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They make all of the new MINI cars here.

During the 1960s the centre of Cowley was demolished and replaced with Templars Square shopping centre. In the same decade the railway between Princes Risborough and Oxford closed, but the track between Kennington Junction and Cowley remains open for freight in and out of the car factory.

Despite successive company mergers and name changes, "Morris's" is still often used as the name of the car factory to this day. In 1952 Morris Motors became part of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), in 1968 BMC became British Leyland, in the 1980s the group was known as Austin Rover, in the 1990s it was Rover Group and since 2001 the factory has been owned by BMW. But the name "Morris's" is ingrained in local culture and speech habits, particularly amongst older inhabitants.

By the early 1970s over 20,000 people worked in Cowley at the vast Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher plants. Unipart is also a major employer in Cowley, with premises next to the car factory.

Major restructuring of BL following the infamous Ryder Report saw the SD1 production line being moved to the former Morris plant in Cowley in 1981. Annoyingly for enthusiasts, many people refer to the SD1 as the SDi. The "SD" refers to "Specialist Division" and "1" is the first car to come from the in-house design team. "i" (commonly used in car nomenclature to identify fuel injection) is simply wrong in this case.

[edit] Mid-life facelift

Rover SD1 estate prototype, on display at the Heritage Motor CentreEarly in 1982, Rover unveiled the Cowley-built, facelifted line to the public. These cars benefited mostly from small cosmetic changes on the exterior as well as a quite extensively redesigned interior. Beginning car-spotters can distinguish the two series by the headlights, which were chrome-rimmed on the later, recessed on the earlier series, the deeper rear window, and by the C-posts, which were flat on later, ribbed on earlier cars. Other details, which are not as easy to assign include the rear wiper, the trim strip under the taillights, etc.

It was also the year when SD1 buyers could finally opt for a four-cylinder engine, since the two-litre BL O-Series engine of the Morris Ital was offered. It was definitely not a "shoehorn" job: the engine looked almost as if it could get lost in the huge engine bay designed to accept the V8. The engine was particularly aimed at company-car fleets where its size enabled it to beat a taxation threshold.

Another four-cylinder engine became available in the 2400 SD Turbo. This was the only diesel-engined SD1, utilising a motor from Italian VM Motori chosen for its petrol-like smoothness, and similar to that used in the Range Rover Turbo D model.

The crown of the SD1 model line-up was created when Rover introduced a fuel injected version of its V8. At first it was only offered in the Vitesse model (which was effectively the successor to the previous sports model, the V8-S), however it featured in standard American and Australian SD1 vehicles, to meet stricter emission control legislation. The injected V8 was later also offered in the luxury Vanden Plas, making it the Vanden Plas EFi. To meet the demands of the luxury executive car market, where automatic transmission tended to be preferred, Rover first offered an auto box as an option in the Vitesse, but later withdrew that check-box on the order form and lured the customers to the Vanden Plas EFi instead. This car had all the standard comforts of the Vitesse, such as electric mirrors, windows and locks, a trip computer, an adjustable steering column and a four-speaker stereo (something special at that time). Additionally it added leather seats, an electrically operated sunroof and cruise control. Very rare indeed are the "Twin Plenum" Vitesses; These had two throttle bodies mounted on the plenum chamber instead of one, and were produced in very small numbers as homologation for the twin plenum racers. Today they command quite a premium over the standard Vitesse.

The car was never marketed as the "SD1". The initial launch was for the 3500 only. A little over a year later the 2300 and 2600 were added; the V8-S was a short-lived model introduced later, and dropped before the first mild face-lift, after which the range was 2300, 2300 S, 2600 S, 3500 SE and 3500 Vanden Plas. The 2000 appeared at the time of the major facelift, with 2400 SD Turbo, 2600 SE, 2600 Vanden Plas, Vitesse and 3500 Vanden Plas EFi appearing at various times afterwards. At the very end of the life of the car the range was briefly reduced to 2300, 2600 Vanden Plas, and Vitesse.

[edit] Standard 2000
After its cancellation in the UK, the SD1 emerged very briefly in India as a Standard 2000. It was assembled at the now-defunct Standard Motor Products of India Ltd factory at Chennai in the mid-80s. However, the "Indianized" SD1, powered by an ancient two-litre engine and with raised suspension, was also a failure and Standard ceased car manufacture soon after.

[edit] Trivia
The SD1 was incredibly popular with the UK's police forces, particularly in V8 form. When the SD1 bowed out of production, the Police actually 'stockpiled' a fair number of the cars for later use in national police fleet, to be introduced to the force over the late 1980s. The Metropolitan Police force normally bought automatics to save clutch wear in London.
The dashboard of the SD1 features an air vent, unusually, directly facing the passenger. The display binnacle sits on top of the dashboard in front of the driver. This was to aid production in left hand drive markets, the air vent doubled as a passage for the steering wheel column and the display binnacle easily sat on top of the dashboard on the left or right hand side of the car.
The TWR racing Rover 3500s of 1984 were the only SD1s fitted with rear disc brakes.

[edit] TV appearances
In The New Avengers, John Steed (played by Patrick Macnee) drives an early mustard yellow Rover 3500, which replaces the Bentley he used in the original series of The Avengers.
A mustard yellow Rover 3500, looking very similar to the New Avengers car, was used in 1977 episodes of The Professionals, driven by CI5 boss George Cowley. As a reference at Cowley's name, its registration in the series was "MOO229R" (actual registration "MOC229P").
The Rover SD1 appeared on the 1995 Police, Camera, Action! episode The Liver Run about a liver transplant from Essex to Central London. All versions were 1986-model year 2400 SDTurbo or 3500 V8 police-specification models.
In episode 8 of series 4 of the BBC's Top Gear programme, presenter Richard Hammond pays tribute to the Rover SD1.

