Product Description

The split screen, the indicators poking up like perspex orange fingers, the notoriously rust-prone floors, the pootling exhaust note...just some of the much-loved characteristics of the Morris Minor or Morris 1000. Designed by Sir Alec Issigonis back in 1948, in a sense it was Britain's answer to the Beetle - a bulbous little creation that was also Britain's first mass-appeal car. Between then and 1972 when production belatedly ceased some 1.6 million were built. There were variants like the Morris Traveller (timber-framed estate car) and the Morris Million (painted pink), while the convertible was another popular choice. For thousands of 'newly-marrieds', or penurious students, it was their first car. It was also the kind of car in which the district nurse did her rounds. In 2008, it is 60 years old, and Martin Wainwright (who proposed to his wife over the gear stick of a Morris Minor) gives us a quirky and fascinating history of this quintessentially British car. You'll find everything from the post-70s vogue for restoring and rebuilding Morris Minors (several garages still exist to do just that, to the alarming habit of their bonnets to open at speed and entirely obscure your vision, their unreliable trunnions, and not to mention the esoteric photo exhibition some years ago devoted to abandoned Morris Minors on the West Coast of Ireland. Martin Wainwright is the author of The Guardian Book of April Fool's Day, and editor of A Lifetime of Mountains and A Gleaming Landscape (all Aurum). He lives in Leeds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25700 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
`Packed with riveting MM information and anecdotes, this is the story of a remarkable product of British engineering, a gripping sliver of social history and above all a wonderful love story. What could be better?'
--Daily Mail, November 7, 2008

About the Author
Martin Wainwright is the author of The Guardian Book of April Fool's Day, and editor of A Lifetime of Mountains and A Gleaming Landscape (all Aurum). He lives in Leeds.

Customer Reviews

Excellent read
If you are into classic cars,and morris minors in particular,you will love this book from start to finish.From such humble begginings to production of well over one million cars,the book not only tells the story of the history of the classic minor,but shares the many stories from its wide number of owners,both past and present.I loved it !

very good to read about the car and production details
the car is one story but the pople that made it completes the picture for me JKH

Competent literary fast-food
Feel-good journalism remains just feel-good journalism even when removed from the realms of weekly or monthly magazines and projected onto a whole book. Such is the case with this biography of a favourite historic car, the Minor. The book offers little in the form of structured information, but it was a pleasant read on a long train trip. As such it is not without its possible uses - like there are times when McDonalds is just the place to eat - but I did not want to keep the book for reference and found an appropriate place to "forget" (leave) it after reading.