SUMMER MOTORING - THE MORRIS MARINA MUMFORD CONVERTIBLE

It was a familiar scenario in the early 1970s – an MGB Roadster owner who found themselves in need of more space but who still wished to enjoy the pleasures of open-topped motoring. Of course, you also want to remain within the BL family and there, at the 1973 Earls Court Motor Show, was the logical solution – a Crayford-bodied Morris Marina Convertible. Further advantages were a top that was easy to roof and a hood that sat on the bodywork, which meant a wide rear seat. In other words, it looked ideal for summer journeys along the A35 to Bournemouth and the weekly trip to Tesco.

Crayford of Westerham made the prototype on behalf of the Plymouth-based firm Mumford & Sons, the coachbuilder’s distributor in southwest England. The brochure promised “The full 4 seater Family Convertible”, and the drophead conversion was available throughout the range. The elaborate work included the removal of the door-window frames, strengthening of the bodywork and fitting a roll bar incorporating two glass panes at the side and a tinted panel at the top.

This last-named feature inevitably attracted some controversy among traditional British sports car enthusiasts. For example, Autocar, on 21^st September 1974, complained:

The Mumford Marina, like the equally gallows-topped Triumph Stag, gives you all the fresh air you want, but not all of the exhilaration and liberation experienced a pure open car, regardless of performance, which even the humble (and much-missed) Morris Minor Convertible confers.

However, the test concluded, “In spite of some shortcomings – most of them standard Marina failings rather than Mumford ones – we enjoyed the car”, for it was a likeable and well-devised machine. It was also rather expensive, as an open-air 1.8 Super cost £2,055.96, as compared with £1,481 for the standard model, and the 1.8TC convertible was priced at £2,220 – nearly £550 more than the two-door. Yet, by the mid-1970s, no British mass-produced, saloon-based, four-seater convertibles existed. In February 1975, Motor Sport stated that although their test car cost £2,156, this was “no longer a ridiculous price to pay for a fairly exclusive motor car which offers something others do not”.

Mumford ended production in 1976, the majority of their conversions based on the 1.8TC. Now that the irritating Marina ‘jokes’ and Top Gear references have abated, the Marina drophead can be regarded in its true light – a car in the tradition of the Sunbeam Rapier or Triumph Herald Convertible. As well, dare we suggest, as the nearest four-seater equivalent to the MGB Roadster.