STORY OF OUR BELOVED MOGGIE
Love at First Sight
On a sunny day in the spring of 1968, I, as a four old curious boy, holding the hand of my father, stepped out of the Rawalpindi Railway station. In the vast parking area, what I saw was countless numbers of small cars , idle or moving, presenting an unusual mix of yellow and black, like the countless spots on a Dalmatian. This car with a pot-belly resembling the tummy of a smiling Buddha was so awesome that I had a crush on her. My father told me that she was Rawalpindi�s famous Morris taxi-the black car with yellow top.
From 1969 to 1983, I did not have a chance to visit Rawalpindi again. Throughout this long period, as I was growing up, I never spotted a Morris Minor in Sargodha, where I had stayed for most of the time. I even did not see it in Lahore, where I would spend my summer vacations.
It was in September 1983, when I moved to Rawalpindi for my studies. I discovered with great amusement that hundreds of Morris Minor-my puppy love-, in , were on road. I also found a few enthusiasts, mostly senior citizens, still maintaining their Minors as private cars.
During the next 6 years, I never missed a chance to enjoy a ride in Morris Minor. Once in a week, I would walk to the Abpara taxi stand in Islamabad, stop by a Morris taxi and watch her exterior from every possible angle. Minor�s geometrical proportions inspired in me the ability to start appreciating the beauty in lines, curves, circles and conics. I also used to keenly inspect Minor�s interior, whenever I hired it for a ride, The dashboard with a speed meter in its center and a glove box on its each flank struck to me as the mantle piece in the sitting room of my grand father�s house. The arch in minor�s ceiling gave a sense of comfort and security which was only comparable to what one feels in a monastery of medieval times. I found it perplexing that why the glove section on the driver side did not have a lid and why this car, looking small from the outside, offers spaciousness from the inside. But no one had answers for these queries.
My acquaintance with Morris taxi drivers exposed to many axioms and teasers associated with this car. �One who learns how to a Morris can drive anything�. The Morris haters used to say �Morrus (Morris) long courus (course)�. This implied that a Morris never graduates from a workshop.
Over the years, I, involuntarily, memorized the numbers of all �good looking� Minors by heart. Although, I had never seen a Morris Minor manual, I knew by experience and observation as which taxi lacked what and which taxi had improvements.
Minor is cutie-ful
To me, Morris Minor, in its appearance, is geometry personified. Morris, exuding femininity, resembles a chubby looking pretty woman with innate grace. Her body has multiple contours manifesting in slopes, curves, and roundness. Curves are unthreatening, gentle, reassuring something in us. Still there is some subtle oddity in her profile. But this oddity brings to her looks a kind of domesticity-a direct opposite of glamour- which makes her an adorable person. On a more polite tone, I would say that she is a song in an off beat composition.
Our eyes groomed in the classical perspective of beauty, which associate grandeur with size, finds something out of synch in a Morris Minor as we look at her from the front. Perhaps, her majestic looking bonnet, with two curvedly rotund fenders on the flanks, abruptly ends where the eyes want it to continue for a few more inches. I have often thought that Morris would have been much prettier with a little extra length of her bonnet.
The geometry of Minor does not end with her exterior. They are geometrical even from inside. Just see her dashboard, which looks like the sort of 1950s mantelpiece- a chap might lean against to light his pipe, after a hard day double entry book keeping, while his obedient wife boils the sprouts for 45 minutes. So perhaps Minors remind us of what we might fancy was a less stressful age.
Our vehicle belongs to the second last batch of improvements- 4 door with a 998cc engine 1964.
Although all models have their enthusiasts, it would be reasonable to suggest that the Minor 1000s are the most popular, although the early sidevalve models have collector appeal. The 803cc-engined vehicles are probably the least popular because the Austin engine was not exactly a ball of fire and the gearbox fitted to this model was a little fragile. Many Series 2 cars have been fitted with transplanted 948cc engines and gearboxes over the years, to improve their performance and reliability.
Owning a Morris is like having a pet hamster. If you don't feed it every day you feel guilty and so another part of the disease mutates in another direction and that is "Some day old Morrie I'm going to make it up to you, and fix you up, and you be all shiny and I'll take you for rides, and you will forgive me for neglecting you all these years"� syndrome. The day finally comes and I get the call or one of the other Representatives of the Club gets the call.
'1000' is probably the easiest of the Minors to live with today. Performance is adequate for all but high-speed motorways, the 1098cc is particularly useful. All round vision is excellent due to the large windows. The 948cc and 1098cc A-Series engines are generally very reliable, and will continue to work well even when neglected. The later models are usually fitted with heaters that were a vast improvement over the earlier non-recirculating and less efficient units.
A well maintained Minor 1000 still makes a great city car and occasional weekender, and can still be a practical, useable workhorse. And therein lies the major problem. Using a Minor as an everyday car is commonly thought to be cheap and simple, with reliability thrown in for good measure. Well, yes, and no.
Any Minor today will present the owner with a near-constant stream of chores to keep the car running in good order, although the younger '1000' is obviously going to be slightly easier to look after. Even the youngest Minor is now at least 25 years old and years of hard work and inattention can make even a Minor become unreliable. Simple things like accelerator return springs can break due to metal fatigue, brake drums become scored and warped through long use and overheating, grumbling gearboxes and whining diffs finally give up after years of sterling work.
The rights to the Morris badge is currently owned by MG Rover, who have inherited the remains of and BMC and BL. The Cowley assembly plant is now owned by BMW, who use it to assemble the New MINI. With MG Rover currently in receivership, it is not clear who will buy the Morris badge.
Page 2- All about Morris Minor
Page-3 Story of Morris Minor in Pakistan
Page-4 The Genius Behind Morris Minor
Page-5 Morris Minors-Ideas Unlimited
Page-6 Diversity of Mobility
