Morris 1000 Traveller

There aren’t many classics you can buy for half of what someone has paid to restore them – but the Morris 1000 Traveller is one. The trade may be pitching very good ones at £18k but private sellers seem to advertise at way below their restoration costs. There’s a black ’67 in Leicestershire that’s had everything done including a fabulous retrim and all for just £8900, which wouldn’t even cover the paint and mechanicals.

Charming, reliable, hugely practical and looking increasingly cool, the woody Morris is serious value. This is a fashion thing, of course, as Mini Travellers easily fetch double and even Minor vans and pick-ups make more. Yet the Minor Traveller is the better buy. Like a four-wheeled mock-tudor semi, it’s the quintessential British middle-class car of the Sixties and Seventies. But somehow we’ve always seen the Traveller as frumpy and suburban and prices have crept up only very slowly. Last year Classic Car Auctions sold a one-owner Trafalgar Grey ’65 with 10,000 miles and lots of bills for recent recommissioning for just £5890. The intrinsic value in that purchase is amazing and the value of such a low-mileage and exceptional survivor has easily tripled since. While there’s a considerable industry in uprating Minors with modern dampers, discs, Marina gearboxes and bigger engines, the value (as ever) is in original unmolested cars and plenty are still in long-term ownership. The Minor Traveller was the original crossover with acres of room, a flat cargo area and endless practicality. Why we’ve wilfully ignored them for so long will have to remain a total mystery.