Austin A40 Farina

[Johnspex]

I've just watched a bit of the Goodwood revival on TV and it made me wonder this; why was the (IMHO) ugly old fashioned Morris Minor so much more popular than the similarly engined pretty modern A40 Farina?

[2xChevrons]

Johnspex said:

I've just watched a bit of the Goodwood revival on TV and it made me wonder this; why was the (IMHO) ugly old fashioned Morris Minor so much more popular than the similarly engined pretty modern A40 Farina?

Outside the realm of racing and raillying, the A40 was the 'old fashioned' one and the Minor was more modern, even though it was launched well before.

The A40 is just an A35 (which itself is just a 1951-launched A30) with an (admittedly very pretty) Farina-styled body on top and a slightly longer wheelbase/track. The early ones still had the archaic hydro-mechanical brakes and they all have pre-war cam-and-peg steering and Zenith carburettors. While they are a few inches smaller than a Minor in each dimension they are way, way more cramped inside even allowing for that because they lack the Minor's excellent packaging principles which, conversely, give it much more space for its size - size-for-size the Morris is exceptionally spacious and the Austin is pokey.

These things are fairly subjective, but I think they're night and day to drive. The Morris with its long-travel and low-rate torsion bar front suspension, wide track, wheels-at-each-corner, low centre of gravity and lovely rack and pinion steering has far better ride, stability, roadholding and handling than the A40. While the 948cc and 1098cc A-Series engines are excellent (and from the Austin drawing board), they were always concurrently available in the A35/A40 and the Minor, while it's a pretty even chase between which was the least-bad in the older versions - the old-fashioned but bombproof Morris sidevalve in the low-light Minor or the modern but fragile 803cc A-Series with the tiny bearings and 'bent wire' crank.

I don't dislike the A40, and would happily have one to potter around in, but they feel like exactly what they are - a car with 1940s engineering and 1960s styling. Every time I drive a Minor I'm impressed with how modern they feel for their time. I would happily use a 1098cc Minor as a daily driver. I wouldn't use a Mk2 A40 in the same way. But as a long-time Midget fan I find a lot of appeal in the idea of a Mk2 A40 with Midget-spec suspension, engine and brakes.

For the record, they sold 342,162 A40s between 1958 and 1968, and in the same period they sold 743,244 Minors. Even if you tot up the entire production run of the A30, A35 and A40 you don't get close to the Minor's production total.

The tables turn when it comes to racing as, since both cars have the same engine, why wouldn't you choose the smaller, lighter, A40 against the heavier, draggier Minor? And because the A40's drivetrain and running gear was adapted for use on the A-H Sprite/MG Midget (with the notable exception of its steering rack, which was from the Minor and the brakes...) you can very easily turn a staid A40 into a serious performer, as the St. Mary's Trophy demonstrates every year. By contrast the Minor's parts bin was never used for a sports car so the supply of performance upgrades wasn't so good and the Minor's torsion bars (and the design of the kingpins) don't lend themselves quite so well to the stresses of high-speed racing.

The survival rate of Minors is also much better because by the time it ended production it already had a dedicated and established enthusiast following, which the A40 didn't. The supply of parts, servicing and expertise was there to keep old Minors around. The Minor also benefited from being followed by the Marina which used a lot of the same engineering but with the benefit of a bigger 1275cc engine and front disc brakes, so it was easy to modernise and improve an old Minor using bits from a clapped-out example of its 'replacement'. Meanwhile the A40 served as the Marina equivalent to the more popular, characterful and 'classic' A30/A35, with rusted A40s being pillaged to provide improved engines, gearboxes and brakes to the older models - or to supply such parts to keep a Minor 1000 on the road.

Basically the Minor is a much better road car for the sort of market that bought the cars when new, even if it takes a lot more effort to make one into a decent racer, and was much better served in its days before attaining true classic status, hence why there are so many more around now.

[Johnspex]

Blimey. Now that's what you call an answer.
Thanks.

[Keep it stiff]

An early memory of mine makes me smile, and we are talking 50+ years ago. My mum purchased eggs from a man who delivered. The eggman came to our address every week in an A40 with the boot lid open/horizontal and piled up with egg trays leaving me in awe as to his ability to drive from address to address like that without eggs falling off.

