There's a reason why these earlier Morris cars lived on until very recently in the shape - largely unchanged - of the Hindustan Ambassador, a BMC product bearing an Ambassador badge that owners tend to be proud of! Later Ambassadors of the Morris Oxford pre-Farina shape, although originally equipped with the much loved 1489cc B series, soon came with a modern (ish) GM Diesel engine in its place, an engine more often found in Isuzu light commercials among other things. The brakes didn't, as far as I can gather, receive an upgrade at the time of the change to this vastly more effective engine, blessed with almost twice as much power as the 1489cc BMC petrol B series and an amount of torque that may well have caused at least a few of India's road fatalities over the years since the use of the Diesel machinery began to be fitted.
I believe that, in some ways, the Farina styled cars were a backward step from the earlier Oxfords as those old ones had rack & pinion steering and offered almost as much room in a much smaller external size, progress as we understand it these days? Yes, Vauxhall/Opel Corsa is now larger than a 1970s Mk1 Cavalier and not far away from the size of the later Cavaliers and the early Vectra that looked much the same. But there at least we have an excuse to blame the French
since the PSA takeover of GM's European brands means that the Corsa is in fact a Citroen.
...If only Peugeot had taken on the job of building the BMC Farinas, we'd all have been driving around in Peugeot 404s instead. Same shape, much, much less crude yet supposedly every bit as dependable. Where are French car manufacturers when they're needed?
There's usually at least one Oxford VI or A60 in my list of stuff that I'm watching purposefully, I'd enjoy a Wolseley 16/60 too, but the twin carb Riley and MG versions? No ta, they're not quite ordinary enough for my taste, such as it is, but the Riley appears for sale these days far more commonly - in relative terms of course - with the automatic option than the single carb cars did, so I wouldn't find any member of the range entirely unsuitable..
