Morris Cowley

One of the original brand launch range and a very fine model. It is a Morris Cowley and the real car was made just up the road from where I live - in the factory where BMW now make Minis. It's at Cowley, where else? Just as Cowley is rather down-market from Oxford the Morris Cowley was somewhat down-market from the Morris Oxford. The Oxford was a similar car, the boot was more squared off with little tail fins. Or - was it that both the Oxford and Cowley shared this body shape and in the 57 model year both moved to the bigger boot shape? I can't answer because my oldest Observers book of Automobiles is 1957 and it has both the Oxford & the Cowley with the big boot - and no discernable differences between the two cars.

Wikipedia says: "The 1950s Morris Cowley was a four-cylinder midsize car produced from 1954 to 1959. It was essentially a budget version of the Morris Oxford with less chrome, no heater, no opening front quarter lights and a simplified dashboard." so there's your answer. One more interesting fact about this car is that the later version with the bigger boot was still in production until recently, in India, where it is called a Hindustan Ambassador,

Corgi released the 202 Morris Cowley with the original brand launch in 1956. A mechanical flywheel version was released at the same time. In 1959 a two-tone version was released as part of a range refresh. The solid colour non-mechanical version was painted blue, grey or green and remained in production until 1960. Look out for blue cars as they get a good premium over the other two colours.

The mechanical version is in shades of green or off-white, two-tone cars are grey/blue, blue/cream, pale green/blue and white/blue. I have yet to find an example of the mechanical version.