Cugel wrote: 26 Feb 2026, 12:56pm
PDQ Mobile wrote: 26 Feb 2026, 10:33am
On the Morris Minor issue.
The reason many people hung onto their Minors is simplicity and repairability.
The vehicle is super basic yet offers reasonable comfort for short trips and will happily achieve over 40 mpg.
(Weighs less than 800 kgs.)
And the old things are actually quite fun to drive.
A fair few have now been converted to electric.
Anyone still running a Minor, and can do their own repairs, will not see wheels or gearboxes "fall off" but rather will simply have probably the lowest running costs of ANY vehicle on the roads of the UK today!
(Even if value is not taken into account.)
319 years ago, when I were a student living in a hovel many miles from the uni, I had a girlfriend who was one of the very few students in them days who could afford to run a car. (There were about 23 of them in the whole uni with cars, at the time). The moggie was a favourite student car as there were dozens of clapped out ones for sale at not that much. They soon got clapped out, unless one spent a lot of time or money or both keeping them going.
The incidents of a gearbox falling in the road and losing a wheel actually occurred in the girlfriend's mog when I was in it! It wasn't the only incident involving bits coming off, as mudguards, headlights. a door and other more mysterious parts were prone to go their own way from time to time.
40mpg!? Hmmmm - I recall it becoming an issue, the paying for petrol, as the thing seemed to drink it like a retired colonel at the port. It also drank nearly as much oil as it did petrol, regurgitating quite a bit on to wherever it was parked, with the rest creating a cloud of black out the back that would now be called "rolling coal".
British engineering at its best! It needed to be repairable, all right. Constantly.
Well I'll stick up for the much maligned Minor.
Like any old car if you don't service it, it will have failures.
These £50 quid bangers of yours were doubtlessly abused (but loads of fun))
Students are probably some of the worst offenders in that regard, no money and busy servicing other things.
The threaded front kingpin on a Minor is a classic example - grease it regularly or it will drop.
Nearly always on a tight lock at slow speed because of worn thread.
However kept greased it is durable enough.
Pat Moss completed the1957 (27th overall against much bigger cars) Rome- Liege- Rome rally in a Minor mainly because of it's ruggedness on the poor roads of the time.
I have crossed the Continent many times in a Minor, Chamonix, Alpine passes and down to the Med.
Summer and winter.
Never had a big issue.
Never needed a rescue or a garage.
A Minor in good fettle driven steadily will achieve 40mph on a run easily.
And it won't smoke or leak oil.
The Minor is a much better vehicle than the A35.
Some less than 10 year old cars also smoke badly- it's mostly about maintenance.
When the Nissan Leaf reaches 20 years old tell us how reliable and economically viable it still is.
