Morris Minor Owners Club

toyota celica st mk1 (Japans answer to the ford mustang)and a tank on wheels had until someone parked it around a tree

then a 205 "D" reg White
405 "M" Reg Red
ford Granada Mk 2 2ltr DOHC Red "G" reg
Ford Granada Mk 2 2ltr DOHC White "H" Reg
Ford Orion Red "P" reg
Vaux Corsa 1.2 "P" Reg Silver **
MG ZS 1.8 XPower Gray "53" Reg **
1960 Morris Minor Black (Restro Project) **


(** i still have)

I can't believe how few cars and motorbikes I've had compared to the rest of you!

I started learning to drive in 1976 with a 1957 4 dr Morris Minor, which I bought for £45 (including the car tax!) from my brother-in-law's mate. My brother-in-law had originally bought it so that he could house the engine of his rusted-out frog-eye Sprite in it, which he duly did. Although I'm led to believe that the engine size was the same, it certainly went faster than any other Minor around my area. It was grey with all four wings painted British Racing Green, and I loved it - TMJ 45 got trashed round the corner from our house, though, and I hadn't the expertise or the money to repair it. Sold it for £50! Now I think about it, I wonder if the bloke I sold it to did the trashing, just so that eh could get the number plate.

I worked for London Transport by then, and lived in the Smoke, so no need for anything other than a staff pass for a good few years.

In 1981 I finally passed my test, and bought a pristine, beautiful K-reg turquoisey-blue Hillman Imp. A real nippy little thing, but sadly all the usual Imp engine faults (well, strictly, cooling system faults which led to warped heads and even blocks) appeared. She got nicked the night before the start of the rail strikes in 1982, and as I lived in Gillingham by then it meant begging a lift into work from a neighbour. The Imp was found torched in Chatham.

The next car was a K-reg white Escort Mark 1, nicknamed Elsa. I think she was a 1600... it's so long ago! She was lovely, especially after I had the rear floor pans replaced, but I sold her after our first child was born because my missus gave up work and I couldn't afford to keep what was basically a luxury.

When I went to College in 1986, we used part of the proceeds of the sale of our house to buy a brand-new Ford Escort - Emily. Another white car. She got written off on a roundabout in Cardiff on the way home from a cricket match, just after I signed a contract to trade her in for her replacement, another Escort - red this time - called Ruby, in 1989.

Ruby got traded in for a silver-grey Peugeot 309 trio D in 1992 - Sylvia - and she lasted 240,000 miles and seven years. She got traded for yet another Escort in 1998 - midnight blue, and never had a name because we knew we weren't going to keep her (her moulded door panels and fascia meant we couldn't get my daughter's cello in the passenger seat or the boot).

In 1999 - actually on 31 December, the last day of the century - I traded her in for Mandy, a S-reg white 1900cc Mondeo diesel estate (cello-friendly bootspace) which lasted six years until a drunken Sikh ploughed into her when she was parked outside my house, shunted her thirty yards down the road, and put most of her engine into the pasenger seat, about two minutes after my son had vacated it.

That meant a down-sizing replacement (daughter and cello now fled the nest) to what I have now - a silver-grey, un-named, 1400 Peugeot 307 hdi.

And now I have Betsy Blue, a 1969 Trafalgar blue Morris Saloon.

So I think that is a modest nine cars in thirty two years.

I have also had a Honda 90, a Yamaha RS 100, a Suzuki GN 250, and am now the owner of a Yamaha XJ900S Diversion.

Don't ask what I would like to own....

Non Minors in approximate order

1960 Ford Popular 100e 2 door
1962 Ford Anglia 105E 2 Door
1960 Riley 1.5 4 Door
1964 Hillman Super Minx 4 Door
1965 Austin Mini 850cc
1968 Austin 1100 4 Door
1963 Ford Classic 2 Door
1965 Ford Mk 1 Cortina 1500 Estate
1968 Ford Cortina 1600 Estate
1968 Hillman Minx Estate
1972 Marina 1.8 4 door
1974 Marina 1.8 Estate
1975 Marina 1.3 4 Door
1978 Marina 1.7 4 Door
1979 Marina 1.7 Estate
1980 Lada 1200 Estate
1980 Ford Cortina Mk 4 4 Door
1982 Ford Cortina Mk 5 4 door
1982 VW Jetta 4 Door
1982 Peugeot 504 Family Estate
1984 Vauxhall Cavalier GSI
1985 VW Passat Estate
1986 Ford Sierra 4 Door
1987 Vauxhall Carlton CD
1991 Misubishi Space Waggon Mk1
1992 Ford Sierra 4 Door
1996 Mitsubishi Space Waggon Mk2
1998 Vauxhall Astra
2004 Suzuki Grand Vitara

Moggies

1957 2 Door Sage Green (quite modified, quite unreliable)
1964 2 Door Saloon Trafalgar Blue (Bouncer)
1965 2 Door Saloon Trafalgar Blue (Midge)
1969 Traveller Black (WIP (work in progress)
1958 2 Door Dove Grey (Alice)
1969 Traveller White (Charlie)
1968 2 Door Saloon Maroon (Maurice)
1969 2 Door Saloon Almond Green (Alfie)
1968 Traveller Smoke Grey (Lovejoy)

Well that's far more than I thought and I may even have forgotton a few