Vintage Minor Register

So out of the blue I have had to make room today for a 1962 Sprite in the garage! A friend at Boeing is getting rid of it, and I have been half seriously looking for one for some time. I owned a 1974 Sprite thirty years ago before I got married and that was one of the best cars I ever owned and drove. It was a pure joy to drive hard through the twisting lanes of Cornwall. The time has come to have another one. Now before you all tell me that they stopped making Sprites in 1971, I should add that the '74 Sprite I had was actually the mechanics from a '71 Sprite fitted into a new 1974 Midget body shell. MG sold off a bunch at the end of chrome bumper production. The hybrid that resulted was registered in 1974 as TAH 174N (which I see from the DVLA website is still around - I wonder where?). I bought it off a 7 Sqn Canberra pilot at RAF St Mawgan when I was stationed there around 1980, and reluctantly replaced it with Mk IV Cortina estate ( ) once married and the children came along.

Anyway, here it is:





It has been uprated with a 1275 c.c. engine, later gearbox and front disk brakes, but comes with all the original parts. As a Mk II, its considerably earlier than my old 1971/74 Spridget. Although a little scruffy it does drive and I can't wait to do so. It has been in this family for the past 35 years, always garaged and spent much of its time in New Mexico, so there is very little rust. So it should at some point make a very good basis for a full strip down and rebuild - but not until some of the other projects get completed.

What I find amazing is that when I was at University back in the summer of 1976, I sold my first car - a 1968 Triumph Herald and bought a 1937 Morris 8 tourer, which seemed unbelievably ancient. It was an incredible 39 years old. But this Sprite is actually 49 years old, but doesn't seem anything like that - I guess because I grew up with them when they were new. Funny how time plays tricks with your mind.

So a question - has anyone got any experience of early Sprites/Midgets? I gather that the mechanics share much commonality with the Austin A40 and Morris 1000. Incredibly, having owned well over 100 cars in my time, I have never owned a post-war Minor - yet!

I had a 1959 Turner which was basicaly 948 cc sprite / A35 bits in a purpose made ladder frame with a fibreglass body which weighed 11 cwt and never did less than 48 mpg however hard it was driven. I did however break two cranks in it because there was a wide gap between second and third in the early gearboxes.

I guess the question I have is whether to revert it to its 1962 spec. with 948 c.c. engine, early gearbox and front drums. It seems to me that the mods. are all good ones, and the original parts have been saved and will definitely stay with the car. It should certainly be more enjoyable to drive with the 1275 c.c. engine, and the front disks are an obvious safety improvement (although I think I will be removing the ugly roll bar ). This got me thinking about our Minors - things like the brake mods (Bowden or hydraulics) in particular. The McEvoy has been converted to hydraulics and, as it is supposed to be good for 70 mph, does it make any sense to revert it to cables and pulleys? In this case, I don't have the original cable system (although I did collect a set of new pulleys, etc. from Ian Harris at Prescott). The decision is more difficult as the McEvoy is considerably more rare and historic than the Sprite. On the other hand, who around Seattle (apart from the Bormans ) is going to look at the Mc Evoy brakes and tell me they aren't correct. Americans don't have anoraks . I guess there is no 'right' answer - it's down to the owner - which I guess is the way it should be. Clearly, whatever we do, we should keep the original parts if we have them, and it's probably better to employ improved parts from later Minors than parts from other makes/models entirely. After all, William Morris upgraded the Minor each season in order to make a better Minor.

But wait, what about the radiator. Most would agree that the '32 SV radiator shell is easier on the eye than the '33. Both are perfectly interchangeable (with the front valence). I have one of each, so which will I fit? I don't think I have made the final decision yet.

Then there are mods. like skimming the head to improve performance - irreversible unless the head is replaced, but at least carried out in period by MG who upped the compression ration on the M to good effect, and an y mod that improves performance has to make our cars more practical and driveable in modern road conditions. There's noting worse than plugging up a hill in a Minor in first with a queue of impatient moderns behind and trying, riskily, to pass.

Then there are mods. like fitting a VW distributor to get around a scarcity of original ignition parts and doing away with manual advance/retard.

As I mentioned, my first Morris was a 1937 Morris 8 - it had been upgraded with a Wolseley Ten OHV engine (I think the same engine as in the MG TA? XPAG?), and it went like a scalded cat - you could spin the wheels in first and second off the lights. I bet this mod would definitely be frowned upon today, but it did make for a fun student hack and the extra grunt came in very useful climbing Bathwick Hill from Bath city centre up to the University on Claverton Down with five passengers onboard.

Enough rambling - time to get a couple of wheels off the McEvoy so I can get new inner tubes fitted. I need to get this and the fabric saloon mobile so I can move them around easier and I really want to start working seriously on servicing the fabric saloon and firing her up for the first time since 1974.

Has anyone else got any interesting mods. and gone through the same sort of thought processes? a 3/4.5 Bentley perhaps?

recently met a guy who had a 4 branch manifold made for his 8, he reckoned that the improvement was so marked that 2nd gear hills were now easily climbed in top. Interestingly in the latest morris register is the same mod on a sv minor that now does 70....

Glorious autumn morning this morning, so couldn't resist taking the Sprite for a blast.

Awesome !!