‘You just never know’

While searching in the loft at home recently, I came across a long-lost pack of photographs of cars that I had owned – often briefly – over 30 years ago. A couple of them brought back memories of odd buying tales that I’ll share/bore you with here. Both involved Morris Minors.

The first Morris had belonged to our local Liberal candidate – so he obviously had a proper job, too. I’d seen it gathering dust and general green-ness in the front garden, but been assured that it was going to be done up. I left my number anyway and promptly forgot about it. A year later I got a call – would I like to take it away? Free of charge. It was now so overgrown by a bush that I couldn’t even get to the doors. I returned later with a mate, two pairs of sturdy secateurs and a can of petrol. So, it did cost me an afternoon’s gardening. Amazingly, once revealed, fuelled and hooked up to a borrowed battery, it started at the third attempt. It drove alright, too, but though the back half was good, the front end was terminally rotten from all of that held-on damp. Still, it broke well for spares and bits of it may still live on.

The other car came from a speculative enquiry from a chap who’d seen my Minor outside my parents’ shop. Would I like another? It was a ’52 sidevalve four-door that he’d owned for 20 years, but he said it would hardly pull its own weight now, so he’d bought a Datsun. It turned out to be almost rot-free and, once dragged home, I discovered that the brakes were pretty well seized on. It soon ran beautifully though. I restored that one, made a decent profit, and it still showed up as MOT’D a few years ago.

You just never know where the next one is coming from.

‘Amazingly, the Minor started up at the third attempt’