Morris Minor Owners Club

ODD REQUEST ALERT!

alright, i have my prom in july, the 16th to be exact.
we're having a 50's theme amongst my friend group, and have decided that we'd like to bring ourselves along in 50's themed cars (: we've been looking about for cheapish 50's hire cars to carry us all, but there seems to only be convertible wedding-style cadillacs with 2 seats!

we decided a fleet of cars would be the most impactful and we do like to go out with a bang! we already have the promise of my mog (i know, she's 1970, but she's the same shape as a 50's - minus splitscreen etc), whether i've passed or not, which can carry 3+driver, and if my stepmother's truck is finished a 1949 f-100 pickup. a friend has also said he'd ask some of his harley friends to escort us from chepstow to cardiff. plus, moggie noise is the best.
the prom is taking place at st david's hotel, in cardiff bay, most of us are planning on staying the night or getting parent's lifts home, so we don't need you to hang about at all! -
If anyone can lend their moggies+themselves as drivers to give lifts/hire in exchange for moneys/cuppa tea/extra hubcaps, we'd really appreciate it! we're not 100% sure on numbers yet!

-chelsea and friends <:

NOT THAT ODD

'm on work placement to do with my uni course at the moment at my old high school. A couple of the year 11 boys have asked me if I'll take them to the prom in my car

i did a prom last year in my moggie for the students

How about a 1968 Police Car. I am free ( as John Inman would say).
I am at Kidderminster all this weekend. but you can give me a call on my mobile 07941794658.

The reasons that there are few firms offering hire cars of that era are:

If you're taking any payment for carrying people, other than for weddings and funerals, you need local authority private hire licensing. Most local authorities will not license old cars, and if they do, will insist on rigorous safety and condition standards. As well as local authorities employing enforcement officers, they have an unpaid army of extras - taxi and private hire firms who don't like unlicensed operators.

Insurance. Wedding hire insurance is available fairly cheaply on a "per occasion" basis - perhaps £10 or £15 per day. Any other sort of "hire or reward" cover is seriously expensive.

The other reason for private individuals to run a mile from prom jobs is that you probably don't want your car being trashed and thrown up in by gangs of drunk teenagers.

Which is why I enjoy doing weddings, but won't go near any other sort of hire work.

Kevin

I can't lend my Minor, I live in Cambridgeshire, but thought you may like to see the pictures of when I used her for my year 11 prom on 29th June 2006. Blimey, that was five years ago now .
My date in the pictures is my closest and dearest friend Christina Pettit, who is now studying to be a vet at Clare Collage, Cambridge. The chap in the kilt is another very good friend of mine, Chris Nowikie, who was our other companion in 'Maggie'. He's now at Hatfield Uni. [frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

santadawes wrote:How about a 1968 Police Car. I am free ( as John Inman would say).
I am at Kidderminster all this weekend. but you can give me a call on my mobile 07941794658.

I'll drop you an email when I know some more information, thankyou santa! As for people who are worried about drunken teens: stop! (: We are the most well-behaved group of teens you could ever expect, and we all respect classic vehicles and the work that goes into them, as a few of us are in the middle of restorations of various types, and those that aren't are busy being envious. Tim! That's the shiniest moggie i've ever seen!

Insurance wise, if anybody is worried, we're willing to put a bit of money towards the amount for the day, as we still think it'll work out much cheaper and classier than hiring a whopping great pink hummer.

limegreen wrote: As for people who are worried about drunken teens: stop! (:

OK: I'll believe that you and your friends are different. Prejudice is another word for accumulated wisdom.

limegreen wrote:Insurance wise, if anybody is worried, we're willing to put a bit of money towards the amount for the day, as we still think it'll work out much cheaper and classier than hiring a whopping great pink hummer.

But if the driver took even a nominal amount from you, he'd need to be local-authority licensed. And they've heard all the clever "but if I say..." sophistry. And the driver of the pink hummer, highly dischuffed that he's (perhaps) paid a fortune for a compliant car, properly licensed and insured, and expensively tested to a high standard, who's twiddling his thumbs because someone's undercut him, will take great delight in shopping that "someone". Be very, very careful of limo firms: there are still people in that business who you really wouldn't want to upset.

I don't even know whether you'd get private hire insurance without being licensed: I'd guess not (apart from weddings & funerals).

Kevin

autolycus wrote:

limegreen wrote: As for people who are worried about drunken teens: stop! (:

OK: I'll believe that you and your friends are different. Prejudice is another word for accumulated wisdom.

Thankyou!

autolycus wrote: But if the driver took even a nominal amount from you, he'd need to be local-authority licensed. And they've heard all the clever "but if I say..." sophistry. And the driver of the pink hummer, highly dischuffed that he's (perhaps) paid a fortune for a compliant car, properly licensed and insured, and expensively tested to a high standard, who's twiddling his thumbs because someone's undercut him, will take great delight in shopping that "someone". Be very, very careful of limo firms: there are still people in that business who you really wouldn't want to upset.

I don't even know whether you'd get private hire insurance without being licensed: I'd guess not (apart from weddings & funerals).

Kevin

I'm sure mr pink hummer will get manymany (probably even have to turn down some) bookings for that night! He's very popular around here. As are all the 'novelty car' hire firms.
We're just looking for options, is all - if people don't want to/can't offer their cars, then they don't have to! (: Thankyou for all your advice though.

autoclys is correct.
As a former licensed hackney driver/private hire driver myself I can tell you that anyone transporting passengers for hire and reward must have the correct license to carry passengers. The costs of licensing and running vehicles is not cheap and operators do not look kindly on "pirate" operators nor do the council officers.

