DAILY USE 1959 MINOR CONVERTIBLE
LEN & LINDA COOPER’S
Len and Linda have been involved with Morris Minors for much of their 47 years of marriage. Len, owning a convertible in 1966, gave his future bride a slightly windswept introduction to the car. ‘I think we were both unaware how breezy it was to travel in the car with the roof down and I remember taking Linda out in the car, looking at the lady next to me and all I could see was a mass of hair with a nose sticking out,’ Len recalls.
Luckily, he was forgiven, and the Lincolnshire couple still use a Minor convertible as an everyday car, and also have a van and a Traveller in their fleet.
A lot has happened in between. Len sold that first Minor, registration 636 PMW, in 1968 as it did not really fit in as a suitable vehicle for his new job with TV rental company Rentaset. However, there were obvious latent Minor withdrawal symptoms as Linda ended up with a Traveller, followed by a better Traveller in the Eighties. ‘ The children dreaded being picked up in it,’ she remembers. ‘ They called it a shed on wheels.’
After leaving what was by then Radio Rentals, Len set up his own business, Bourne Hi-Tec Services in 1989, restoring a Minor van for use in his new venture.
The couple’s present convertible came from a customer. ‘Like the other Minors it was a basketcase. It had been behind a hedge,’ says Len, who carried out a major restoration, including a lot of work on the sills. The car has also had the hood and upholstery renewed. It’s also been repainted Dove Grey, having originally been painted grey but subsequently resprayed black.
A few months later the car was on the road and has very much been enjoyed ever since, Len and Linda don’t have a modern car. ‘I spent my life working in electronics and decided I did not want a modern car loaded with them,’ Len says. He has now closed his business but still does the odd repair.
‘You can use a Minor like this every day. The cars will cruise at 60mph and long journeys really aren’t really a problem,’ according to Len.
He and Linda like to take their Minor on picnics and they take suitable music wherever they go via a delightful selection of vintage radios, converted to play MP3s. Like all the cars in the Coopers’ fleet, the Minor has proved extremely reliable, though Len and Linda did find themselves stuck in a ford, of the watery rather than automotive kind. ‘We cranked the car on the starting handle and got out’, Len says.
So how would Len and Linda sum up the Morris Minor? ‘Enjoyable to drive and own, practical, easy to work on and you meet so many nice people.’