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Transverse-engined Minor
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:41 pm    Post subject: Transverse-engined Minor Reply with quote

A new one on me, I wonder whether it's an ancient conversion never completed, or if it has actually run on the road in this configuration (fwd presumably?)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403184722310



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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6283
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very interesting. I wonder what it would drive like.?

The Morris Minor handles reasonably well with r.w.d. - I imagine it would be even better with fwd.?

Someone with imagination has given it a go. (You would , however, suffer the same problem as a mini/1100 with water getting in the dizzy.

If I had nothing else to do I WOULD bid for it.
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alastairq



Joined: 14 Oct 2016
Posts: 1950
Location: East Yorkshire

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I seem to recall, that the original concept [Issigonis?] Minor was originally intended to be front wheel drive? WHich accounts for the large engine bay?
I also seem to think that other original engine for the Minor was a flat 4?
I haven't researched these snippets at all, merely relying on memory , which I must have read somewhere, decades ago?
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Crashbox



Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Posts: 139

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Absolutely correct about the 'Mosquito' as Morris Motors Chairman, Miles Thomas, wanted it to be called. Issigonis had developed a flat-4 with an 800cc capacity for Home-Market sales, and a 1100cc for Export-Markets, both driving the front wheels. The test engines were always having issues so they were replaced quite late in the development stage by a slightly improved version of the Morris Eight Series-E side-valve. The front-wheel-drive was abandoned at the same time. The Mosquito name was dropped at the insistence of Lord Nuffield, who wanted the car to be named the Minor. The Wolseley Wasp was killed off altogether.

Issigonis and Miles Thomas always believed the flat-4 engines had been sabotaged by someone at the Works, as they were a step too far for the ageing Lord Nuffield.
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Peter_L



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: New Brunswick. Canada.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am confident that it's a DIY conversion. The prototype Mini's ran looking like an A30 way back about 1958-9. The engine had the carb/exhaust at the front and plugs at the back, but because of carb freezing and access to distributor and plugs it was turned 180 deg. That is much later MM body.
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6283
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does it look like cooling might be a problem?
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Crashbox



Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Posts: 139

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Definitely a DIY conversion. No Cowley-built FWD Minors ever left the factory. It's a real shame. It would have been a proper world-beater if the original concept had been allowed to mature and come to market. Even the rear suspension would have been fully independent with torsion bars instead of the leaf springs the Minor ended up with.
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
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Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think there was one of those Austin badged Minor vans that used the 848cc engine, (8G) although not transverse. It may only have been an option on GPO vans.

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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6283
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since we are talking Morris Minors; I assume, with torsion bar suspension, the ride height can be easily adjusted?

I would think the ride height could quite usefully loose an inch without spoiling...
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Penman



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
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Location: Swindon, Wilts.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would have thought that the flat four would have needed a wider engine bay than the inline upright four and yet they added 4 inches to the Mosquito to make the MM & Minor.
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perhaps if the Minor had been given a better engine and made transverse drive it would have been a Beetle squasher.?
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Crashbox



Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Posts: 139

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The flat-4 engines were quite compact. The Minor outsold the Beetle during the early years of sales in the US but the formation of BMC soon brought that to an end. Len Lord wanted Austin to be the dominant force in the NA market. Sadly, the Longbridge models were not as well-received across the Pond. They were trying to flog the Yanks the A90 Atlantic when they should have been concentrating on selling smaller cars for the American housewife to do the shopping in. That's the market VW targeted early on.
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bob2



Joined: 06 Dec 2007
Posts: 1727
Location: Malta

PostPosted: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The engine on that minor is an A+ from the 80's and if the red colour of the engine is the original factory colour, it is a 1275 (non MG as it has a 1.5inch Su and not the HIF44) from a Metro.
Even the radiator and electric fan etc are all taken off a Metro, probably from the very same car that donated the engine.
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