My 1967 Morris started life as a GPO van in London and was originally registered SLO 203F (thanks to both Russ Harvey and Chris of the POMM reg). It was imported to Malta in 1976 and as was the common practice then, its van body was removed and a Malta made pick up box was fitted. These pick ups were extremely popular with small businesses here in Malta and were particularly used by farmers who found them ideal for the narrow country lanes.
There was quite a busy industry producing the pick up boxes, each manufacturer produced them to approximately the same specs but there were various different details. Some had completaly plain sides, whilst others were more ornate with a design running all along the lower edge and wheelarches; some opted for simple trailor rear lights, whilst others had small rear fins added to accomodate different rear lights such as Austin A40 Farina lights, Simca Aronde lights and Ford Anglia 105E lights; some incorporated modified original pick up cab backs with the original small rear window, whilst others had locally made cab backs with larger rear windows; some had completaly plain tailgates whilst others had a more ornate type which featured a particular embossed design consisting of an embossed diamond like shape in the centre and two embossed elongated sideways triangles on each side.
Although once extremely common on Maltese roads, these pick ups have now become rather rare having been practically all replaced by Japanese pick ups
. My Morris was last on the road in 1995 and I acquired it after it spent years languishing in a garage and also a couple of months in a field. The plan is to restore the pick-up for daily use and to "Maltese" specification, as a tribute to the various Maltese body-builders and to ensure that at least one such vehicle will still be able to be seen regularly on our roads. The restoration will include hand-painting it blue and white, in the traditional way, adding numerous bits of period chromework together with a Maltese made persepex sunvisor and also finishing it off with some traditional Maltese signwriting known locally as "tberfil". As was the common practice here in Malta, it is currently fitted with a Marina engine (itself also ex UK!), however I intend to fit it back with a 1098cc engine.
Here are some "as found" shots, and also a couple of pics of its first drive under its own steam in quite a few years!
Wish me luck!
Stu[frame]
