of my series 2 landie at 30 mph in a renault clio, the trans brake linkage broke and the landie was catapulted 100 yards down the road until it hit an oncoming vw golf. Both the golf and clio were write offs, the clio had the bonnet folded up to the windscreen.
The landie - with carnage all around it, I jumped in , it started first crank then I drove it home, - £150 for a new rear x member as it was bent around the tow bar mounting, and 3 hours to fit it, no damage to the front and a new pin for the handbrake and it was as good as new.
Mind you it took 3 months to get the money out of direct line, eventually I told them I was going to hire a defender at around £200 a day and they stopped arguing and paid up.

Ive been hit a couple of times, once in the traveller where a one month old VW polo went into the back. The noise it made I was sure that when I looked I would have a pile of match wood behind me. The VWs bumper, grill and sump guard were all lying on on the ground. My traveller had a bent 1/4 bumper on the drivers side which I swapped for the one on the other side so the bent bit was to the bottom!

The other time was a bit more scary, dual carriage way were you have to sit in a queue to turn right around a big junction. I was in the black 61 2 door and could see this mondeo coming up very fast in my mirror, there was no were to move out of the way and it hit with such a bang. The mondeos grill and bumper were wrecked and the bonnet had popped open, I had a bent over rider and no other damage.

I had a vandenplas 1300 run into the back of our morris 8 a few years ago in the wet at a set of traffic lights and it was a wipe out, the whole front end, lights rad,bonnet etc.gone. the morris didn't have a scratch except a small mark on the nickel plate on the rear bumper

When I had someone drive in the back of me, my car came out more sound and rust free than it was before. These cars are quite robust but writing of the front of a car and leaving only a scratch must be due to divine intervention!

Some years ago, I felt a really solid rear end collision at an intersection. It was another Morris Minor. No damage to either car, the bumper springs did their job.
Same car, a few months later, near the same place, same thing. This time it wasn't a Minor. I can't remember what it was, but he hooked his bumper over the over-riders, which then removed his bumper when he backed up. Again, no damage to the Minor.