Morris Minor Owners Club

Well, it's the start of a new year, so what about a new challenge?

Anyone out there thinking of entering Concours for the first time in 2007? I really do hope so

Do you think I'd get very far with my Trav then bill? (see sig, and imagine it worse!)

Could you give us some details as to what the judges look for, how a car is judged etc. I don't currently have any cars that could possibly hope to compete but I might be interested in building a future project from the ground up to concours standard, as long as I was given some idea as to what that standard entailed. In detail, down to how to weld panels together in a concours standard!

Dan_Harris wrote:Do you think I'd get very far with my Trav then bill? (see sig, and imagine it worse!)

Everyone has to start somewhere

chickenjohn wrote:Could you give us some details as to what the judges look for, how a car is judged etc. I don't currently have any cars that could possibly hope to compete but I might be interested in building a future project from the ground up to concours standard, as long as I was given some idea as to what that standard entailed. In detail, down to how to weld panels together in a concours standard!

A full set of the MMOC Concours Rules & Regulations can now accessed by simply visiting the Members Area / Downloads / Concours. To get an idea of the standards, come over to the Concours area next time your at a regional or national rally. Remember though, to enter Concours at Merit level the car doesn't have to have been rebuilt to Grand Masters standards

Thanks Judge, we don;t have any concours in the Kent area. I downloaded the regulations last year and it said how the judging was to be carried out and what the owner and judge were supposed to do etc but did not cover any details as to what exactly is judged on the car itself. Where points are lost etc.

Simply put, the car is divided into four areas, exterior, interior, engine bay and underside. Each section is judged for a timed period of eight minutes, with attention to detail, originality, condition etc.

Concours has been referred to as 'spit & polish' but in fact overpolishing can result in downmarking, as any entrant will tell you. It is accepted that a totally individually rebuilt car will sometimes be in a better condition than when it left the factory, but if this is taken to extremes it can reduce the actual marks achieved. Whereas originality can increase the marks given.

The problem for some of us is that with modded cars, we lose points for each mod, as a matter of interest how many point can you lose per mod.

Depends on the mod Kevin. In fact some mods would unfortunately exclude you altogether, but then that's why we have a Modified & Custom class

but then that's why we have a Modified & Custom class

Yes and I think the standard in that class can be even higher than the normal concours especially the mirror finish on some of the bodywork.

I would have thought a mirror finish to the paint was a prerequisite to any concours class???

I think that in fact Kevin is right. The question you have to ask yourself is, how many Minors came off the line with a mirror finish?

I've heard that most Minors came off the production line with areas of "orange peel" paint, more visible with the darkers colours.

Does this mean that wet sanding followed by G3 machine compounding to get really smooth paint could lose points?

My point is the factory finish would have been "out of the gun".

Surely over time even an original cellulose paint job would become smoother and shinier after many years of hand polishing with the odd t-cut??

Points are lost for excessive overpolishing. What must be remembered is that the finish after years of polishing does become smoother and shinier, and what we are looking for is a car that looks as close to its 'just left the factory' look as possible. However a certain amount of overpolishing is permissible.

Points are lost for excessive overpolishing.

I can understand that.
We also have some examples within our branch that suffer from underpolishing and even have that patina called a matt finish

Better than a rust and primer finish!

I tried to download the rules and regs as judge said and got a 404 error!!??!! and its a word document and I don;t have word on my Mac.

Can we please have the rules and regs in acrobat reader format to make them more easilt accessible?

Cam, are you there?

Quite right. The document isn't on the server, and I've mailed Jon (it's his area) to see if he knows anything about it. Will post as soon as it's sorted out.

Disappeared during the last server hack, I'm afraid. I've contacted Bill for a new copy, and it will be posted ASAP. CJ, there are free progs that read .doc for the Mac, but I'll have a go at PDFing it too.