Morris Minor Owners Club

There is an interesting piece on mazac on Wikipedia. It outlines the history, development and uses .The prime merits are cheapness and ease of casting. The strength varies with the proportion of copper, which of course is the most expensive ingredient. There is a list of common applications, none of them requiring great strength.

I still maintain that the stresses on bonnet hinges are such that this is not a suitable material for them, hence the flying bonnet incidents I described in an earlier post. This also involves failure of the safety catch and that too is mazac. Case for the prosecution rests m’lud.

Maybe the split windscreen and the small rear window weren't such great ideas. They did do away with them once the 1000 came into production. The trafficators were also a bit old-fashioned for such an otherwise forward looking design - and they too were done away with later.
Of course, now, split windscreens and trafficators have a certain period charm................but on a practical level, they are somewhat lacking.

I was under the impression it was the earlier cars that didn't, and the later that did?

Certainly my 55 doesn't have them, my 71 does.

Large windows and flashing indicators came in during the mid fifties for most manufacturers. The large windows became possible for mass produced cars through developments in manufacture of curved glass. I don’t know why flashing indicators became standardised when they did but certainly the Minor was one of the last cars to adopt them (1962?).

In 1948 however small windows and trafficators the norm and not old fashioned at all.

Well, there were plenty of British cars with single-piece windscreens in the 40's. Maybe the split-screen was just a carry-over from the American cars that influenced Issigonis' design? And the trafficators were actually discontinued in August 1961.

The Minor styling is said to derive from the 1941 Chevrolet which has a split screen. There were one piece screens before that but they were not very large and stood vertically. The split screen allowed a greater glass area and also a degree of streamlining in an era when aerodynamics was becoming understood but large curved glass was not readily available.

Yes, and, even though I own a lovely SII, I do think the one-piece screen looks better on a Minor, as the split-screen looks a bit 'fussy' on such a small car. But as I said, split-screens do bestow a certain period charm to the older models, even though they are prone to leaks.....

RE the adjuster holes. Dropped I think because you could adjust without checking the state of the shoes, leading to scoring of drums