Morris Minor Owners Club

I was approached at a car boot by a chap who noticed my Traveller, and said that he used to sell them new. He then asked if I knew why there was so much space around the engine. He then told me that when the Minor was first designed, they were thinking of putting a VW flat-four in the car, but later decided that they could do equally well with their own engine. By that time, the body design was settled. Does anyone know if the VW was ever fitted, and what do you think of the feasibility of the idea?

It was designed around a flat four, but don't think it was a Beetle engine.

It certainly wasn't a VW engine, your man was misinformed.
Izzy wanted a water cooled flat four, but the design and tooling budget was blown on the car itself.

The car was indeed designed with the space for the flat 4 and he was very mad at Nuffield for not making the money available for the flat 4 he so desperately wanted for the car.

That's how it is.

Al

I think you'll find that our relationship with German car makers in the 1940s would have prevented any such collaboration

Similar to a Jowett flat 4 if I recall correctly.
Supposedly abandoned as there was too much cabin noise from the engine, so relied instead on the trusty 'Morris 8' engine.

There are some interesting drawings of it by Issigonis in Jon Pressnell's book 'Morris Minor - the official photo album' - that gives you a bit more of the history of it. Love the idea the guy you met actually believed that Morris were going to fit the engine of a car commissioned by Hitler though, given that the Minor was developed at least in part during the war!!! As Chesney says, and according to what I've read, the sidevalve was used instead mainly due to cost, but also because the flat four had reliability issues.

Nothing new about stealing the Germans' ideas. BSA pinched the design of the DKW to create the Bantam. Russia and China did likewise with the BMW motorcycle - the latter still does.
I woner what the logistics of fitting the VW engine would be?

The boot isn't big enough

I suspect a bit of tongue in cheek there. I mean the boot in the front.

At the end of the war German industrial products were up for grabs as war reparations for the allies. BSA had the Bantam design and Bristol had the BMW car. The VW was touted around but no one could see the merit of it. Rootes inspected one but decided to go on making Hillman Minxes instead. Bad move!

I understood that Morris, who was getting old by then and a bit set in his ways, refused to meet development costs of the new flat engine and insisted on using the 8 motor. Cars were in short supply after the war so there was little incentive to innovate and Morris was very reluctant to replace the Eight series E at all.

I've heard of a Subaru engine being fitted in a Minor so unless a Beetle engine is any wider it should fit. Bit why stop there - a Porsche engine fits in a Beetle

There are quite a lot of impreza engines in VW beetles especially beach buggies

I'm quite glad my beetle engine is at the back,it seems to leave the noise behind me! Not sure I'd enjoy sitting behind it...

The engine in my T2 camper is further away still, which is even better!!

I saw an Alfa sud engine in a van at Gaydon in 2013 and it looked as though it was made for it