Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi,

I have just bought my first Morris Minor. It's a 1961 4 door in black, but is has been fitted with a 1098cc engine which I presume a previous owner has done as it should have been a 948cc. It also has later style combined indicators/lights and fibre glass wings.

I just wondered if anybody knows anything about it, as it has a owners club sticker in the window.

It seems in pretty good condition and so far just needs a new inner wheel arch on the off side and a small patch to the bottom of one of the doors and in the boot.

I have never had one before, but my father bought a brand new one in 1957 and has been raving about them since I was a kid.

You also need to try and track down its original reg number as USK*** is a replacement number, either on a cherished transfer or in place of an original registration number when a V5 reg document was first issued.

busguy wrote:You also need to try and track down its original reg number as USK*** is a replacement number, either on a cherished transfer or in place of an original registration number when a V5 reg document was first issued.

How do you find out the original registration and how can you tell when it is not the original registration. I just assumed it was th original one to be honest.

On the V5, has it got written Non Transferable next to the reg. Mine has as it is a different reg than the original.

8009STEVE wrote:On the V5, has it got written Non Transferable next to the reg. Mine has as it is a different reg than the original.

I haven't got the log book yet, I didn't look at the original when I filled in the new driver details on the V5 at the dealers.

I thought it was a bit odd that it was being sold at such a reasonable price as normally the number plate would be worth a few hundred alone. Not that I was planning to sell it anyway.

I paid £650.00 for the car with 3 months MOT left. It seemed a reasonable deal.

"How do you find out the original registration and how can you tell when it is not the original registration."

SK numbers were issued by Caithness and were one of the slowest issues of all UK registrations. They were still issuing SK**** numbers in 1963 and only reached ASK *** in August 1963 as a normal issue. The last 'old' ASK was issued July 1964 when replacement ASK***B was introduced. USK*** was obviously never issued as a normal plate.

When the DVLA had to find 'age related' numbers for cherished reg transfers and for vehicles that surfaced having never had a V5 they hit on issuing *SK, *SV, *XB and various other old type but unissued reg numbers as replacements. You have one of them.

Maybe, just maybe if you obtain a heritage certificate for your chassis number it will give the original reg number. Other people who may have known the original car can then maybe help you with the history.

Sad knowing all this I know but I dealt with Reg numbers for a long time and I still haven't lost my memory.

If you apply to the DVLA for the previous keeper history (and pay the fee which used to be £5) then its present number will be used for the search and when the results come back it usually shows what its original number was and will show the date it was transferred. If on the other hand it was off the road for a long period and lost its original number that way then there will be no history stored before the time it was re-registered. What you get back is usually well worth the search fee. The heritage certificates will only give you details of the numberplate (area and time of issue) if you quote the mark to them on application. They do not hold any numberplate details on their records as they are purely factory build records from before the vehicle was registered. The closest they may have is the dealer that it was despatched to as new. Both searches are well worth doing if you want to look into your cars history.

Thanks for the replies, I did a history check on the web and found out it has had a cherished number change (but no date was provided) and that it used to be green up until 1996. The last owner change was in November 2006 and it was a garage, so maybe they were the one's to sell the plate as they probably had to register it in their name in order to sell the plate.

Anyway when I get the log book with the former keeper details, I will contact them and ask if they have the original details. The only issue which makes me think the plate was changed a long time ago is that the physical number plate on the front of the car looks very old.

I would like to find out about the history of the car, how do I get a heritage certificate. It would be interesting to find out where it came from and the options fitted.

Thanks again

This is where you can apply for a Heritage Certificate.