Happy Friday, Autopians! Since this week’s winners don’t really lend themselves to a shootout, I’ve decided to go the other way and show you some cars outside our usual price range. What do these two have in common? The term “daily driver” appears in both ads. One is claimed to be one, and the other claims it could be.
Before yesterday‘s vote, Ziggy predicted there was only a 37 percent chance you would take the Quantum leap, and wouldn’t you know it? He was right again. The MPV hauled home the trophy. It wasn’t a landslide win, and a lot of you said you could see yourself in either one.
I really like the MPV. I wouldn’t bother with a V6 automatic version of it, but with a manual, it becomes more appealing. But if you recall, I mentioned a while back that I had a list of cars that I would consider taking on as projects under the right circumstances, and an early Audi Quattro is on that list. The Quantum Syncro is more or less the same car, but with the added benefit of a long roof. I think I would find it hard to resist.
If you think about it, pretty much every car ever made was intended to be someone’s daily driver. And I bet most of them have been used that way by someone at some point; commuting in Corvettes, getting groceries in GTOs, and other alliterative combinations that aren’t coming to mind right now. But the point is that no automaker builds cars with the intention of leaving them sitting in a garage. If they did, they wouldn’t bother fitting them with engines. Cars are supposed to be driven.
Both of today’s contenders were absolutely cars of the people, intended to be used hard, every day. Both sellers claim they still could be. Is it as crazy as it sounds? Let’s check them out, and then we’ll see which one you would drive to work.
1961 Morris Minor 1000 – $9,000
Engine/drivetrain: 948 cc overhead valve inline-4, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Yuba City, CA
Odometer reading: 71,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
British automotive designer Sir Alec Issigonis is chiefly remembered for designing the Mini, but before the Mini there was the Minor. Introduced in 1948, just as Great Britain was getting back on its feet after World War II, the Minor was an inexpensive, friendly, reliable little car, like so many post-war “people’s cars” that came out around the same time. The Minor was meant to be a lot more technologically advanced, but budget restrictions meant that a lot of Issigonis’s wilder ideas would have to wait for the Mini.
This is a Minor 1000, the third series, powered by an Austin-designed A-series engine displacing 948 cubic centimeters. It took the place of the Morris engine originally used after Morris and Austin merged to become British Motor Corporation. It’s the same engine used in the Austin-Healey Sprite, and later, the Mini. Here, it powers the rear axle through a four-speed manual gearbox. This one has been rebuilt, and runs and drives “awesome,” according to the seller.
This is a left-hand-drive US model, so you can drive it just like any other car, without the hassle of sitting on the “wrong” side of the car. Note the covered-up slot behind the door: that was the location of the semaphore-style flip-out turn signals on 1960 and older Minors. For 1961, the turn signals were changed to the normal blinking lights on the front and rear of the car.
This car has been restored, and it’s in lovely condition. The seller claims it’s driven daily, which doesn’t necessarily mean commuting – they could be retired and drive it to the drugstore every day, or something – but it is a testament to its mechanical condition. You probably wouldn’t want to drive it on the highway much; it takes more than thirty seconds to get to 60 MPH, and runs out of breath about ten miles an hour later, but around town it should do just fine.
1922 Ford Model T Touring – $9,500
Engine/drivetrain: 177 cubic inch flathead inline-4, two-speed manual, RWD
Location: Half Moon Bay, CA
Odometer reading: What odometer?
Operational status: Runs and drives well
If you want to talk “people’s cars,” however, you have to mention the original: the Ford Model T. Ford built just over fifteen million Model Ts over the course of nineteen years, a production record that would not be broken until 1972, by the Volkswagen Beetle. Just like the Beetle, the Model T went through a lot of changes during its run, but the basic mechanicals – a 177 cubic inch four-cylinder engine and a two-speed foot-operated planetary gearbox – remained the same throughout.
I’ve never had the opportunity to drive a Model T, but I’ve always been curious to try. The way I understand it, the right-hand pedal is the brake, and the left-hand pedal shifts between high and low gear, along with something having to do with that lever. The center pedal shifts to reverse, somehow. And the throttle is a lever on the steering column. It’s probably easier in practice than it sounds in theory; I mean, millions of people did it just fine, but it sure does sound complicated.
