Talk:Morris Minor

Burbling Sound

The article on the Morris Minor probably needs to mention the very distinctive and characteristic burbling sound made by the engine when it is on over-run - ie when you take your foot off the throttle while going downhill. I'm not sure where the best place is to mention this.

American Sales

It says in the article the bureaucracy within the Morris company impacted sales in US, how exactly? If the front wings/headlamps were redesigned to comply with US legislation what problems existed with regards to successful sales.

If you consider the VW Beetle and Renault Dauphine sold in reasonable numbers in the US in the 50's/60's what were the internal management problems that prevented the Minor from doing so, as it is in many ways a far better car than them both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.206.254 (talk) 23:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Exporting to the US is a complicated business because there are so many population centers. With Canada or Australia, once you've covered half a dozen cities, you've more or less got 90% of your potential market covered. With the US you need a much more extensive dealership network. Half hearted one toe in the water approaches to exporting to the US don't really work. If you remember, the Dauphines sold in reasonable numbers but not for very long (and then there was something to do with corrosion...) VW took a more strategic view and carefully built up a strong dealership network. (And they had those brilliant adverstisements in the 1960s - guess they got lucky with their agency, or was it skill / judgement?) A decent dealership network is a sine qua non of long term export success in the US. Ask Toyota or Honda. BMC in the 1950s didn't really do strategic, and they always seem to have had problems developing a professional, stable and loyal dealership network in continental Europe, so that even with sophisiticated models, their chief competitive advantage was price: I suspect it was the same in the US. You have to sell cheap, and so, belatedly, you notice you're not making any money on the deal, and just as you're maybe beginning to build up long terms relations with your better dealers, the bean counters come along and pull the plug. Ten years later, new managements having learned nothing from the experiences of the last lot, repeat the whole exercise. Remember the Austin America (ADO 16) and the Rover Sterling?

You need consistency and time to build relationships with your dealers (as, indeed, with your customers). So the proper answer to your question is long and complex. But here's a para before breakfast that I think may give you a pointer or two... Regards Charles01 (talk) 06:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Soft-top

I don't know if any of the people who edit this page are interested, but there's a 1967 (or thereabouts) Morris Minor soft-top parked outside my work building. Anyone need a picture? I can blur out the reg number if anyone's worried about that sort of thing (it's not my car). --El Pollo Diablo (Talk) 14:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

1948, and other questions

It seems notable that the car came onto the market only a few years after WW2; given that car production had ceased during the war (as far as I remember), had the basic design been in the works since the late 1930s, or was it strictly a post-war project? The body style looks ancient by modern standards, but was it up-to-date in '48? It might be out of the scope of the article, how did Austin expect to sell the car to a nation in the grip of rationing; and how did the people of Britain perceive the car? Was it an aspirational consumer durable, or was it just another cheap car amongst many others that are forgotten nowadays? The article would benefit from a short paragraph outlining the competition, assuming there was any, perhaps explaining with references why the Minor remained popular whilst other cars faded away. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

These are all good questions. Since I have several books about the Morris Minor, plus I've owned 4 of them in my life, my plan is to extensively expand the article and provide references. To very briefly answer a few of your questions, yes, Alec Issigonis worked on the prototype -- then called the Mosquito -- of the Minor before and during WWII. The intent in the immediate postwar period was primarily to export the car to the US, Canada, Australia and other countries. Relatively few of the cars were sold in Britain at that time. The Morris Minor was indeed very up-to-date in 1948. Otherwise, it's unlikely to have remained in production until 1971.Armona (talk) 03:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Links to Club branches

As an active member of both the National and my local Morris Minor club and an owner of three Morris Minors I was saddened to see vandalism of this page- that someone had deleted the links to five local branches. Please, if you do not own a Morris Minor and are not part of the club do not deface the Morris Minor page by deleting links. You do not have the knowledge of this subject to judge what is and what is not appropriate. Please leave the editing of this page to us Morris Minor experts. regards John —Preceding unsigned comment added by Funkychickenjohn (talk • contribs) 13:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

No, not vandalism - but an attempt to keep the list of external links within a reasonable compass, and which I explained in my edit summary and at User talk:Funkychickenjohn. Please see WP:EL, WP:SPAM, WP:NOTLINKS, not to mention WP:OWN. I will not delete it again for the moment (note WP:3RR), but I invite someone else to do so - and I suggest that Funkychickenjohn would do well to read those poilcy pages. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 13:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I have removed it again. Before reinstating it, I suggest it would be sensible to discuss here whether it is desirable to include a link to every branch and every local club around the world. Why pick out East Kent, from all the possibilities? How long a list would you like? It very quickly falls foul of WP:linkspam, not to mention common sense. Surely better to link just to the national associations. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 09:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

For Morris credibility, I've owned Morrises for 17 years.. As for the idea that there should be links to every individual Morris Minor club in the Morris Minor article, no. There's no reason to link to individual clubs in the external links section. Where on earth would you stop?—Kww(talk) 15:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Morris Minors in Ceylon/Sri Lanka

I remember that back in the 1970s there were a lot of locally assembled Morris Minors in Ceylon (as we in England then knew Sri Lanka). Does anyone have access to a source that would permit the creation of a brief para on Morris Minors assembled (I would imagine, at least initially, using CKD kits) in Sri Lanka? Regards Charles01 (talk) 17:09, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Charles Ware's morris minor centre nr bath/bristol, uk, has a factory in sri lanka that builds body panels, etc. maybe someone there could find someone who has knowledge of production abroad. also it may be worth a mention in the morris minor today section that they have a Series 3 morris that brings all key areas to a slightly more modern standard (not too much of course otherwise it wouldn't be a minor!) cheers zac —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.12.4.46 (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)