Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all,
While polishing the Minor at the weekend I noticed that the rear window frames appear to have been added post production as it were. The joints between the frame sections and bodywork are kind of rough looking compared with the rest of the body and differ even from each other on the nearside and offside and look as if the bodyshell was originally a convertible!
I spoke to a very knowledgeable MMOC member at a local show last Sunday and on inspecting the car he advised me that the car was quite possibly a very early Series II convertible which originally had removable fabric rear side windows and sometime in its life had been converted to a two door saloon. He also pointed out the extended body moulding to which the folding roof would have attached and advised me to obtain a Heritage certificate with additional information to identify the original body style of the car.
When I bought the car there was no data plate on the bulkhead but the registration document listed the body code as EBAH/227488 which I translated to FBA11/227488 and had it corrected at the DVLA. I believe the body numbers are also to be found at the lower surface of the bulkhead and on a plate marked NMP on the nearside floor of the engine bay. Both these areas have had a very thick coat of paint so I intend to do a bit of surgical stripping to reveal the numbers and hopefully enable me to shed some light on Jethro's history.

Is there any extra strengthening anywhere? Don't convertibles have extra gussets on the ends of the dash panel, might be worth a look

The FBA prefix means that the car was originally a Morris Minor 2door saloon in black.
The rear quarter window support IS welded to the quarter panel - how else would it be attached? On some cars I've seen the weld is more visible than others but that's just the way they were built I think. Maybe your car has been re-welded or repaired in some way during its long life but the welds are fairly clear to see on our 2door too.

Also, every 2door saloon I've ever seen upto around the start of 1958 has had the longer rear body moulding. The hood on a factory built convertible is attached to a wooden section. My own 1958 car has the longer moulding and a "FBA" chassis prefix.

No Series11 convertibles ever had the removable side windows. These were only fitted to the earliest "MM" sidevalve cars.

Thanks Guys.

ManyMinors wrote:Also, every 2door saloon I've ever seen upto around the start of 1958 has had the longer rear body moulding. The hood on a factory built convertible is attached to a wooden section. My own 1958 car has the longer moulding and a "FBA" chassis prefix.

No Series11 convertibles ever had the removable side windows. These were only fitted to the earliest "MM" sidevalve cars.

So not an amazingly rare occurrence as I was led to believe?

No, I don't think so. However, ALL Morris Minors are special aren't they

PS: You have to always be on your guard where "very knowledgeable experts at car shows" are concerned

ManyMinors wrote:No, I don't think so. However, ALL Morris Minors are special aren't they

PS: You have to always be on your guard where "very knowledgeable experts at car shows" are concerned

Quite right - I have received some very dubious comments from "Learned Men" regarding our little Black Minor!