Sid Goble

Once the Farina design had been adopted for the Austin A55 mk2 it was necessary to "Badge Engineer" the other marques. That job was carried out by Sid Goble, Chief Stylist (Morris Motors).

In 1989, for the 30th Anniversary Rally, the Cambridge-Oxford Owners Club tracked Sid down and asked him to formally open the Rally, cut our Farina 30th Birthday Cake and present the prizes. We also asked him to summarise his career and it is that summary that we reproduce here:

"I was born in Chiswick, London W4 and started work at HJ Mulliner (Chiswick) in 1930. They were private body builders for Rolls-Royce and Bentley, one of many in London including Barkers, Hoopers and Thrupp and Maberly, etc.

I used to help style and design bodies to customers' specifications at the rate of two or three a week, so that when war broke out in 1939 I had a fair knowledge of overall car body design, but of course the private car industry just ceased to exist when war started and I was thrown out like many others.

They classified me as having a reserved occupation and I was eventually sent to the MG Car Company where I secured a position as a senior draughtsman.

After about two years designing jigs and tools for manufacturing aircraft fuselages I was switched to armoured vehicles under Sid Enever, who was later to become the chief engineer for MG Cars after the war. (Sid helped designed "Hobart's Funnies" - the various tanks used by 79th Armoured Division such as flail tanks for clearing mines, bridge-layers, etc. which were used to such great effect on D Day and after).

When the war ended in 1945 it was decided that all design would be done at Morris Motors, Cowley, so I was transferred there under the chief body draughtsman Mr Leslie Hall.

The chief engineer was a man named AV Oak and under him was an engineer called Alec Issigonis, who had been working during the war with a small team designing the Morris Minor.

So I got involved with this project and it soon became apparent that my pre-war styling was going to stand me in good stead.

You should appreciate that pre-war and post-war up to the Farina era, firms like Morris and Austin were dominated by hard-headed engineers whose problem was to design and produce a reliable car at a price people could afford - and they wanted the least possible interference from 'stylists'.

However there were certain parts of the car which were designed and drawn better by somebody with art training and experience, so I became the styling engineer.

After the Morris Minor, Alec Issigonis designed the Morris Oxford (M.O. series), which was meant to be in the same style, but wasn't very successful.

Then came the (BMC) merger between Morris and Austin and Alec Issigonis departed to Alvis.

After that Gerry Palmer came on the scene and the Wolseley 1500 and Riley 1.5 were born, followed by the Pathfinder.

Meanwhile the American car firms were creating huge styling departments with up-to-date modelling facilities which gave Ford a design advantage with the Consul, Zephyr and Zodiac, although the Morris Minor was still competing well at the time.

At Austin Motors in Longbridge, Sir Leonard Lord was very much in control of engineering and had an Italian stylist Dick Burzi as adviser. He had been with Austin Motors from before the war. Sir Leonard put a Mr SV Smith, one of Morris's directors, in charge of co-ordinating the engineering department of Morris and Austin. It was from this background that it was decided to use one of Farina's designs as the basis for the new Austin/Morris family car.

They finally chose one and decided to use it for the Austin 1500cc (the A55 mk2), and I was asked to design and engineer the derivatives for Morris, Wolseley, MG and Riley. They appointment me Chief Stylist (Morris Motors).

I was instructed that panel pressings were to be kept the same for all models, unless it was absolutely necessary to alter them. I think in the end, only the bonnet and front panels were individual for each model.

However, it did involve entirely new radiator grilles and motifs and different rear lamp clusters for each model. We also designed entirely different instrument panels and instruments for each model and individual trim styles.

Exterior and interior colours were selected to give the greatest possible differences.

Later on the radiator grilles, Wolseley, MG and Riley were used on the 1100 models - but that's another story.

The situation was much the same for the 3-litre Farina, although I was only involved with the Wolseley version, the 6/99.

I hope this epistle is of some interest to you. At least it does explain my status in this little bit of Cambridge-Oxford history.

Yours sincerely

Sid Goble"