LS-Swapped Morris Minor Pickup Makes Serious Smoke
Custom 1956 British pickup truck is not only built in the classic hot-rodder style, it’s been touched by several of the hot-rodding greats along the way.
Jeff Carr knows hot rods. He should because his dad is one of the guys that helped build the custom car culture into what it is today. Bill Carr, Jeff’s father, was the 20th inductee into the Custom Car Hall of Fame and knew a bunch of the greats. Jeff says, “George Barris held me as a baby. I got stories upon stories. And they’re all good ones.”
What does all this history have to do with a British-made pickup truck? Carr, who’d met the Hoonigan crew at a random event in Huntington Beach, California, stopped by the Donut Garage in his 1956 Morris Minor pickup truck that’s sporting a 5.3-liter LS V-8 “that’s been modified a tad.” How much is a tad? How about 500 horsepower through a full complement of Holley components. It’s even sporting some Trick Flow heads.
The Morris had been in his family since about 1997. His dad chased a guy down in Long Beach to buy this completely stock truck, and then he set to work on it. His dad chopped the top with Bill Hines, aka the Leadslinger. The Morris still bears evidence of all the work Hines did, especially around the top-rear of the side windows. A 4.3 Vortec V-6 with a 700R4 was the first engine the little truck got. Then the senior Carr chopped the top at Hines shop, but got sick from Lou Gehrig’s disease and passed away. The truck wasn’t finished, or even running. Jeff’s mom willed the truck to him in 2004, and he drove it for a year before a drunk driver totaled it in 2005. It sat until 2010 when he and a friend rebuilt it.
Carr said he always dreamed of having a V-8 truck, so after SEMA one year he took it out and chopped the frame out of it. He laughed, “I said, ‘there’s no turning back now.'” In went the built 5.3 LS V-8. He said it makes 500 hp, which is certainly possible with a 5.3 LS and looks nearly bulletproof in the Morris. Then we get a closer look at the massive rear tires. Those are 18-inch wide tires on 20-inch wide wheels. He said, “this truck is five feet wide, with three feet of rubber on the ground.” Dang. With a 2,050-pound curb weight, he needs it.
Carr explains some of the history of the Morris Minor pickups, noting that only 200 of the morris minor pickups made it over to the U.S. Since it was classified as a commercial vehicle when it was imported, it got slapped with a massive tax. Hence, only several hundred made it over.
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