During the design of any new car it is important to build various prototypes, that will be assembled as closely as possible to production methods. When building the prototypes months of design meetings & drawings will be merged into one and built. Thankfully during the process some cars are forgotten about!

Aprx 1958 - Issigonis' theory of "town, city, motorway" cars can be clearly seen. The 1100 is pictured on the left. However it was scrapped because it looked too much like the mini.

Aprx 1958 - The transformation of the basic mini shell begins to take shape. However the shape up to the rear wing still looks very mini like. Does this prototype scream Riley Elf & Wolseley Hornet?

Aprx 1958 - Although this is a prototype for the 1800, it shares a great resemblance to the 1100 prototype above. However the rear wings are larger, and the bumper tends to wrap around further.

Aprx 1959 - By this time Pininfarina had been appointed. This was beneficial to the team because he had a clean sheet of paper to work too. On this prototype the front end looks rather flat and scruffy, tidying up needed to done here! The doors on this prototype are rather square. This idea was thrown out by BMC because it was thought it would be too costly to put into production.

Aprx 1959 - The revised edition of the previous version. The front end is tidier, and more similar to that, which would appear on production built cars. The roof panel is also closer to the one that made it into production. Doors are still rather square, and the round side lamps would soon be thrown off.

Aprx July 1959 - The mini is in final stages for launch, and Pininfarina has had a third go with this prototype and the Morris 1100 is just about to be born. The front end treatment looks very neat, one wonders why this wasn't adopted and used in the final production model? Doors would change again before production.

Firstly, I apologise for the quality of these images. They were snapped in Motorsport October 1960.

Aprx 1960 - This prototype is a dead ringer for the actual production version. However the boot hinged like the mini, rear lights are like those to MG Magnette and the fuel filler neck is situated on the drivers side. One also wonders why the front end looks rather bulbous?

Once a final design is agreed upon, months of testing will then begin. Firstly a few hand made vehicles will be built followed then by a set of pre-production models. The pre-production models are built using production line methods, and the same tests are run as before, and weaknesses or improvements will be addressed within this version. Finally the car is ready to be launched to the press. In this case as the Morris 1100 on August the 15th 1962.