The Morris Minor made its public debut at the 27th October 1948 opening of the London Motor Show.Production had started only shortly before, thefirst two-door saloon SMM/501 being built on September 20th, 1948 and the firstTourer (SMM/527) on October 14th, 1948. Only 1120 two-door saloons and 52 Tourers were produced in the September to December period of 1948. As a particular feature to spot on the earliest Series MM cars, they were fitted with just one circular rear light, and only a red reflector on the near-side-rear.
On September 5th, 1950 the first four-door saloon was produced (SMM/62551). At this point, only four- door cars were fitted with bumper over-riders.
1961 saw the release and publicity for the Morris Minor “Million” special-edition cars, using Chassis numbers 1000000 to 1000349.These numbers were in fact allocated in advance of the normal sequence, the 349 Minor Million cars being built during December 1960. The actual Millionth car was produced on December 22 1960.
In total, it is estimated that over 1.6 million Morris Minors of all body types were built between 1948 and 1971.
There were three categories of Chassis Numbers: RHD - Right-hand-drive cars, *CKD - CompletelyKnockedDown cars, and LH -Left hand drive cars. The RHD cars used 501 to 1208, CKD kits used 5001 to 5258, and LHD cars used 5501 to 5705.
*CKD –“Completely-Knocked-Down” cars were Minors transported in crated component form to local factories which then assembled them, using local vinyl trim, tyres, glass, carpets and so on to save imported cost and to create local jobs. In the first part-year 1948, 1172 Morris Minors were built starting at Chassis number501. Before that was a prototype car SMM/500, which was later sold off and became RegisteredNJO 921. This car was used in the area of the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England.