I'm not sure that the Jordans would be so fast if they tried the same feat!

[Riley Blue]

2xChevrons said:

Outside the realm of racing and raillying, the A40 was the 'old fashioned' one and the Minor was more modern, even though it was launched well before.

<snip>

Thanks for one of the most informative and well written replies I've ever read on PH.

[Dogwatch]

Johnspex said:

Blimey. Now that's what you call an answer.
Thanks.

A40 was my first car.

[The Don of Croy]

[quote=Johnspex... pretty modern A40 Farina...
[/quote]

They're not so pretty after you plough into a jack-knifed HGV;



- as my Grandad discovered in 1960. I think it was Grandma that broke the windscreen...never travelled in the front seat of a car again.

In fact her hat was probably the crumple zone - Grandad's is still on the rear parcel shelf.

[Dr Jekyll]

Riley Blue said:

2xChevrons said:

Outside the realm of racing and raillying, the A40 was the 'old fashioned' one and the Minor was more modern, even though it was launched well before.

<snip>

Thanks for one of the most informative and well written replies I've ever read on PH.

+1

I've always assumed the A40 was as modern as it looks, really interesting to know the story.

[WyrleyD]

I had a 1966 1098cc model in fetching blue/green with a black roof, drove it all around France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland in 1968 with 4 up and loads of camping gear (it was on the bump stops from the minute we set off), wore out a set of tyres and brakes on that trip but by summer 1970 it succumbed to terminal rust as the "A" pillars started to separate from the body and the sills had disintegrated into brown powder. Loved that car though.

[LuS1fer]

My first car was a 1098cc A40 Mk II. It was 12 years old and looked good though rust was eating it slowly, not helped by earlier "repairs" involving stuffing areas with now wet newspaper.

Nevertheless, I covered 30000 miles in 2 years and it never let me down once that I couldn't fix at the roadside. It was mercilessly thrashed.

The cart sprung rear liked to slide so I fitted welded rear 5.5" wheels and 165/70 "wide" tyres which improved things a lot. I also sawed half the length from the gearstick for a sportier feel and tossed the huge steering wheel for a 13" sports wheel.

It eventually bent when the sills rusted and jacking it in the central jacking point had little effect.

I thought it was a much better car than the Anglia 105E and it's replacement, a Mk II Corrina 1300 was a big disappointment, in comparison. Swopped that for a Viva 1800 but not even that instilled the affection I had for the A40 with it's fold flat rear seats and big interior.

I never liked the Minor but around 1981 had the chance to drive one. I wasn't keen on the floor mounted pedals but was very surprised at how well it drove and steered. However, the Grandad looks remained it's weakness. The A40 was more MGB...

[85Carrera]

Riley Blue said:

Thanks for one of the most informative and well written replies I've ever read on PH.

+1

Have recently been interested in these having seen them race but wasn’t aware of the disparity between the Morris Minor and the A40.

[RONV]

the a40 farina club has a great following and a spares system and lots use them ever day as local transport and some use them in motorsport and have had good results at Goodwood revival, this is mine I may start using it for everyday use the only thing it has a SCCR gearbox and is quite noisy for road use but tax and mot free.

[RONV]

[RONV]

[Riley Blue]

Looks like that has a bit more than just a SCCR gearbox, what's the full spec?

[carboy2017]

Wow one of the best and comprehensive replies on PH ,thanks!

personally I prefer the Morris Minor to the A40 Farina and maybe partly due to the fact of growing up in Sri Lanka where the Morris Minor was a very very common car then and there were A40s too but people didnt like the Farina version but alwasy swore by the A40 Devon

2xChevrons said:

Outside the realm of racing and raillying, the A40 was the 'old fashioned' one and the Minor was more modern, even though it was launched well before.

..........................

Basically the Minor is a much better road car for the sort of market that bought the cars when new, even if it takes a lot more effort to make one into a decent racer, and was much better served in its days before attaining true classic status, hence why there are so many more around now.

[LuS1fer]

carboy2017 said:

A40 Devon

The Indian continent has always ascribed more status to cars with a proper boot.

[AMGSee55]

I had always assumed that the A40 Farina had mod-cons such as fully hydraulic brakes and R&P steering in common with the Minor. Hadn't appreciated that they carried over the rod brakes and cam/peg steering from the A30/35.

