Morris Minor Owners Club

Further to the locked post, I dont want to cause further upset but there is an explanation which may be of interest for discussion:

There are fairly clear rules on restoring vehicles.

If a vehicle is re shelled with a new original manufacturer supplied body shell eg an MGB Heritage shell then subject to certain main components being transferred from the donor car it is usually possible to retain the original vehicle identity and registration.. There is a points system for various original components and a minimum number of points have to be achieved. An application has to be made to DVLA and the change is recorded.

If an existing shell requires major repair it can be repaired/rebuilt quite extensively so long as it uses the same construction it can retain the original vehicle identity and registration.

This can be done with repair sections, new steel and probably also using part assemblies from a scrap shell. (such as a door or whole roof panel, windscreen surround, new traveller wood etc). The original chassis must be retained although this might in extreme cases just be the bulkhead panel retaining the original chassis and body numbers. If doing extensive rebuilding you would be wise to record the work done should there be a future query over the vehicles identity especially if some of the replacement items contain features from a later model eg part of a later type bulkhead panel with an air duct or change from clap hands to parallel wipers.

What is not allowed is to fit a whole second hand shell from another car as in this case the original body and chassis has not been retained...A new age related registration or Q plate will be required for such a car.

Taupe

Yes, I think that is well known by the majority. Obviously not by some however.....
There would have been nothing wrong with an old Morris Minor having been re-shelled with a brand new shell in period, when they were available, but IF that had been done, one would expect most components fitted to that shell to be the age/specification of the original car and not to a specification some 10years later.

I did ask way back if Traveller shells were ever available .... ... but there was no response. And would it really have been worthwhile to completely reshell what was then a 6 or 7 year old Traveller? It's got a LOT of 1966/7 parts - and very few 1959 parts......... I wonder what the glass date marks show ??

The glass marks would be late too because the 4 sliding windows at the back plainly were the latest type of the 3 different designs used during traveller production.

Indeed....