TheThe Morris Motor Company was a British car manufacturing company. After the incorporation of the company into larger corporations, the Morris name remained in use as a marque until 1984.

Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Logo
2 Car Models (excludes light vans)
3 See also

[edit] History
The Morris Motor Company was started in 19101984 when bicycle manufacturer William Morris turned his attention to car manufacturing. A factory was opened in 1913 in Cowley, Oxford, United Kingdom, and the company's first car, the 2-seat Morris Oxford "Bullnose" was introduced. Nearly all the major components were bought-in, with only final assembly being undertaken in the Morris works. In 1914 a coupé and van were added to the line-up but the chassis was too short and the 1018 cc engine too small to make a much-needed 4-seat version of the car. White and Poppe, who made the engine, wanted more money than Morris was prepared to pay for a larger version, so the company turned to Continental of Detroit, Michigan, United States for supplies of a 1548 cc unit. Gearboxes and axles were also sourced in the US. In spite of the outbreak of the First World War the orders were maintained and, from mid-1915 a new larger car, the 2-seat and 4-seat Morris Cowley was introduced.

After the war the Continental engine was no longer available, so Morris arranged for the French company Hotchkiss to make a near-copy in their Coventry factory. This was used to power new versions of the basic Cowley and more up-market Morris Oxford cars. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris Motor Company continued to grow and increase its share of the British market and, in 1924, overtook Ford to become the UK's biggest car manufacturer, holding a 51% share of the home market. They had a policy of buying up suppliers with, for example, Hotchkiss in Coventry becoming the Morris Engines branch in 1923. In 1924 the head of the Morris sales agency in Oxford, Cecil Kimber, started building sporting versions of Morris cars, called "MG" — after the agency, Morris Garages. The MG factory was in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

The small car market was entered in 1928, with the Morris Minor, using an 847 cc engine from the Wolseley Motor Company, a company which became part of Morris Motors Company in 1927. This helped the company through the economic depression of the time. The Minor was replaced at the 1934 London Motor Show by the Morris Eight, a direct response to the Ford Model Y and heavily based on it. In 1932 Morris appointed Leonard Lord as Managing Director and he swept through the works, updating the production methods and introducing a proper moving assembly line, but Morris and Lord fell out, and Lord left in 1936 — threatening to "take Cowley apart brick by brick".[citation needed] Also in 1936 William Morris sold Morris Commercial Cars Limited, his commercial vehicle enterprise, to Morris Motors. In 1938 William Morris became Viscount Nuffield, and the same year he merged the Morris Motor Company (incorporating Wolseley) and MG with newly acquired Riley to form a new company: the Nuffield Organisation.

Production restarted after World War II, with the pre-war Eight and Ten designs. In 1948 they were replaced by what is probably the most famous Morris car, the Morris Minor designed by Alec Issigonis (who later went on to design the Mini) and reusing the small car name from 1928. Alongside it was a new 1948 Morris Oxford, styled like a larger version of the Minor. A later Morris Oxford (the 1956 Morris Oxford III) was the basis for the design of India's famous Hindustan Ambassador which continues in production to the present day.

In 1952, the Nuffield Organisation merged with its old rival the Austin Motor Company to form the British Motor Corporation (BMC). Nuffield brought the Morris, MG, Riley and Wolseley marques into the merger. Leonard Lord was in charge, which led to Austin's domination of the organisation. Badge-engineering was important to the new company and for many years the several marques would be seen on several families of similar vehicles. In 1968, in further rationalisations of the British motor industry, BMC became part of the newly-formed British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC), and subsequently, in 1975, the nationalised British Leyland Limited (BL).

The Morris marque continued to be used until the early 1980s on cars such as the Morris Marina. The Morris Ital (essentially a facelifted Marina) was the last Morris-badged passenger car, with production ending in 1984. The last Morris of all was a van variant of the Austin Metro. In the early 1980s, the former Morris assembly plant in Cowley was turned over to the production of Austin and Rover badged vehicles, and continued to be used by BL'sLeyland's Austin Rover Group and its successor the Rover Group, which was eventually bought by BMW, and then by a management consortium, leadingdecided to concentrate on the creation of MG Rover.

The rights to the Morris marque are currently owned by MG Rover, but after that company's financial collapse, and partial purchase by one or more Chinese state businesses, it is not clear who will finally own the Morrispopular Austin marque. The Cowley assembly plant is still owned by BMW, who use it to assemble the new MINI.

[edit] Logo
The Morris badge shows an ox crossing a river — a reference to the company's home town, Oxford.

[edit] Car Models (excludes light vans)
1913–1926 - Morris Oxford (Bullnose)
1915–1935 - Morris Cowley
1926–1935 - Morris Oxford
1928–1932 - Morris Minor
1931–1933 - Morris Major
1930–1935 - Morris Isis
1933–1939 - Morris Twenty-One/Twenty-Five
1935–1939 - Morris Twelve
1935–1939 - Morris Fourteen
1935–1948 - Morris Eight
1933–1948 - Morris Ten
1948–1952 - Morris Minor MM
1952–1956 - Morris Minor
1955–1971 - Morris Minor 1000
1948–1954 - Morris Oxford MO
1948–1953 - Morris Six MS
1954–1969 - Morris Oxford
1954–1959 - Morris Cowley
1955–1958 - Morris Isis
1959–1969 - Morris Mini Minor
1962–1971 - Morris 1100
1967–1971 - Morris 1300
1966–1975 - Morris 1800 & Morris 2200 (land crab)
1971–1980 - Morris Marina
1980–1984 - Morris Ital