This car is also restored, by the seller, and they say it runs and drives very well. The Model T’s engine is about as simple as they come, downright primitive by modern standards. It’s a side-valve “flathead” engine, with no fuel pump or water pump, relying on gravity for fuel and a thermosiphon system for cooling flow. That simplicity and low parts count was the key to the Model T’s reliability, and also Ford’s ability to mass-produce it so cheaply.
The seller claims this car is reliable enough to be a “daily driver,” their exact words, but this car is a hundred and two years old. It was literally built for a different world. It has wooden wheels, brakes only on the transmission and not the wheels, and is capable of around forty miles per hour – a speed which must be terrifying in this thing.
When most enthusiasts hear the term “daily driver,” they think of a new car or a twenty-year-old Camry or something, some less-interesting car that takes the daily-use pressure off the more interesting rides. But there’s no reason that you can’t drive any car daily, even these, if your daily usage suits what it can do. If you only have to drive through town, then yeah, I suppose either of these could be driven daily. So which one will it be?
(Image credits: sellers)
I like seeing a Model T around as a curiosity, but I have genuinely zero interest in owning one. Ever. Would I like to try one some day? You bet. Would I want to drive one frequently? Not at all.
The Morris I could get down with, you know, with actual brakes and all that. It functions as an actual car. Which is a good thing.
If that Morris had been either the Traveler or ute model, then it wouldn’t have been a contest. For this kind of money, I’d rather hold out for a Mini. Which leaves the Model T alone in the field. It’s old and slow, but it’s sooo red. I’ll take the Ford. Might even put a little swastika on it as a salute to ol’ Henry.
I’ll take the Morris.
Because windows, weather and trafficators.
Lets face it, I’m not daily driving the Minor. So while it is far more modern and more suited to be used for transportation, I’m not going to use it like that. It isn’t a sports car, I’m not going to take it out and carve up some curvy roads or drag race with someone at a stoplight.
So if I am buying a car to cruise to Cars and Coffee with when the weather is nice, I’ll take that Model T that looks great.
You read my mind!
machine and man
Laughing out loud with fear and hope
I’ve got a desperate plan.
At the showdown vote
I leave the Minor up one on the higher side
Race back to the poll
And vote for the T to help it save some pride
It’s even red.
I went with the T because it is so immaculate !
A bit of trivia for you, the 1922 Model T Touring original MSRP was $348.00! That’s approx. $6,599.00 in 2024 dollars!
Minor, but just barely.
Can’t knock the T, except the transmission — and shifting thereof — is weird; I never got used to it. A Minor, you can jump in and drive, no problem.
What I’m saying is: gimme BOTH.
The Minor is just so cute, how could you not pick it. And it is much more unusual than the Model T – I know a few people who have had T’s (& A’s) but no-one with a Minor.
You should avoid combining T&A with a Minor.
Tough call. I’ll take the Model T and wampa dampa my way around town. It can’t even reach the speed limit on most of the roads around me, but I never see anyone get impatient around a Tin Lizzie because A) Everybody already knows it can’t go above 40 and B) They are just too damn lovable to cause road rage. I’d want it so I can experience a way of driving that is completely alien to anything else I have ever driven. Manual primer, manual choke, manual throttle, and the option to start it with a hand crank. Who needs an ECU? With a Model T you ARE the ECU.
I’m with you on this. Any time someone around here drives anything pre-war, they are effing heroes. Only a monster would get upset at a Model T on the road…
Voted for the Minor for a number of reasons but I’ve seen how they can indeed make for perfectly cromulent daily drivers. In the early 00s I lived in a small college town in northern California for several years and I would frequently see a Minor parked in one of the college faculty parking spots. Once I parked next to it and saw that it had been converted to automatic where the floor-mpunted automatic gear lever and its accoutrements were a dead ringer for what was in my older sibling’s 1979 Datsun 210 automatic (bought new) down to the brown color and the pebble-grain texture of the plastic. Seems that starting in the 70s owners of Minors in the US, where OEM parts were not readily available, would use Datsun engines and transmissions because they were actually fairly straightforward (even just drop-in) replacements since Nissan actually based their B210 and 210 engines on the Morris A-series engine; in fact Nissan used to build A-series engines under license from Morris so they simply carried the design over to their own engines.
