A 75-year-old Morris 8 that altered the course of this classic car restorer’s life…
Whatever I am today, if this car was not in my life I would have been a different trade, a different person.
A car that has been a valuable member of the family for 50 long years…
Whenever I drive it, it brings back my… memories of my father.
And a car that led to one man’s life-long obsession with the Morris brand…
I’ve always been a Morris man.
This is Marespand Dadachanji - a Parsi priest and classic car restorer.
And this is his beloved 1948 Morris Eight.
It’s the car that sparked his love for automobiles…
The car that influenced his life and career…
And the car that not only serves as his unofficial mascot, but is also a much-loved member of the family.
So much so that in order to preserve its legacy, he’s put another Morris into service.
Launched in 1935, the Morris Eight was Britain’s answer to the Ford Model Y.
After the success of the Series I and II, an updated version - the Series E - was launched in 1938.
The car remained in production until 1948, and it’s one such Morris Eight that made it to the Dadachanji family, 25 years after it rolled off the production line.
It came home on the 1st of January ’73. It’s sort of the birthday of our car.
Our story begins in the early Seventies, when a gentleman named Cawas Poncha had a dream in which a saint urged him to hand over the keys of his Morris Eight to the priest of the Parsi Fire Temple in Nagpur.
The very next morning, he drove to the temple and offered his car to the priest Aspi Dadachanji, Marespand’s father, who agreed to buy it for 4500 Rupees, the equivalent of 1900 Euros today.
The day it came home, he took delivery (of the car) and then went for his wedding. He came back and started to learn driving with my mother next to him.
My mother always says that they went for a few hours here and there, and within a few days, they left for their honeymoon in the Morris.
They had gone to Jabalpur from Nagpur. And since then, life has been an adventure for the Morris, for my parents.
It was the first of many road trips for the family car. It’s in this Morris that the Dadachanjis toured the length and breadth of the country, and beyond.
Marespand’s father even drove it all the way to Sri Lanka and back. And in true enthusiast fashion, every bit of the journey was documented.
It says Colombo to Talaimannar… I don’t know, all this is written. Till he reached Talaimannar, which is the tip of Sri Lanka.
From there - Talaimannar to Rameshwaram was in the ferry, and Rameshwaram to Mandapam was in the train.
This Morris Eight is also the car in which Marespand discovered his love for driving fast, keeping his right foot pinned over the approximately 1500 kilometres between Mumbai and Delhi.
That was the first time my father entrusted me with his car, to drive so long, without him. Me and my friend wanted to cover Delhi in three days, over three days.
The first day we went nearly to Udaipur. The second day we wanted to do Udaipur to Jaipur, but I was so charged up that we did Udaipur to Delhi in that second day itself.
And, had it not been for this Morris Eight, Marespand wouldn’t have stumbled into the profession of classic car restoration…
So the first car I did was my Morris 8, which of course I knew what an original car was, and what my father had done, so we undid all of that.
My observation, my intuition was there, so I could figure out somehow that this is original, this is not.
Marespand’s come a long way since that first project. He gained recognition for restoring Amir Ali Jetha’s 1935 Rolls-Royce Phantom II, which once belonged to the Maharaja of Jodhpur.
The car won the Maharaja Class, and the Lucius Beebe award at Pebble Beach in 2018.
I was very, very fortunate that I got the chance to do Amir’s car. Whoever had restored the car, would have had the chance to get that recognition.
Now his workshop is full of unusual machines that are in various states of completion. Like this Weymann-bodied Lagonda, which he restored from the ground up.
This is from 1932 or ‘33, 2.0-litre supercharged Lagonda. The speciality about this is that it’s a fabric body.
And this Adler Trumpf which is currently awaiting his attention…
It’s a very original, complete car, though it might look scary to the uninitiated.
All the machines in his workshop await his special touch… A little something Marespand refers to as “kimiu”. Kimiu means magic.
But it’s sort of a trick or a knack to get it right.
It’s this magic or knack that Marespand applies to all the cars he restores, including this 1951 Morris Minor that he’s built for touring.
Like most car restorers of repute, he’s a purist. But THIS is the exception to the rule.
Cosmetically, it looks exactly the way a 1951 Minor ought to look. But under the hood, it’s a different story.
I wanted to put a Morris engine in it, but of a later year, or two decades newer. Of the Seventies. It shares the same engine as the MG Midget.
The upgraded engine gives him a power figure of approximately 72 KW. And there are more changes too.
I upgraded it to a five-speed gearbox and then put in disc brakes because it is safer.
The reason behind the more powerful iteration? Marespand likes blowing away the traffic on cross country drives. And also likes keeping up with the other more powerful cars on their classic car tours.
And since it’s a car built for touring, he’s modified it to allow for the odd creature comfort.
Because we roam across and it becomes quite hot, I was looking it up on the net, and we found this electric AC, which doesn’t fit on the engine. It runs independent of the engine.
Of course, the aircon vents are hidden, to make sure the car looks true to period. Although he’s added a couple of extra dials to monitor the powerful system in the car.
And while Marespand enjoys going as fast as the Morris Minor will allow him, there's a poignant reason that he’s built this machine. And it has to do with his first automotive love - that 1948 Morris 8.
It has always been my Morris 8. My iron horse. And our family car. With eyes shut I can trust that car. It will take me from A to B and never ever let me down. Except on one occasion.
But after the death of his father, Marespand is keen on preserving the car that holds the family legacy…
Whenever I drive it, it brings back my… memories of my father. The car was an extension of his identity.
It’s for this reason that the car occupies pride of place in the Dadachanji household.
This ramp is where the cars go in and into the house. We open up those gates and drive it in. So four months of the monsoon they are in. I move them up and down inside the house.
And it’s this Morris that he credits with the course his life has taken.
Whatever I am today, if this car had not been in my life I would have been a different person.
Fortunately, though, the Morris Eight is in Marespand’s life, resulting in an unbreakable bond with the car, and also with the Morris marque.
After all, as he says
I have always been a Morris man.
And by the looks of it, a Morris man he always shall remain…
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