The Morris Nomad is a car that was produced in Australia by British Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia from 1969 to 1972. It is a

hatchback A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. ...

version of the

Morris 1500 Year 1500 ( MD) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The year 1500 was not a leap year in the Proleptic Gregorian calendar. The year was seen as being especially important by many Christians in Europe, who thought it ...

sedan, itself a locally produced variant of the British

BMC ADO16 The BMC ADO16 is a range of small family cars built by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and, later, British Leyland. Launched in 1962, it was Britain's best-selling car from 1963 to 1966 and from 1968 to 1971. The ADO16 was marketed under va ...

design with a larger 1500 cc engine. The Nomad was a small - medium-sized car, sitting above the

Morris Mini The Mini is a small, two-door, four-seat car, developed as ADO15, and produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors, from 1959 through 2000. Minus a brief hiatus, original Minis were built for four decades and sold during ...

in size and price. The hatchback styling resembles that of the

Austin Maxi The Austin Maxi is a medium-sized, 5-door hatchback family car that was produced by Austin and later British Leyland between 1969 and 1981. It was the first British five-door hatchback. British Leyland built and sold the Maxi alongside the 197 ...

, which was never sold in Australia. It was a front-wheel-drive car, with an all independent suspension linked by fluid filled chambers, which was called

Hydrolastic Hydrolastic is a type of space-efficient automotive suspension system used in many cars produced by British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successor companies. Invented by British rubber engineer Alex Moulton, and first used on the 1962 BMC ...

suspension by the company. The suspension gave a comfortable ride, only suffering a little from "droop" if overloaded in the boot, and sometimes going into

oversteer Understeer and oversteer are vehicle dynamics terms used to describe the sensitivity of a vehicle to steering. Oversteer is what occurs when a car turns (steers) by more than the amount commanded by the driver. Conversely, understeer is what occu ...

if the body rolled too much with hard cornering. Power came from a

BMC E-Series engine The BMC E-series engine is a line of straight-4 and straight-6 overhead camshaft automobile petrol engines from the British Motor Corporation (BMC). It displaced 1.5 L or 1.8 L in four-cylinder form, and 2.2 L or 2.6 L as a si ...

with a single overhead camshaft, which provided improved performance and economy compared with the original

Morris 1100 Year 1100 ( MC) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 1100th year of the Common Era (CE) and '' Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 100th year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th ...

model. Four- and five-speed manual gearboxes were available. Automatic versions of the 1500 sedan and Nomad were fitted with the 1275cc BMC A-Series engine and

Automotive Products Automotive Products, commonly abbreviated to AP, was an automotive industry components company set up in 1920 by Edward Boughton, Willie Emmott and Denis Brock, to import and sell American-made components to service the fleet of ex- military t ...

4-speed automatic transmission also used in the MiniMatic models and marketed as a Morris 1300 Automatic. The body was largely identical, except with new pressings for the front and rear panels to fit with the

British Leyland British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partl ...

"corporate look", and to shed the tailfins of the original model. Unlike their British counterparts which were coded ADO16, the Nomads were designated with a YDO9 code and the sedans with YDO15. Austin Nomad, Austin 1500 and Austin 1300 names were used in some export markets, where the cars were marketed by Austin. The Morris 1300/1500/Nomad models were replaced in the Australian market in 1972 by the

Morris Marina The Morris Marina is a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive small family car that was manufactured by the Austin-Morris division of British Leyland from 1971 until 1980. It served to replace the Morris Minor in the Morris product line, which ...

.Morris Marina at www.elevenhundred.com
Retrieved 25 March 2012 Approximately 29,000 were built.

References

* Adams, Keith (2005)

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The UNOFFICIAL Austin-Rover Web Resource
Retrieved 17 December 2005. {{British Motor Holdings and British Leyland cars, 1966-1986 N British Leyland vehicles Cars of Australia Cars introduced in 1969 1970s cars Front-wheel-drive vehicles Hatchbacks