As for the Model T, this passage “It’s probably easier in practice than it sounds in theory; I mean, millions of people did it just fine, but it sure does sound complicated” is reminiscent of how Jay Leno has talked about how he likes taking his Model T out partly because he gets a kick out of seeing the expressions on the parking valets’ faces when he pulls up to a restaurant in the Model T but then once he explains how to drive it the parking valets usually pick it up quickly and will actually enjoy driving the Model T once they get the hang of it.
I’ll take the Model T, but I’m changing out the wheels to metal. Too many people have died from those wooden spikes.
I have always wanted a Model T, so this was an easy one. I’ve already got a Beetle built the same year it beat the Model T in sales (1972), so it would be fun to have the previous record holder in addition.
Yeah, I was just a little kid when that happened with the eclipse in sales but I remember how Ford was like “nuh-uh” and protested that they hadn’t updated their records in a while but they knew for certain that they had in fact sold more Model Ts than previously reported and they would release the updated figures in a few months. What’s funny is that by the time Ford released the updated figures for the Model T (I don’t recall the exact number but it was indeed quite an increase) it ended up being moot because VW had already sold enough Beetles that the Beetle still eclipsed the Model T. Ha. When that was pointed out Ford retorted by bringing up the fact that their Model T sales happened over a period of only nineteen years whereas it took VW some twenty-two years to surpass them. I don’t recall if VW responded to that but if they had I daresay they could have pointed out that the Beetle actually had more competition on the market than the Model T did, at least in their respective beginnings.
I don’t remember if this is the figure from before or after Ford added those extra sales, but I remember a picture showing the record beating Beetle, number 15,007,034. Total Beetle sales when production stopped in 2003 was 21,529,464.
Seems like today is a Minor holiday at Autopian.
I dunno. The voting is close enough that either one suits us to a T.
Minor, only because you could probably score a 1275cc Midget engine cheap, and a front disk-brake conversion kit it’ll be able to do freeway speeds with some confidence.
I voted the T. Though the Minor would be easier to drive, maintain, and everything. That T is just too nice to pass up.
Milk runs in a Maserati, hauling kids in a Huracán…
My grandpa had a ’27 or ’28 Chevy Series A, and while cool to look at and tool around in on the farm, there is no way I want something of that vintage without it being rare. A Model T is pretty much just that, a model to look at.
Morris all day for me
I don’t have a garage so I’m going with the minor as it at least has windows. Also, it’s at least semi-useable on modern roads. I’d be terrified to take the T anywhere except a parade nowdays, at least in my neck of the woods.
Driving the Model T would be fun — if only to pull into the service department of my local Ford dealer — but I went with the Minor, mostly because the driving experience is the most like a modern car. The intricacies of starting and driving a Model T sound entertaining in theory, but a recipe for disaster in the real world.
I’ll take the T, but the seller has to throw in an oilskin coat, hat, and gloves, along with those snazzy goggles.
I voted for the British car because it is more unique and actually the better car in this case
Model T, and I did not even have to think about this. We went over this earlier, but it’s simply shocking to me you can buy a T this nice for under ten grand. It’s a historical artifact you can drive.
If I had a spare ten grand I’d already be figuring out how to tell my wife.
Same. Ts are such a good bargain, and driving it would be an experience every time. No worries about this being an appliance!
I see it has been fitted with a distributor so presumably it’s been properly driven consistently as well. This one looks well sorted.
I pity the fool that’s gonna daily it in winter around here (this guy), but it’s the T for me.
Reading the headline of today’s instalment, I immediately thought of the Rush song of your username: “Straining the limits of machine and man….”
My house was built in 1921 and I just finished giving it a fresh coat of paint. The T would looked picture perfect parked out front.
Model T for me. I already commute on a motorcycle, so other than speed, this shouldn’t be much different.
I think nk we just made the vote 50/50 cos I went moggie
That’s the exact reason I didn’t pick the T. I figured I could get a Honda Navi for 2 grand and it would be about the same experience.