Both private hire and hackney carriages are governed by the same office within the local councils.
Private hires are in the same boat as hackney (taxis) with the restriction of only being allowed to work from pre-arranged bookings.
Hackneys can work from pre-arranged bookings and also off the street and official taxi ranks.
Without wishing to dampen your evening I urge you to find friends who are willing to do this for free or seek transportation from offically licensed business. Illegal private hire can land the driver in court with a risk of short custodial sentance as a worst case scenario but most likely a sizeable fine.

RobMoore wrote:autoclys is correct.
As a former licensed hackney driver/private hire driver myself I can tell you that anyone transporting passengers for hire and reward must have the correct license to carry passengers. The costs of licensing and running vehicles is not cheap and operators do not look kindly on "pirate" operators nor do the council officers.

Both private hire and hackney carriages are governed by the same office within the local councils.
Private hires are in the same boat as hackney (taxis) with the restriction of only being allowed to work from pre-arranged bookings.
Hackneys can work from pre-arranged bookings and also off the street and official taxi ranks.
Without wishing to dampen your evening I urge you to find friends who are willing to do this for free or seek transportation from offically licensed business. Illegal private hire can land the driver in court with a risk of short custodial sentance as a worst case scenario but most likely a sizeable fine.

Thankyou Rob - I think we have two mogs now, just conversing with other possible friends who could help us out (:

excellent and remember to take some photos so we can see

RobMoore wrote:excellent and remember to take some photos so we can see

There will be plenty of photos! (:

We have transported our 3 children back from their respective proms in the Minors with no problem. As a group of parents we paid for a stretch limo for the journey to the Prom, but collected them in the Minors. No charge was made, but a large bunch of flowers, a few boxes of chocolates for the driver's wife would I'm sure be much appreciated. What's the difference with taking them home from a Prom to taking a friend of your child home from school? I've often collected my children and their friend's from school.

On each occasion they all said that they had enjoyed the trip in the Moggies more than the Limo. The cars had coloured ribbons on the bonnets and the other children who were collected in the "moderns" all wished they had "somethng like that to take them home"!

regaliaqueen wrote:What's the difference with taking them home from a Prom to taking a friend of your child home from school?

None - provided money doesn't change hands in either case.

If you accept payment for taking your child's friend, you're doing Private Hire work, just as RobMoore explained.

If it's clearly "doing a favour for a friend", then no local authority, policeman, or insurer is going to know or care if the odd bottle changes hands, but limegreen originally talked about approaching people who advertise classics for hire, and my concern was that such people are probably breaking the law and, worse, would be found to be operating without insurance.

There's much to be said for parents providing the transport (if they go along with the whole daft imported notion of proms in the first place) - it probably helps to moderate the behaviour of less responsible youngsters than our lg.

Kevin

timjsparrow wrote:I can't lend my Minor, I live in Cambridgeshire, but thought you may like to see the pictures of when I used her for my year 11 prom on 29th June 2006. Blimey, that was five years ago now .
My date in the pictures is my closest and dearest friend Christina Pettit, who is now studying to be a vet at Clare Collage, Cambridge. The chap in the kilt is another very good friend of mine, Chris Nowikie, who was our other companion in 'Maggie'. He's now at Hatfield Uni. [frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

Your chap in the kilt... that's Pride of Wales Tartan, isn't it?

autolycus wrote:

regaliaqueen wrote:What's the difference with taking them home from a Prom to taking a friend of your child home from school?

None - provided money doesn't change hands in either case.

If you accept payment for taking your child's friend, you're doing Private Hire work, just as RobMoore explained.

If it's clearly "doing a favour for a friend", then no local authority, policeman, or insurer is going to know or care if the odd bottle changes hands, but limegreen originally talked about approaching people who advertise classics for hire, and my concern was that such people are probably breaking the law and, worse, would be found to be operating without insurance.

There's much to be said for parents providing the transport (if they go along with the whole daft imported notion of proms in the first place) - it probably helps to moderate the behaviour of less responsible youngsters than our lg.

Kevin

Yes, we did approach a few classic hire companies to see if they had anything 'different' to the usual cadillacs etc - there weren't many avaliable, and those that were were very expensive... eg. film prop vehicles.
I understand that we can't offer money in exchange now, due to these laws - I was unaware that they were so strict! I was simply aiming for an expenses-paid favour.

Well, we have the beginnings of a nice fleet now, and no money will be changing hands (other than for donations to charity and in the form of favours and such!) :
2x Minors
A Zastava 750
A pencilled in 1980's Porsche 911 (A bit new for our theme, that's why she's pencilled in (: )

I'm talking to a friend of dad's this afternoon as well to see if we can nab one of his classics.
Then I think we'll have enough!

Thankyou all for your input. (:

As for the prom being an imported notion: yes, it is - we've been making american accented jokes all week about it! However, I think ours is going to be a bit more civilised, the school has organised a three-course silver service meal beforehand, so too much dancing and drinking will be well off the list! It's also nice to end your pre-university education with a party.

-lg/chelsea

It's also nice to end your pre-university education with a party

Before you go to university and the real partying starts

MColes wrote:

It's also nice to end your pre-university education with a party

Before you go to university and the real partying starts

Exactly!

Ondergard wrote:Your chap in the kilt... that's Pride of Wales Tartan, isn't it?

I have no idea I'm afraid. You probably know more than I do as to what the tartan is.

Chris was born in Scotland and lived there for the first few years of his life, so considers himself to have some Scottish heritage. He just hired a kilt dress suit from Moss Bros. in Cambridge, just so he could ware a kilt to the prom. I don't think he had any idea what tartan it was either.