Morris Minor Owners Club

The story of Mog is a difficult one to summarise, not so much because it is long but more because the important parts are invariably so personal as the existence and significance of this car has woven through my life. There is a lot of symbolic weight, represented here in automotive form.
A year after I was born – 1986 – my parents bought “Mog”. This had nothing to do with a classic car hobby, and in fact at that point my dad was probably a bit embarrassed by the car. The car was bought in the interest of cheap motoring, utility, and practical necessity. I think my mother had first seen the cardboard For Sale sign in the window of the car. The owner was asking, I think, for several hundred pounds. I have the written bill of sale from the year previous at which point the car was sold for £475. Whatever the amount, it was too much for my parents at the time. The seller, however, was in a rush because he was moving to America. In the end he accepted £100 for Mog, and so began a lifetime of attachment. One way or another, family life revolved around the car from that moment on. It was the one place I could be reliably lulled to sleep, and I think the gearbox whine and rock of the suspension are burned deep into my psyche from those early years. The car immediately required work, and that requirement never ceased. It was always an uphill battle against the entropic decay. I think I became aware of this early on; we depended upon the car for the practical essentials as well as the adventures, and the car, in turn, depended upon us. The relationship was always symbiotic.
In a way, we were always on the back foot with the car, always looking for the kindness in others to help facilitate the car’s ongoing existence. Within a couple of years of ownership, we were looking for workshop space to complete some involved structural repairs. My father found a connection and the car spent a couple of months in a barn on the outskirts of Edinburgh where my father and half-brother spent evenings cutting and welding. I remember clearly taking the number 10 bus with my mother to go and visit them working on the car, and taking them supplies. We eagerly awaited the return of the car – and my father with it (who had spent all the evenings working on it, after working the days at Scottish Gas, as well as doing nights on-call should a road need to be dug-up urgently).

The car returned, looking refreshed, and so our journeys continued. All of my young coming-of-age experiences looped around the car. I developed a deepening love for it, and pride in it. My anxious school mornings, being sick – literally – with school anxiety in it. The car was, despite the refresh, still widely considered a banger back then. And therein, for me, lay one of the strongest threads of my attachment to it. I was on the more reserved end of the spectrum, probably seeming vulnerable in many ways, and not willing to just “fit in” in the interest of self-preservation. Yet Mog gave me a way out. Cocooned in hard metal, I was wearing a shield. Crucially, the shield itself was vulnerable; always the butt of jokes, mocked, put-upon, looked down upon - but it kept on going. I could wear this shield, without betraying my vulnerability. The attachment was set in stone – or metal. So many experiences followed; changing the engine at the side of the road, my father out in all weathers at all times of the year skinning his knuckles underneath the car, family holidays, learning to drive aged 7 in the Scottish Gas depot carpark at the weekend, my sister learning to drive, it being the first car my brother ever started (in gear at the time, too). Going missing as a toddler but just having found the keys to the car and making my way out to it (repeatedly). Everything, it seemed. It was always only just surviving. It was, however, also always fixable, at least in theory. This was another key element of the attachment – with all the events in life, the challenges and losses in families, the car always offered some tangible hope that this part of the family could always be fixed and brought back from the brink.
Then, when I was about 12 years old, it became too much. We tried to find ways around it, my parents bought me a MIG and I was able to enroll on a welding course – on condition of the college that my father also signed up and I accompanied him. Still, we weren’t able to keep Mog going. We tried any avenue of help we could think of including, on my paper round, my dad and I posting a note with the paper asking if anyone could spare space on their drive or in a garage. This was all just after my sister had chipped in with her savings to buy new trunnions. We were able to get a MK2 Clio through the Mobility scheme, and Mog ended up on a neighbour’s drive for a number of years, then a parking space in the borders at my sister’s rented house. From there it ended up in a field off the A7 where some passer buy stole the new trunnions (a wing was falling off, so they could easily see the new parts). After the trunnions were stolen, the car more or less sat on the ground and the field started growing through it. Throughout the mid-to-late ‘90s I daydreammed obsessively about the future plans for the car. I was sure it would be my wedding car (now, perhaps, my retirement car). I saved every picture I could and read every word from the JLH project Moose and the Beardmore brother’s site – making notes and scrapbook images of the little details that I thought one day would be part of Mog (the bespoke speaker pods, support arm on the glove box lid, Peugot wheels, and the K-Series engine being highlights).


After 7 or so years, my father and I realised a life-long dream; he was able to oragnise the building of a garage at home and Mog was then duly pulled from the field (against his better judgement!) and into the garage. Very rotten, but home and dry at last.


