Morris Production Details 1939 - 1950

MORRIS VEHICLE PRODUCTION AT COWLEY

• The years are fiscal years and run from August of one year to July of the next.
• These figures do not include trucks, which were built in Adderley Park.
• Wolseley figures were added to the totals during 1949, when production was transferred to Cowley.
• The Utility figures may not correspond 100% to the fiscal years in each case, but do come close.
• “P” indicates production occurred, but breakdown is not available.
• According to company records, the last wartime Morris Eight Series E model was a 4-door saloon; it was built on August 11, 1941, and was dispatched on November 4, 1941. According to another source, however, production of this model continued throughout the war in very limited numbers. If any were built after August 11, 1941, they must have used different serial numbers, since the last 1941 Eight’s number was followed by the next consecutive number when postwar production resumed in 1945. 1942 Eights are known, but this may reflect year of first registration. The vast majority of the wartime cars were taken by the military or exported, with a very small number being delivered to essential civilian users. Postwar production certainly resumed by the late Summer or early Fall of 1945. A few Eight Utility prototypes were constructed early in the war, but the model did not enter production.
• The Morris Ten passenger car was produced until late 1940. Thereafter, until the resumption of civilian production in the Summer of 1945, the Ten was almost exclusively produced as a Utility. The last late-1940 Ten passenger car serial number (27120) is followed immediately by the next consecutive number (27121) which has a Utility prefix. However, one source says some Ten passenger cars were built in mid-1941 as part of a government-allowed production run of Eights and Tens for essential civilian users by four manufacturers: Morris, Ford, Austin, and Hillman (the last, of course, did not produce an Eight). Indeed, the Ten Utility serial numbers from about mid-1941 (between the first and second contracts) do appear to allow for this, leaving a gap of 138.
• The last of the other prewar Morris models – the Twelve, Fourteen, and Twenty-Five, likely ceased production in the early months of 1940, although they were still listed (along with the Eight and Ten) in August 1940, presumably to allow dealers to clear stocks.
• The Series Z ¼ - ton and Series Y ½ - ton vans were based on the Eight and Ten models, respectively, and entered production in the early part of 1940. Both replaced earlier versions, which seem to have lingered on for a few months after the introduction of the new models. An ambulance derivative of the Series Y, but with a longer wheelbase and a 14 hp engine, was produced in the early years of the war. Five hundred are known to have gone to the Royal Air Force.

*Contract number not known, but 40 of this contract’s vehicles are known to have been supplied to Australia.

**Although the contract called for 930, roughly 200 less were supplied, likely due to the end of the war. The total appears to be 734, which would make the last chassis number 35793. Numbers 35794 through 36000 were not used. Postwar Ten production began with 36001.