Superb Landcrab....

[goff]

Women in particular hated them.

They LOVED the room on the back seat , better than a skinny in a mini

[Old English White]

Yes. A good courting car. The 1800 had an extraordinary amount of space in the back
Has it ever been equaled in an "ordinary" car?
And, all those years ago, they were fitted as standard with rear seat belt mountings if I remember correctly

[Sixbangerlandcrab]

I love the 1800 and hope to have one of mine on the road soon.
Regarding the courting room, I have no doubt that they would be a fine courting vehicle but I'm not sure now that my wife would be keen on a grapple in a lay by
However a lot of years ago when I was out in my old maxi and older gent stopped to talk about it asking me if I knew the seats folded into a double bed. I said yes but told him that herself might not be keen on the old musty smell (or as we'd say "foosty"), only to be told that if she was rightly in the notion it'd take more than a foosty smell to put her off

[Longbridge 1]

I also have a soft spot for the landcrab having owned an Morris 1800,S for several years . It was fitted with the optional power steering but I took it off and changed the steering rack as I found it to be to light and nullified the car when hustling it along quickly.

Bags of room in side and a very large boot, superb brakes with the three pot calipers and being an S a fair turn of speed.
Also fitted a set Minilite rims to it as it looked a lot better with them on than the standard rims.

I sold it over 12 months ago because I had an offer I could not refuse of an ex Special Tuning World Cup Rally Landcrab so the funds from selling my S are helping to finance the restoration of that.
Steve

[Andrew1967]

Sounds interesting Steve ... any pics of the rally crab ??

[Longbridge 1]

Picture of the car in South America

rsz_poh_703g_3.jpg

[Longbridge 1]

Have you noticed who's Escort it's parked next to ?

[Costafortune]

The winning one!

Hannu Mikkola/Gunnar Palm. They used Crossflow engines and resulted in the factory Escort Mexico.

[minimk1man]

Which team drove 110 on the London Mexico. I can't seem to find it on the entry list.

[Longbridge 1]

A bit of background history on the car.

The Landcrab was used on the event by the Daily Mirror as a press car.
It was an ex Longbridge press fleet car (POH 703G) and then purchased by the Daily Mirror then sent to Abingdon to be prepared by Special Tuning along with six other 1800's,it was prepared to a similar spec to the other cars but did not have the fibreglass panels that the others had.
The car was crewed by Allan Stainiforth, Norman Baguley and John Varley the car was shipped to South America to cover that leg of the event.
Not sure why it had to have a competition number I am assuming that as it was following the rally it had to have some identification to help get through the various country's that were part of the rally as well as a press rally plate.
Still need to do more digging on its history.
Steve