Shortly after building the garage, my father died. I had, in the intervening couple of years, managed to – almost literally – throw some metal at the car. I didn’t have the time, skills, equipment, or money, to do it right, but all I wanted to achieve at the time was to try to preserve some of the key measurements e.g. between the sills and the prop tunnel. After some time, I started to feel guilty that my attachment to the car had caused so much hassle for others. I was worried about my mother, and the fact that I had left the shell of a car hanging in the garage; something which wasn’t going to be easy to move without considerable difficulty and, likely, expense. Then, one day, I happened upon a “Wanted” post on Freecycle where someone was looking for a Land Rover to work on as a project with his son. I got in touch, and explained that although I didn’t have a Land Rover, I did have a Morris Minor. The man replied, excited about the car, and I thought “Wow, I’ve done it – I've managed to do the big grown-up thing and let go, and this is the perfect way to do it”. The man was an engineer, and had the skills and the time required. The car went to him, along with 30-odd years’ worth of accumulated spares. Sadly, personal circumstances meant that he had to abandon projects, and Mog returned to life in a field. After another 6 or so years, I was offered Mog back, and here we are. There were many more twists and turns along the way, other Morris Minors, adventures, losses, and hope.

Now, Mog is mine again and once more the likelihood of survival is low. It is miles beyond anything that could be considered economic repair, and beyond what most people would think is even possible. Once again, I don’t have the time or skills to do it myself, or the money to have it reconstructed professionally. Once again I’m agonising over deciding just to “let go” but my stubbornness is holding fast, for now. I’m trying to explore options, ways to make it at least a rolling shell again which would mean it could be moved and stored more easily, to find people with some more expertise to offer guidance, and a place to keep it. I’ve considered perhaps converting it to a van chassis in order to have a straight base to build up from. There also seems to be a NOS shell out there somewhere, and this could be a way to preserve the numberplate and the spirit of the car without sacrificing another. For now, it still exists, against the odds, and there’s so much that I could say about that.

What a fantastic story. I do hope that one day Mog gets restored and you get to drive him. You say you don't have the skills to do the work yourself but if you read the likes of Practical Classics there are often stories of people who have learnt to weld, paint, upholster etc. as required to get their classic back on the road, plus you have the advantage of a fantastic Forum with loads of very knowledgeable people to help you. Whatever happens please update us on progress.

Not a lost cause judging by this restoration:
viewtopic.php?p=553213#p553213

to view the images see this threads later posts:
viewtopic.php?p=686178


Also I reckon The Story of Mog would be a great addition as an article submitted to the magazine.

What a beautufully written account of the story of Mog.
I think this resonates with so many because these cars are not just the make or model, but there are so many cherished life events wrapped up with growing up with a Morris Minor, and memories, many including people no longer with us.
As a result, we wish to preserve them. Hence my guilty secret is that I often enjoy simply sitting in my Traveller, revelling in the "old car smells" of oil, grease, early vinyl, as much as driving it!
Good luck with the next stage, but she does look very tired.

Thank you so much for the positive comments. I am really surprised at how significant it has been for me, personally, to write out the story. I feel much more at-ease with the uncertain future, so I think I can safely say that it has been helpfully cathartic.

Lots of other nice memories coming back, too, as a result of giving it sustained thought. I've amended and added to the story a few times since posting, but I won't put you all through me posting the whole thing again!

Couple of extra highlights, though, were two notable breakdowns. Once Mog was stolen, but broke down on Princess Street in Edinburgh and my brother spotted it there from the top deck of a bus he was travelling home on, he got off the bus and ran home (knowing it would be faster than the bus) – we duly got Mog back, empty wine bottles inside and all. Another time we broke down right outside the gates of Holyrood Palace – the guards started to get twitchy about the vehicle coming to a standstill across the main entrance of the palace!

Realistically I know that to do it right, the car needs to be carefully braced then perhaps dipped and mounted onto a jig. I am fortunate to be in a more privileged position than my parents were, and have more means than they did. What I don't have much of, though, is time! And of course, in the years it took me to get on my feet with my own working life and young family, Mog has languished. If I do find somewhere/someone who could make it a rolling shell that would enable much easier movement and storage and I could see myself doing the rest.

Thanks again for entertaining my story!

Oh, and I have managed to make contact with a previous keeper - from that written bill of sale! As a result, I also have more pieces of the car's history to add.

Great story, is it still up near Edinburgh or the borders?

As others have said almost anything is salvagable as long you you're billing your own time at £0 per hour!

Monty-4 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 2:10 pm Great story, is it still up near Edinburgh or the borders?

As others have said almost anything is salvagable as long you you're billing your own time at £0 per hour!

Thank you. It's currently in central Scotland, near Stirling. It is actually in the yard of a restorer of another mark, where I took it when we pulled it out of the field last November. It's really just there to be assessed. There's a risk that he might not want to take on the work or that the costs there would be too much for me to have any of it to be done there; at that point I might need to let it go because moving it around is not straightforward (and I'm more accountable to others these days for the messes I get myself into!)

I know paying someone to make it a rolling shell again would be big money, but I'm not sure if in this kind of case big money would end up meaning £15k or £50k!

Yes, the only financially reasonable approach might be a slow DIY job to get it solid and functional and then perhaps ship it off for professional paint.

This is why I've learnt basic MIG welding - so I can afford to have irrational sentimental attachments to cars.

That is a great reason to do anything (He says, reassuring himself)

I think I can't really risk having the car as a static shell at home, for numerous reasons. But, rolling would be easier to get away with (only just). One avenue I need to explore is whether or not anyone/anywhere within reach could e.g. get it to that rolling point and do the jig/chassis alignment work.