Morrison's Collection

Started by MiniDave, April 06, 2019, 11:31:54 AM

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MiniDave

Don, me and a couple of friends took a long drive to Salina Ks yesterday, to visit a couple of very interesting guys and see their collection......Salina is about 3 hours from KC, a whole lot longer when they close the damn highway in the middle of Topeka and force you to take city streets during evening rush hour to get back on the highway!

But I digress......

The cars are owned by two brothers, both in their 70's who actually drive and use their collection - when you look at the pics you'll see photos on the walls behind them showing all the different runs they've been on in each of them - many in other countries!

The highlight of the first collection was being chauffeured around downtown Salina in an open 1927 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost!
I'll start with that one, but wait till you see what's sitting in a small nondescript building on a side street in tiny Salina Kansas!

Before we could drive the Ghost, there was a starting procedure - Don manned the manual fuel pump used to pressurize the tank, John watched the pressure gauge on the other side as Don pumped. Once that was up to pressure Tom switched over to the starting carburetor (no choke then) , then Roger - the owner - slid in behind the wheel, made sure it as in neutral and hit the starter. The engine popped off immediately and after only 10-20 seconds he switched over to the main carb, adjusting the timing and throttle as he went. It smoothed out nicely and he rolled it out of the garage/warehouse where it lived. Once outside we all clamored aboard - 3 in back 2 in front - I got shotgun! He slipped it into gear and we rolled off. Th engines of those days were large, long stroke, low rpm and high torque - you can almost pull away from a dead stop in 4th. Good thing too as the gears are completely unsynchronized! He ground a few as we went down the main street of Salina.....the steering and other controls are amazingly light and direct - due in part to the huge wheels and very narrow tires....the car literally wafted along effortlessly and silently.

I took some video but for some reason it did not come out sad to say, although I'm sure wind noise would have drowned out any engine sounds.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

MiniDave

When we got back from our cruise we headed off to lunch and to meet up with Roger's brother Richard, after lunch we would go see his stuff - and what great stuff he has!

But first a few pics of Rogers collection...

The first car Don and I noticed when we walked into the building was the Mini (of course) and he told us the story - the car belonged to Briggs Cunningham - he had a long friendship with Briggs and he gave this car to Roger's wife Sissy as she admired it so much. It is a 1968 Austin Cooper S with 1800 miles on it! and it looked it, the car was original and immaculate - imagine what this one would bring on BaT with it's low miles and expansive, documented provenance! It does have a Weber carb, but other than that looked untouched. Roger has "pickled" - his word - the car and it hasn't been run in a long time, there's no gas in it and he's run diesel thru the lines to keep them from rusting but it would require recommissioning before it could be driven again.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

MiniDave

#2
As we walked around the showroom he gave us the background and story on each car - he has several more that are out getting work done, including another Silver Ghost.....BTW. the Ghost has been on driving tours all over the world.

First up was this delightful Porsche Speedster -  a real Porsche Speedster, not a fiberglass kit! As with all of his cars, this one has been all around the country and Europe on driving tours.

Next to it were two more Porsches, a Mercedes E500 and a Bentley. The Bentley was particularly notable to me because it wasn't green! It also had an interesting radiator mascot in the form of Felix the cat....no idea of the significance of that as I did not get the story - I will the next time.

After we saw these he took us over to the other side of the building....wait ill you see what was in there!
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

MiniDave

When we crossed over to the other side of the building the first car we came to was an original 289 Cobra!

Next to that was the first Ford Mustang GT350, followed by one of each successive series right up to the latest. Hiding behing the last Mustang was a final year bright orange Pantera L

On the other side were some more interesting cars - another Shelby in the form of a GLHS....those are thin on the ground these days! Next to that a Saleen, a 63 split window Corvette and Sissy's college car, a Buick Skylark convertible - fully restored of course.

On the other wall were the Fords, a 49 convertible, a 47 Woody, and the two hot rods....both original and exactly as built in the 50's The coupe had an Olds Rocket V8, lasalle transmission and Olds rear end. The roadster had a flathead with special heads and a SCOT supercharger. Both had real patina of use, not rust from sitting outside under a tree - whta they like to call patina these days.

After this we headed off to a local diner for lunch and to meet roger's Brother, Richard.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

MiniDave

Richard's place was right across the street from the diner where we had lunch, right on main street Salina.....his collection is a little different, as you'll see. My camera battery died so these pics were taken by Don.

Just inside the door was this heart stopper - an original Ferrari 250 Lusso! Just about the most desirable of all the road going Ferraris from the 50's This car was completely original right down to the cracked paint. It still looked gorgeous of course!

As we worked our way around that in the middle of the garage - still warm - was this 89 Aston Martin Lagonda. Only about 600 of these were built over almost 10 years and he uses this one as his daily, in fact he was on his way to KC in it later that day on his way to the airport to leave on a trip to China.

Richard's collection has several race cars in it, all of which he has driven - including these three Indy race cars. One of which was of particular interest as it uses hydrolastic suspension right out of a Mini! (Or MG1100 actually) It wasn't successful on track, but it sure was cool!

I didn't get a pic of it but on the other side of his garage was a yellow,  brand new 2005 Ford GT, along with his Carrera Panamerica racing Mercedes 220. He ran that race 4 times, and in the second one he crashed heavily, but repaired the car and it survived to run two more times.

He also had two other Lagondas, a Bentley, a v-12 BMW, Nascar Chevy and two Ford Model T's, one a speedster, the other a coupe. The coupe was particularly interesting because it was his first car, bought when he was 14 and driven to junior high!

Richard also has a V-12 Lagonda racecar, which was off having the engine rebuilt - he's had trouble finding race venues for it lately as there don't seem to be a lot of vintage sanctioning bodies still offering classes for prewar racecars.

All in all a fascinating day with two really interesting guys, I can't wait to go back and spend more time with both of these very accommodating gentlemen.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

ADRay

Great report! Those guys have some awesome stuff.
1982 Mini 1000 HL
@andyray998

MiniDave

I found a pic of his Lagonda racecar - one of two ever made!

127 mph Lagonda V12 Le Mans

The Lagonda V12 Le Mans was powered by the 4.5 Litre V12 engine W. O. Bentley designed for Lagonda having left Rolls Royce with the majority of his racing department. The Lagonda V12 engine's power output was increased to 220hp by fitting a new inlet manifold, quadruple SU carburettors and raising the engines compression ratio.

The 1939 24 Hours of Le Mans race was rapidly followed by the commencement of WW2, both of the Lagonda V12 Le Mans racing cars were placed into storage in Lagonda's Staines production facility but all but the chassis were effectively destroyed when the facility was hit in 1944 by a German V1 flying bomb (aka Doodlebug or Buzz Bomb). Fortunately Lagonda did re-build the cars around the original chassis.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

BruceK

Very cool stuff.  Thanks for sharing it.  Amazing collections.


About that blue Cooper S... I remember learning something about that particular car some 25-30 years ago.  The strange thing about it is that it is a Mk. II car yet it has the rear bumper with overriders and bars as fitted to Mk. I Minis.  I was told that this car was built around October 1967 - at the changeover point from Mk. I to Mk. II - and the factory just used up the Mk. I bumpers in production stock even though the overrider bars just about touched the larger Mk. II taillight lenses.   There can't be many cars affected by the model change like that.
1988 Austin Mini
2002 MINI Cooper S
1992 Toyota LiteAce (JDM)
1997 Jeep Wrangler Sahara

MiniDave

Good eye! Those rear overriders do touch the lens - well, the left side does for sure! Notice too, the front doesn't have them.......
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad