MAL’S V8 MOGGY MINOR

Mal Elwood’s pretty well placed to indulge his love of cars, being the owner of “Longlife Exhausts” ltd, a chain of bespoke stainless steel exhaust fitting centres. So you’d expect him to be running something pretty flashy -a state of the art showpiece for his business. Not an old Morris Minor.
Most of today’s hot hatchback crowd would probably walk past this little beastie with hardly a glance but there’s more to the old girl than meets the eye.
Who needs 2000 quid paintjobs, hip hop suspension & megawatt ICE systems when you’ve got 5.7 litres of V8 Chevy small block engine to play with. Nestled in the standard Moggy engine bay, with modified bulkhead, the Chevy mill looks surprisingly at home. It breathes through a Holley carb & inlet manifold, with Edelbrook air filter, while gearchanges are handled by a BMW auto box & obviously it sports a full “Longlife” stainless manifold & exhaust system. Running gear is Ford Scorpio front & rear with a Koni coil over kit. The whole car’s been widened by 10 inches with some neat ventilation grilles added behind the front wings to help cool the big motor.
Spirited motorway use sees 20 quid’s worth of fuel disappear in 20 minutes but the little 2 door saloon’s top speed’s not known as it runs out of road before it runs out of performance!
A nice little old school custom.

“Longlife” can be reached at www.longlife.co.uk

-Andy