Morris Minor Owners Club

Morning all

Can anyone tell me what was deluxe about our “4 door Deluxe”?

Ie, what extras did you get in 1966?

Pete

Bumper over-riders spring to mind?

Yep, got those, but looking at how sparse things are inside, it’s difficult to see what you wouldn’t get as standard for the non deluxe versions!

Heater maybe?

My dad once had a cortina L and the GL got a vinyl roof, different steering wheel and velour seats!


Pete

On a 1966 deluxe car, you had a slightly better standard of interior trim over the "basic" model - the patterned door cars, more carpet, twin sunvisors, plus the overriders as stated earlier, I'm not sure if the heater was fitted as standard to the deluxe and optional on the basic??
There may be other small differences which I cannot remember! There wasn't a huge difference really. On a Traveller, the basic model also did without the trimmed load area. A deluxe car will feature an additional "D" in the chassis number plate between the prefix letters and the number itself. One of my cars is a "basic" 4door model of around that age.

Leather seat covers instead of vinyl, heater, rear ash tray, overriders on the bumpers.

I think leather had ceased to be available after the 1964 facelift.

They had a very modest notion of luxury in those days!

don´t know if that helps, attache a accessories list fron a 60th Saloon

I didn't wish to confuse things by mentioning leather seat facings as the question was specifically about a 1966 car.
Leather seat facings applied to the deluxe version only upto October 1961.

In the States the deluxe included stainless door frames on the 2 door models and are need for bling continue to 67. Perhaps the "D" just continued out of habit for the late model four doors since they had stainless door frames giving the "potential" of making a standard. The same would then also apply to travellers. Confusion may arise with some of the accessories which may have been added at point of sale rather than at the factory. Was it common practice for potential customers to order a specific list of specifications or did they just select a colour?

I can only speak of UK home market cars where the stainless door tops have nothing to do with the deluxe specification. In the UK, all Minor 1000 2door saloons and convertibles were supplied with painted door tops. All 4door saloons were supplied with stainless door tops and all Travellers were supplied with stainless door tops. This applied regardless of whether they were basic models or deluxe models.

Accessories (as opposed to factory options) were generally fitted by the supplying dealer from the accessory catalogue. Of all the cars in the BMC range, I would say that Minor 1000s probably had the least number of accessories fitted when new as their buyers tended to be more conservative people looking for a fairly simple form of transport. Most new car buyers simply went for the factory specification although the majority of new Morris Minor 1000s bought by private buyers were the deluxe specification. The largest buyers of the basic car were the Government agencies - the armed forces, the police and the health service etc.

I think you’re right about the leather facings, ours appears to be vinyl and he is a late 1965 model, ordered in November 1965 and delivered 2nd December.

Pete