The Morris Minor Is The Perfect First Classic Car! (1967 Minor 1000 Road Test)

[Music] there are some cars that define the classic car scene cars that for whatever reason have captured enthusiasts imagination for decades and survive in big numbers to this day the mgb obviously the mini naturally and yep the morris miner one of the reasons why the morris miner is so loved is because of what it represented with its bare bones no frills design it was cheap enough that for a lot of people it was their first entry into car ownership what's more no matter what you wanted your morris miner to be there was a variant for you the two-door saloon like this one a four-door saloon the wood frame traveler estate my personal favorite a convertible and even a van it was ubiquitous enough to sell over 1.3 million morris miners in its life and many of them survived to this day but why do so many people love the little moggy so very much i think the main reason is that it just makes you smile if you're used to anything even vaguely modern we're talking built in the last 40 years modern the morris minor is a properly old school experience i'm wearing a microphone right now but you can still probably hear you can hear everything as it's going on i can hear the engine i can hear the gearbox i can hear the wind pelting the outside of the car and just because the windows are up that doesn't stop every single bit of noise from outside getting into the cabin if you're not used to driving classics a morris miner will teach you everything you need to know the steering is actually surprisingly direct but not much going on in the way of feel and nothing going on in the way of power assistance ditto the brakes they're not bad because it's a very small very light car there's not much to pull up but there is no servo assistance and that means all of the braking strength is you what's more changing gears there's no synchro in first so you can't go into first while you're still moving you have to be at a dead stop before you go into it and double d clutching is going to be your best friend on the downshifts then there's the suspension torsion bar suspension is fairly common to use at the back of a car for example our peugeot 205 has got torsion bars at the back but the miner has got torsion bars all around and that makes for some slightly interesting handling characteristics i wouldn't call it planted and i wouldn't want to be driving at much more than about 50 miles an hour because it starts to get very skatey and because of those torsion bars it's quite bouncy as well double the clutch third gear there we go see if you do it and do it right it's satisfying and that's why the morris miner is possibly the perfect first classic because it teaches you all these things about old cars it teaches you their foy balls it teaches you the problems that you have to work around because the technology wasn't there to do it for you another thing morris miner teaches you is patience this is not a fast car even in its biggest engine 1098 cc guys you're still not going to be getting to 60 much under 20 seconds so don't try and go quickly relax and enjoy its charms at low speed i don't know if you can tell but even though i'm not really going very fast i'm still having a huge amount of fun because there's so much involvement and it's not just the driving experience that makes the morris miner arguably the perfect starter classic it's the ownership prospect as well the club scene is enormous the parts supplies are plentiful the people with knowledge are almost infinite if you jump online and look in the forums and go to all the owners club meetings and actually maintaining it yourself you learn so much about old car ownership maintaining a carburetted engine keeping that suspension in good health even making sure all the chrome work is still straight and true it's a car that you genuinely can get your hands stuck into and learn a little bit double d clutch into third there we go oh sweet little engine and if you drive it with just a little bit of finesse rewarding as well but what's it actually like to own a morris miner if you fancy getting into one as your first classic car what's it like well to find out let's talk to simon editor of classics monthly who owns this rather lovely morris miner there's a chap and a morgan three wheeler just gone the other way i really hope that was on camera when i was about 14 15 the miner was the car i always wanted then luckily i never got one because the the idea at the time was to put big wheels on the back and fur around the dashboard so it would have been absolutely horrendous there's still a car you can drive on a regular basis today they uh yeah they're not quickest they're not ideal motorway cruisers but for general traffic they're brilliant power supplies you can choose from half a dozen suppliers that can give you everything you need for a very low price the club is brilliant very active very enthusiastic you've got whitworth spanners that you need to use even though the threads are unf so that can catch people out but yeah they're so easy there's information out there on them workshop manuals they're brilliant within the club there's a good youth movement you've got backup car itself is so easy to work on you can see everything you can access everything so yeah i can't think of many better ones to to go for to be honest i couldn't agree with simon moore as a first classic car proposition if you want to learn about cars from the 50s and 60s the morris miner is almost unrivalled in the uk at least the parts and club support is enormous and you can always get the part you want or the bit of advice you need working on them is easy and it's a good car to get your hands dirty with to learn all these old car skills and when you finished working on it you can have a go driving it and when you do there's not many cars that will put such a grin on your face at such modest speeds so then if you fancy yourself a classic car to start off to get into the scene something you can learn on something you can work on and something that gives you a flavor of times gone by there really is no drive finer than a morris miner [Music] you

Channel: Classics World

Views: 63,367

Keywords: morris, minor, morris minor, a series, morris 1000, classic car, vintage car, retro car, british car, driving classic cars, future classic, first classic car, classic british car, peoples car, historic cars, british leyland, bmc, classic car buyer, classics world, classics monthly

Id: A5oh88dKDJM

Length: 6min 21sec (381 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 25 2020