I owned a Morris Minor in the seventies, an ex-GPO van in fact. Of its many endearing features the best was its ability to start under any conditions. Cold mornings, up to its wheel arches in a soggy field, under several feet of snow or after standing unused for a month, it could be 100% relied upon to start with the merest flick of the key. I’m sure sometimes I hadn’t turned the key at all and the car had fired itself into action by detecting my desire to set off. I always wondered why the combination of technology and mechanics that achieved that in the Morris 1000 hadn’t been used in every car that followed.
It certainly wasn't evident in the Marina, one of which I also owned, whose continued failure to start was often a blessed relief. My love and knowledge of buses can trace its roots to Marina ownership.
~iw
