If anyones after a full set of Austin Cooper S badging, contact me.

Front & rear, all new

It would have been difficult to route a LCB

I remember my Dad (worked at Zetland) saying that the NZ'ers just didn't like the Morris brand, or at least the Morris branded cars didn't sell that well but the Austins sold better.

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68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

Austin's were simply better before the merger. My fathers 1950 Austin A40's have the first engine in that family. The A series and B series are very much scaled copies (A series is physically smaller, and the B series physically bigger. The A40 engine sits in the middle size wise).

Morris only had side valve motors...

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What your dad told you is not too true, I believe Morris well outsold Austin here with Minis. The truth is that there were Austin Dealers and Morris dealers. Both were keen to sell any new car so badging was common enough. Of course, it only became possible after the forming of BMC. There were other examples in England, I know Morris Minor Vans were sold as Austins and Austin A60 utes were badged Morris. Austin Cambridge/Morris Oxford, Austin/Morris 1100 etc etc.

I suppose inter-dealer and marque competition offers greater market penetration and sales in the end, something BMC would have been quite keen on!

Al

Morris Motors/Nuffield/Mowog had a wide range of motors.
They had the side valves in the Minor and Oxford.
Overhead valves in the MG and Wolseley.
Overhead camshaft in Morris and Wolseley.
Twin cams in Riley.

A much wider range than Austin had.

My dad had a 1948 Morris 10, the engine was OHV, a single carb version of that in an MG TC-TD-TF (1250).
No siamesed inlet ports either...

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Sounds like an earlier version of the Ford V Holden thing.

My uncle had an Austin A40 back in the 50s. The Morris 10 went harder, and dad said less bits fell off it.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

My old man had a Austin Seven (sedan).
Got shunted up the back by an FJ one evening in King William Road, Adelaide
All it's wheels fell off & it landed on its belly.
Dad caught the bus home.

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

Probably my recollection is round the wrong way around. I just remember him commenting that one brand outsold the other even though they were virtually identical.

Brand loyalty is a powerful thing.

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68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

I have heard both stories,

The gearbox issue I have heard is that they had no idler gear in the orange boxes which meant they had 2 large transfir gears, the rotational mass of which was too high for the baulk rings to cope with. Adding the third idler gear reduced the rotational mass....

The gearbox issue sounds more plausible as a reason to make such a major change, I am sure they could have sorted out the carb icing issue if that was the only problem.

However I think the truth is a bit more involved... From my experience a change like that would only have been made after a lot of consideration of all the affected factors, including, as mentioned, exhaust route, dizzy access, carb clearance, gearbox etc. and also from experience and lessons learnt from the first orange boxes (sometimes refered to as Atribute prototypes these days).