I am indebted to George Strampp who brought the Durable Car Company to my attention. This enterprising (re)manufacturer is dedicated to hand-crafting body parts that will allow Morris Minors to keep on going forever.
It was started by Dhanapala Samarasekara, a retired Sri Lankan diplomat, who said, “We cannot do away with transport. But we should use it in a meaningful way.” And for him, by keeping Morris Minors going, he breaks the cycle of ‘planned obsolescence.’ Samarasekara calls it a waste. “What a wastage of human effort it is.”
Morrie Minor
Of course, it isn’t quite that simple, as the auto industry’s planned obsolescence does employ millions of people worldwide and puts food on those millions of tables.
But the other side of the coin is by giving people in third world countries mobility, which can in turn assist them in finding employment and putting food on the aforementioned tables.
But why start a spare parts factory for a car that hasn’t been manufactured for more than 30 years? Because there are still 300,000 of these cars on the roads, and if spare parts can shore them up, these Morris Minors will go on forever.
Samarasekara has a business relationship in partnership with Charles Ware, an Englishman who has been concerned with the conservation of useful things since the early 1960s and sells the parts for the Morris Minors in the UK.
