Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all

I did have a good look through the stickied posts above, but the colour chart link seemed to be broken for me, and I can't find a code that matches the list anywhere on the car.

I'm looking at doing a re-spray on the wife's morris minor 1000 (1957 model, but no idea if that's what year the paint is from)

any ideas?





Where on the car would the paint code be located?

Thanks in advance...

That looks to be two tone, which I think looks nice, but would not be original. Do you want to keep the existing colours or go back to all original? If you contact the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust at Gaydon they can provide a certificate from a production trace of the registers, and that will include the paint code and therefore colour. There is a charge, but it's a useful document to have. You can do it free yourself (no certificate, just the information), but you have to travel to the reading room at Gaydon. The museum is a good day out, but your choice whether to pay to travel or pay for their time.

Not a fan of the two tone - although have seen worse - much worse ! The main colour could be Aran Beige (if they stuck to the Leyland charts) - but really could be just about anything.

I would say that it is or was once Sage Green, not sure of the colour code, but our 1957 Convertible is sage and has been since new, the colour is basically what your wings are, the main body however is rather faded but sage does seem to go rather yellow as it ages!

Aran beige on my TR7. Which is up for sale - open to offers.
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Glad to see the main body colour of your saloon. My dad had one the same colour, a 1960'ish I think. I was beginning to think that it was the only one as I haven't seen one like it for years. Would love to know what green it is.

I agree that it looks like faded sage green which was available in 1957, do you have any pics of the dash or under the bonnet that may not be so faded?

Yep, according to the Paul Skilletter bible, Sage Green was introduced in late 1955 for the 1956 model year - the last year of the Series 2 and continued into the 57 model year and the introduction of the 1000 model. It should have a grey or green upholstery and body colour wheels (until cream wheels / grill were introduced in late 58 for the 59 model year). Sage Green was replaced by Porcelain Green in Mid 1960 for the 61 model year which was then replaced by Almond Green for the 62 model year.
I think it looks lovely in the faded sun bleached paintwork - gives it character.

Having owned one just the same, can confirm it looks just like a very faded Sage Green to me. Obviously the wings have been painted at a later stage! If you apply some "T Cut" or similar to the faded paint I expect you'll see quite a difference and as somebody has already suggested - how does the dashboard look?
The BMC colour code for Sage Green is GN5.

I would join the sage green vote.

Seen plenty of sage green minors and those wings look sage to me but the main body colour is same as dad's early 60's saloon and that was not faded (very low mileage and only 3 or 4 years old at the time). Probably porcelain then. Anybody got a porcelain green minor?

Yep faded sage green

John Naylor wrote:Seen plenty of sage green minors and those wings look sage to me but the main body colour is same as dad's early 60's saloon and that was not faded (very low mileage and only 3 or 4 years old at the time). Probably porcelain then. Anybody got a porcelain green minor?

It won't be Porcelain Green. That was not available until later .

Definitely sage green needing a mop and polish

Faded Sage Green?

It's far too even to be 'faded'. Pretty sure it's a respray. As mentioned above - look in places where they won't have resprayed - and that won't have 'faded'.

Respray or not, it almost certainly IS faded, and almost definitely IS sage green! Looks as though it is the wings that have been resprayed and aren't so faded. Paint can fade that evenly, and 50-odd years is a long time in which for it to do so!!!

thanks all for your helpful suggestions.

I have looked at the dash - where there was much less fade and sage green definitely has it!

thank you for your help, bring on the respray.