We learn something every day!!

[2xChevrons]

Glad my (wordy!) reply was useful/interesting to people. I think a lot of people somewhat dismiss the Minor because it was never built or sold as anything other than a sensible, practical, low-performance small saloon. Worthy, but quite dull. The 1940s 'airsmoothed' looks (cribbed from a Packard Clipper and the Buick Y-Job concept car) dated really quickly and then it got caught up in the district nurse/maiden aunt stereotypes and decades of Minor Travellers appearing on Nation Trust calendars and Antiques Roadshow title sequences.

It was actually one of the most advanced small cars in the world when it was launched and the likes of Ford and Vauxhall didn't really catch up with the Minor's roadholding and packaging until 20 years later. The A40 was/is by no means a bad car - it's a great, straightforward, simple, good-looking small car and they sold a lot of them on that basis - it just belonged to a previous generation of design and engineering which the Minor completely surpassed. But it's precisely because the A40 was smaller, narrower, more old-fashioned and less sure-footed that it was preferred for sporting purposes. Like James Hunt and his hotted-up A35 van which is basically the same machine under the body.

LuS1fer said:

I never liked the Minor but around 1981 had the chance to drive one. I wasn't keen on the floor mounted pedals but was very surprised at how well it drove and steered. However, the Grandad looks remained it's weakness. The A40 was more MGB...

That was always the consistent complaint about the Minor in its later years. One of the only genuine mechanical improvements the A40 introduced over the A35 was the switch to modern pendant-style pedals. The Minor kept them right to the end, including a brake master cylinder mounted directly to the pedal linkage under the floor which is a PITA to change and prone to seizing up with road muck.

RONV - That is a lovely A40 you have there, and I second requests for more info on its spec. It's the sort of thing I'd love to build at some point, although I had a friend at uni who had a Mk2 A40 with a 1275cc Midget engine and Midget brakes which he used for road rallying and autotests with silly knobbly tyres. That was fun to drive but seriously skittish on tarmac!

AMGSee55 said:

I had always assumed that the A40 Farina had mod-cons such as fully hydraulic brakes and R&P steering in common with the Minor. Hadn't appreciated that they carried over the rod brakes and cam/peg steering from the A30/35.

The original A40 Farina still had the hydro-mechanical brakes, the Mk2 in 1961 had proper brakes and gained an SU carb (the Mk1s had a Zenith as a lingering hangover from the days when SU was part of the Morris empire so Austin were loath to fit them, even though the two merged seven years before the A40 was launched...) but always had the cam-and-peg steering box which was a design dating back to the 1930s Austin Twelve.

carboy2017 said:

personally I prefer the Morris Minor to the A40 Farina and maybe partly due to the fact of growing up in Sri Lanka where the Morris Minor was a very very common car then and there were A40s too but people didnt like the Farina version but alwasy swore by the A40 Devon

Morris did very well at getting a thriving export/assembly market going in the Indian subcontinent - obviously the Series II/III Oxfords built by Hindustan, which also built the Minor as the 'Hindustan Baby'. I'm pretty sure the Minor was never assembled in Sri Lanka, it was just very popular - popular enough for Charles Ware and Dhana Samarasekera to start up the Durable Car Company building panels and body parts for Minors to keep them going both in Sri Lanka and the UK (and elsewhere, of course).

Although it had the same model number the A40 Devon was a completely different animal to the A40 Farina - much bigger, 1.2-litre engine (which became the B-Series), still a body-on-frame design. Designed specifically for export markets and it was (briefly) the best-selling imported car in the USA before the Beetle got into its stride. It was developed into the A40 Somerset and then replaced by the A40/A50/A55 unitary-construction Cambridge series. The base-model A40 Cambridge was dropped in 1957, just in time for the A35 to be upgraded into the Farina-styled A40 version.

[Bevan IMP]

Have to say that an A40 is not really my thing !
However the opportunity recently came up to buy my dads original race car built my my grandfather for him to race in 1964-66.
Totally Original and untouched for 50 years it deserved to be saved.
In its day it raced at Goodwood and held the up-to 1000cc lap record at Brands.
Now the hard bit comes to rebuild it and return it back to the race track.