1965 Morris Minor Convertible Tourer *Sold £1,800*

Description

• Stored for nearly three decades
• One-family ownership since the 1970’s
• 30,000 recorded miles. (read the description)
• All present and correct
• A remarkable find

Even if you’re not a ‘car nut’, is there anything else better than seeing a Morris Minor trundling along the byways going about its business? Yes, actually there is. It’s seeing a Morris Minor  Convertible Tourer, with the top down, pootling about!

The Moggie needs no introduction, does it. So here are couple of useless irrelevant ‘facts’ instead.

The Chairman of Morris, Lord Nuffield, ‘hated it’. He called it a poached egg! Reportedly, he refused to even acknowledge its success to Issigonis until it hit 1,000,000m sales, which it did.

Tiff Needle learned to race in one. Believe that if you will. The codename for the original Moggie was Mosquito! Many people swear that the Moggie is the only classic car you’ll ever need. Long live the Morris Minor.

Background

We intend to let the images speak for themselves on this auction lot. They will describe it much better than we can. We do have some background which we’ll share here. Also, we do have our vendor who tells us she has ‘piles’ of paperwork, which we can reference. For reasons that will become obvious, we don’t want to make a nuisance of ourselves.

As you can see this Morris Minor Convertible is a proper, undiluted garage find. Less than 75,000 Morris Minor  Convertible Tourers were ever built and this particular Moggie came into the family’s ownership in the mid to late 1970’s.

Some 30 years ago, our vendor, Margaret’s husband passed away. Margaret tells us she continued to drive, cherish and look after the Moggie for around another 3 or 4 years. It then went into the garage you see at the back of the images and that is where it remained. Dry and stored and partially looked after, as much as it was “turned over regularly”.

When practicality overtook sentiment, someone offered Margaret a sum for it, as it was. Her good friend Dave intervened. He contacted us. We chatted with Dave and took a look at the images.

We suggested the figure offered might be a little ‘low’. Don’t misunderstand us. The classic Morris Minor is as it is; a project. And as such, it isn’t worth a King’s Ransom.

But it is a very original, honest classic that is all there and Margaret and her family merit a fair price.

Headlines

We are struck by just how good the paintwork is! Take a look. A couple of the panels have been carefully wiped free of years of dust. See for yourself the condition.

The engine turns. It is not seized. To us it looks like it’s run not that long ago. But we are assured not. We all know how resilient the A-Series engine is. We will not be at all surprised, if the classic Minor is given some new petrol, spun over, fitted with new spark plugs and she fires up. Vroom, vroom.

The chrome in some areas is very good. In others it is intact, but seriously weathered, as you’d expect. But again, we’d be contacting one of our best suppliers of product ‘Bulldog BDX’ and ask him what he’s got to get the worst of it off. They are only original once.

As you can see the hood is up and aside from a couple of areas of ageing, is very good indeed, all things considered.

Dave has taken some images of the underside as best he could. We can see there are some crusty bits, but the sills and jacking points and floor, in general look okay from the images. You will need to make you own minds up though.

The inside is remarkable, given its context. It is all original. The seats will all clean up. The rear seat base has a tear as you can see. The door cards are all good. There is really, very little deterioration. Who was it that said British cars don’t last!

Our view

A genuine garage find. The same family ownership since the 1970’s, in an unabused, unmolested, original condition. The best bit? Although there is no way the mileage can be legally ‘warranted’ all our instincts tell it very probably is correct. Our vendor may have some paperwork to support it and that may emerge. We’ll see.

This Morris Minor Convertible is by far and away the ‘best’ classic Morris Minor. Many saloons have been converted, so finding one like this is a real treat.

If we could – we can’t because we never, ever, ever bid on auction lots on our site, The Boss would tear us in two, literally – we’d own it in a heart beat. We’d get it running, give it a good soapy gentle wash and drive it about, getting bags of fun and enjoyment from it.

You’ll do the same if you win it. The reserve is very, very low. Good luck.

 

Vehicle Location: Leicestershire LE19– it’s the responsibility of the winning bidder to make collection / transportation arrangements directly with the vendor

Have a question about this Morris Minor Convertible? Please contact the Evoke team at auction@evoke-classics.com and we will speak to the vendor on your behalf.

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