Page 36 - MM_Sep Oct 2021

Three year old me posing for a prophetic photo
Peggy resting a moment after tackling the Snowdonia National Park
The Passenger Seat Podcast
AT THE BEGINNING OF 2020, I had one real goal for the year and that was to buy a house with my partner, Jamie, and move out. We succeeded despite everything 2020 threw at us and, as part of that, I had to make that all-important decision (at least when you come from a car family) of what my first car would be. For the four years that I had held my licence I had either been at Uni or living at home where my parents’ packed driveway and garages did not leave a lot of room, or need, to buy a car. I will wearily admit that for a few years I had been eying Singer Gazelles. I grew up surrounded primarily by Singer and Rootes cars with my family owning two 1930s cars from not long after I was born, alongside various 1960s cars that acted as the family’s second car until about the late 2000s, so seeing these gorgeous cars usually twice a summer at club meets had worn off on me.
However, I had also been made really aware of how difficult spares might be, so while I perhaps dreamed of owning one, it was not really something I could see myself owning as a first car, daily driver. Especially given my limited mechanical knowledge so, in May last year when we thought the house purchase was close to finalising although it didn’t actually go through until September, I started scrolling through Autotrader and looking seriously at every car I saw on the road on my government sanctioned daily walks, thinking “Is this a car I could see myself driving?”
Time and time again the answer was no. Jokingly,
I think, my Mum started sending me old Minis and Triumphs on Facebook Marketplace and they were
the first thing to really appeal to me in my search. I
sat my parents and my partner down and asked the all-important question, “What if I bought a car that was nearly 50 years old?”
I needed my parents support because my lack of mechanical knowledge would leave me needing to learn and rely a bit on them while I did, and I needed Jamie’s support because this would be our only car as he had not passed his test. To my joy and surprise, they thought it made a lot more sense than a modern. I had been dressing in a vintage style daily for nearly three years at that point, and had always loved the older cars, attending the shows and had, pre-pandemic, taken up Lindy Hop and Charleston so I could dance at shows as well.
Peggy and I the day I got the keys
36 | MINOR MATTERS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
Having a car that both got me to work, the shops, and
to my weekend hobby apparently did not seem that insane. Plus, my Dad had spent a part of the ‘80s with only a 1935 Singer 9 Le Mans to get him around, including regularly from Lincolnshire up to Northumberland. So, a Morris Minor daily driver was not the craziest idea anyone in my family had had.
I started looking seriously at cars and clubs; a ‘50s or ‘60s car seemed most appropriate for me in terms of style, power and parts availability. I looked again at those Triumphs and Minis, as well as a few more marques online. I also investigated the clubs, looking at the support they offered as well as their young membership options. I was tempted by a Triumph Herald as they shared quite similar styling to the Singer Gazelles I adored. However, I was haunted by the family story of my parents buying a car, my Mum not trying it out, and then realising
she couldn’t reach the pedals comfortably. By some luck, there was a classic car dealer not far from us with, among a wide selection of other cars, a Triumph Herald. I sat in it, and to my disappointment, the steering wheel was quite uncomfortably close to my thighs. I know you can change steering wheels
but I also knew that in these older cars the steering wheels
were big for a reason, to make the steering more manageable.
I pottered around the place and there on the forecourt was a beautiful shiny four-door Trafalgar Blue Morris Minor, about 4k out of my price range. It looked nothing like I’d imagined myself buying but it looked gorgeous and my Dad encouraged me to at least try it for size, so I sat in it and immediately fell in love with how it felt. My Mum couldn’t believe it – the car she struggled to reach the pedals in had been a Morris Minor that they eventually swapped for a Riley Elf, but not before three year old me had posed for a photo in the driver’s seat.
I started obsessively searching for a Morris, a lovely looking Old English White Traveller came up for sale and I test drove it, but it felt quite big compared to what I was used to and being new to Morris we weren’t knowledgeable enough about
Members’ Cars