A van for all seasons: the schizophrenic 850 goes all commercial

WHEELS looked at the van in roughly three lights, particularly as we do not normally test commercial vehicles and only made this exception because of the extraordinary following that the Morris 850 has in Australia. (No, we won't test a Holden panel van for the same reason.) We variously regarded — and treated — it as a purely commercial unit, then as a pseudo-station wagon with a child sleeping in the back on a long trip, and finally as an about-town hack. It showed up as a very versatile vehicle; the surfing devotees were particularly taken with it, because they felt they could — shades of yabbadabbadoo —get their boards up on the longer flat-top roof that might have been built for them and use the inside for sleeping. It may yet replace a second-hand hearse as the accepted board-rider's wear.

The van is the same mechanically as the 850 sedan, and is produced on the same assembly lines. However, it is 4 5/32 in. longer in the wheelbase, although with the same front and rear track, and 9 3/8 in. longer overall. It wears the Morris-Cooper drilled wheel trims, and is a two-door body with divided, side-hinged rear doors each carrying a small square of glass.

The effect is that the 850 body has been cut in half, a flat extension floor and upright trussings welded in for bracing, and the van body added. The fuel tank had to be redesigned from its oval shape in the rear wing of the sedan boot to a flat underfloor shape for the van, and the filler cap relocated into a most awkward recess on the right-hand side; on the test car if the cap were at all tight it literally could not be undone with the bare hands because of lack of room for fingers.

The spare wheel is clamped into the recess under the floor of the tray behind the bucket seats, and next to it are the tools and the battery, which turns out to be a little more accessible than the well-buried thing in the boot of a Mini sedan. Otherwise, the interior of the van does not differ greatly from that of the sedan.

The same trim materials are used, including the new coarse-weave seat facings and door trim that look to be proof against everything but nuclear attack. Only one sun-visor is fitted, for the driver, and instrumentation is the same — the full-width parcels shelf with central speedometer, central switches, flat-plane steering wheel, sliding windows, and all the familiar old face. The only difference is that the parcels shelf light has disappeared.

However, you notice the benefit of BMC's two years of improving the breed without telling anyone or making noises about new models. The odometer now has a decimal face, and the starter button is covered with a rubber boot, we suppose to meet those thousands of angry female complaints about broken fingernails. (One girl we know uses a pencil on her Mini starter.) There, is of course, baulk-ring synchromesh in the gearbox as compared to the older hunt-and-crunch type.

Even the floor covering has improved; it is now heavier and smoother, very unlike its speckled predecessor, which we remember once describing as "unborn perentie lizard hide." That same material would always split around the foot of the gear lever, and apparently the new version does not. The choke knob has been slightly enlarged and (we suspect) a better-running cable used to stop the knob sticking halfway, as in the early cars.

There is a small roof vent which is held by a spring-loaded tongue, and hinged at its leading edge. It opens a gap of about 5 in. However, there is no stay to keep it open and on the test car it was eternally vibrating shut. The exhaust line has been re-routed slightly to bring it out at a different angle, and the windscreen washer and coil re-positioned in the engine bay. The rear trailing links have also apparently been given a slightly higher angle to raise the rear of the van to allow for loading.

The seats pivot forward on leading-edge hinges for access through the two doors to the rear of the van, but do not have floor covering underneath, resting instead on bare body metal. This lack of lining through the van makes it a noisier unit than the sedan. Road noise and tyre mumble are amplified, and there is a suggestion of exhaust boom. As in any van, there are several body noises. The rear doors, which lock with a socketed rod, creak continually. However, the noise level was not as high as we anticipated, and on an overnight dash of 220 miles, it never became irritating.

The overall standard of finish is good, particularly for a commercial unit. The trim materials are very good for this price bracket, and exterior paintwork is — as are all BMC's Rotodip products — of excellent quality.

Most of our drivers felt the lack of ventilation. The sliding windows misted over more easily than those in the sedan. The unit can hardly be driven with rear doors open on their very good check-links, so the windows and the tiny roof vent are the only breezeway. It gets quite stuffy in hot weather.