Morris Minor Owners Club

here here ! quite agree !!

cheers

Well I paid alot for my traveller, but it is a bit special,and a dream vehicle! but I still would pay good money if the car was 'new' like nut and bolt resto. Mine is insured for £15000 value, but you couldn't replace it for that money, maybe the engine but nothing else. So if values go up it's only because people are willing to pay that for car.if they don't buy the values don't rise[frame][/frame]

The only trouble is the more the car is worth the insurance premium will hike up to cover this

There really are three types of classics out there and you pay for what you get.

1. There is the eBay "bargain", these are the ones that you see for £0-£1000, it is fair to say that all of these cars will need the same level of work no matter how they look. Of course it depends what sort of car you want to driving around in, but i personally like to know that all aspects of the car are sound, the best thing to do with these cars in most cases is to buy them in the knowledge that you will be carrying out a full restoration.

2. There are the cars that have been "well looked after", these cars are usually from genuine people who have looked after the car to the best of their ability. Now these cars are hit or miss really as it depends on the owner knowing their stuff. There are alot of people that like to carry out diy work on vehicles, in most cases this is perfectly fine but some of these people certainly should not be carrying out repairs on a car that will be driving on public roads. These cars are you £1000-£7000 price bracket.

3. These are your "Professionally restored Classics", These cars are the top of the top, built from the ground up by people who really know their stuff. With the odd exception most of the companies who have lasted this lost are pretty hot when it comes to their chosen cars. The cars that you purchase from professional garages will usually carry a price tag of upto £20,000 (For a standard or slightly updated car) and rightly so. The thing is, you could go and purchase a brand new Ford Mondeo for £15,000 - Upwards, the Mondeo is probably the best all round car for the money, but you would be buying a car that will depreciate like a lead balloon as there are so many of them made.

To restore a Morris Minor properly you are looking at around £10,000 in parts, to make sure they are fitted correctly by knowledgable people i think another £8,000-10,000 is more than acceptable.

Of course, there is really another sort of Classic, and that is the "Updated Classic" which can cost how ever much you are willing to spend. Our test vehicles certainly stand us at a pretty penny, although alot of that is research and development and manufacturing. But at least we then get to pass our products on to you lot!

So really, my point is.......if you want a a £500 Morris Minor, pay upto £500, if you want a reasonable one pay upto £6000-8000 and if you want one that you can be proud of and you cant do the work yourself, go and see one of the skilled restoration firms and get one built

Plus, inflated classic prices if a great thing... it means that insurance companies will be having to revalue, it mean that the cars will not all end up in canals and it means that they may start attracting more people!

A Series Spares wrote: if you want a a £500 Morris Minor, pay upto £500, if you want a reasonable one pay upto £6000-8000 and if you want one that you can be proud of and you cant do the work yourself, go and see one of the skilled restoration firms and get one built

Plus, inflated classic prices if a great thing... it means that insurance companies will be having to revalue, it mean that the cars will not all end up in canals and it means that they may start attracting more people!

The point is, although there are still cars out there no matter what your budget (as long as it's above the shell's new-found scrap value), what you get for the money is diminishing. Not so long ago, if you knew where to look, a tatty saloon with a reasonable amount of MOT was obtainable for ~£500 with a little bit of patience, whereas now you'd be very unlikely to find such a car. The picture is more dramatic for travellers.

I agree that higher values (particularly at the top end) might mean more being fully restored rather than left to rot away, but if prices at the lower end rise too much then people will be put off. Not quite sure how higher prices would attract more people? That is, other than speculators and investors, who should not IMO be welcomed as their motivation for ownership is primarily financial gain, rather than to love and use the car.

My saloon was £300 with a full mot but it was back in 2001. There seem to be far fewer around at that sort of price now apart from major projects. The same has happened to Minis, you could always pick one up for a couple of hundred quid on the road, now even projects are a lot more than that.

Then there are Mk1 Escorts....££££££££

StaffsMoggie wrote:Then there are Mk1 Escorts....££££££££

Mk2's are going the same way too! They have a rally heritage though, thats the one thing about minors, no racing heritage unfortunately.

Mk 2 escort Rs 2000,s have been fetching up to £20,000 for a restored example for a few years now and the Mini cooper s has been fetching very strong money also Lous cortina,s and even Escort vans .The things that are being done to Minors big engines suspension mods etc never include safety features paramount in my mind if a member has a young family !. I have no doubt in my my mind Sir Alec issigonis and Jack Daniels would turn in there graves to see what has become of the cheap affordable easy fix normal peoples car.

i agree with your sentiment, all bodging up cars makes is a quicker passage for them to the scrappers

irmscher wrote:The things that are being done to Minors big engines suspension mods etc never include safety features paramount in my mind if a member has a young family !

i think that's a matter of opinion. the first thing i did to my traveller was add bigger brakes before i considered any performance increases (this has been the underlining status quo in the modifying world since time immemorial) and knowing i'm going to do the same again, one of the first things i have on the 'to do' list is to have the chassis stitch- welded.

in fact you have touched on one of my biggest bug- bears with the cheap classics end of the market is that the low- cost makes bodgery the way forward, as there is less in the way of financial incentive to do the best job possible. not the case if you are dealing with a ferrari 280 GTO for example.........

hence why my next minor will be a complete dog. i'd rather buy a wreck knowing what i was getting into than assume what i was getting was 'sorted' and inevitably paying over the odds for it.

i am of the school of thought that there is no such thing as a classic car just 'very used'.

I agree with you Jagnut

So do I.

Its even happening on here though, 10,950 being asked for one in the For sale section...

What a fascinating read this has been!

Minors are much rarer in the States, of course, but generally they're cheaper than in Britain, I've found (perhaps because there's less demand, perhaps because you'll spend enough to compensate when you go to ship parts over here!) -- but then the United States produced the majority of the world's cars for the two or three decades that the Minor was in production, I think, so it's WAY easier to find an American classic in America than to find a British one. In fact my dad owns one, a 1959 Pontiac Catalina, and it's ripe for restoration, too, alongside Stiltzkin.

Though VW Beetles from that era are a penny a piece.

Minors are much rarer in the States, of course, but generally they're cheaper than in Britain, I've found (perhaps because there's less demand

Going back nearly 10 years, minors were more than twice the price in the US compared to the very low prices in the UK.
Have US prices dropped or is it just the continued price growth in UK?

It's more probable that my statement is simply affected by sample bias; I've seen very few Minors for sale, and none in showroom condition (that is, perfect but unmodded). But I think the prices for Minors have not climbed as quickly as they have in Britain.

Two Minors are listed on the American eBay right now: both 1960, one a Traveller in Oregon with 55000 miles, and the other a saloon (advertised as a Mini...) in New Hampshire with 45000 miles; the Trav is currently at $3045, and the saloon is at $4000, or £1920 and £2523, respectively. They're both in pretty good shape, though the Trav is better. http://motors.shop.ebay.com/Cars-Trucks ... 538&_rdc=1

That US traveller has a lot of potential (i.e. you could make a really tidy car out of it) but would be very much bottom end in UK classic car market - holes in wings tired paint and grey non shiny wood = not attractive to the casual classic owner.
Therefore probably similar price here in UK to US.
Personally I wouldn't want to pay half that price but my head is stuck in a time warp based on prices from last decade. 10 years ago that would have fetched £100 to £250 in the UK!

Well, that's the same with anything...I whistle derisively at a gallon of milk for $4. My friends tell me I have an old soul. That's certainly true for prices; I can't stand how little your dollar (or pound) does these days.