Morris Minor Owners Club

We are in the process of restoring my 1966 2-door saloon and have just removed the headlining to replace it with a new one.
This is what I discovered on the inside of the roof - a welded join ....
Can anybody shed light on this matter.
Is this a standard feature of saloons or has my car been in a severe collision and has the roof been cut or replaced or maybe the whole front of the car including the first part of the roof??
It's a mystery to me as to what could have happened here.
The cant rails do not look like they have been cut or welded, just the roof

I found something about a welded join in an older post which discussed a roof change, but this doesn't clarify things for me.
viewtopic.php?t=15964

please help . . .
Eddie

i've got one in exactly the same place - i suspect it was to do with the length of available steel being shorter than the required length for the roof?

My 1957 Minor has the same seam in the roof. So the seam has been around for some time.

If you stripped out the Minor body shell you will find other welded seams which have been leaded over.

I have a 1950 lowlight that also has a welded joint across the roof, so it must have have been fairly common throughout the life of the Morris

They all had the seam including travellers and vans etc.......