Morris Minor Owners Club

I'm sure that most people will have heard of a YouGov poll, but you may not realise that it has nothing to do with Government, it's just a private polling company. However, their website does allow you to search for anything and find out what YouGov know about it. Searching for "Morris Minor" reveals the typical Minor owner:

• Male
  Aged 55+
  Social grade ABC1
  Moderately left wing
  Works in the Home and Garden professions
  Disposable income of £1,000 or more per month

I'm making no comment, just sharing the information.

I bet the typical owner is not German

Glad I'm not 'typical' then, except gender and age. Differences make the world go around!

Social grade ABC1 ??

So that's the top 56% of the population. Given the amount of money it can take to restore a Minor and keep it going in that condition, I don't think that's surprising.
The lower 44% are far less likely to have the disposable income required.
Some people might traditionally put themselves in the C2DE bracket, but often that is just them identifying with the profile they think they are in because of their upbringing; e.g. the kid from the Council Estate who now owns a 5-6 bedroom house, runs their own business employing 20 tradespeople but describes themselves as 'Working Class'.
Whether they like it or not, for survey purposes, they have moved up. Parrlells with the rise of the new social order when the industrial revolution took place; the middle class of Land Owners found their ranks swelled by the Mill Owners.

Definitions here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade

This isn't a call for a class debate, just an observation on the reported Social Grade.

Very interesting that such statistics exist though. Good find simmitic. (I'd give you a Thumbs Up Smilie if we had one........ )

Disposable income for a Minor? My 70 saloon cost me £250 in 2001 when I was learning to weld and despite various project vehicles coming and going the saloon is still going strong. It's given me plenty of welding practice too. People spend more on bicycles!

don't work in home or garden and not moderate, otherwise pretty accurate

Out of interest just had a look at the link. Quite surprised there was no group F, unfair to leave out the people who appear on the Jeremy Kyle show.

les wrote:Out of interest just had a look at the link. Quite surprised there was no group F, unfair to leave out the people who appear on the Jeremy Kyle show.

I remember a newspaper article, many years ago now, that advised women on how to pick a boyfriend based on the car they drove. Morris Minor owners were considered a good catch, I recall, possessing a well-rounded personality and being unpretentious, considerate, honest, down-to-earth, cheerful, reliable etc.

Must have been the Daily Mail.

myoldjalopy
That counts me out then as a average Minor driver.

And as a good catch as well, Phil?
Les - I can't recall if it was the Mail or no..............it was my sister-in-law that showed me the article, many years ago, when she was driving a Triumph Herald........can't remember what it said (if anything) about Herald drivers.....

A bit different to your average Audi Q series owner then!

In 1972 I was in a Herald when the chassis collapsed... at about 35 mph. In the backseat and we all got out ok.
Yes the Minor profile sounds about right. As regards 'left or right ', didn't someone once say that if you weren't left wing in your youth you had no heart but if you don't become right wing with age you have no brain?
Just a thought...

Blimey, I didn’t realise I was in such exalted company!

£1000 disposable income !!! I wish.

if you weren't left wing in your youth you had no heart but if you don't become right wing with age you have no brain?

..... and if you do you have no heart !

I'm not interested in what pigeon hole these people place me in and I think a lot of it is all about the most most popular hobby in the world, vanity. Why have I got a Minor (I was 38 when I got mine)? I don't like modern cars, which seem to be circuit boards on wheels. I don't use a car a lot and so my cars last me a long time. If I bought a new car, it is likely that it would be with me long after the dealer had given up supplying bits. I have been going to classic events for over 30 years and what was in the car park in 1985, doesn't now seem to had made it into the event. The Minor already had a good following (And had for years) when I bought it, so I know where I stand. I had been an MG owner for years and like the kind of no nonsense mechanics that goes with these cars (I always prefer grease nipples to sealed for like units).

I have to admit, that when I first went to a classic car show, I was puzzled to see so many Minors. In those days, they were barely out of bangerhood and were sometimes favoured by the hippy types (I suppose they are "Green" but I didn't see the need for the daft colour schemes). Some years later my father toyed with the idea of buying one and whilst I was still puzzled was to why, I felt that Minor Matters looked like a very good magazine and that the enthusiasm it showed for the cars was infectious. 25 years on, I still feel this to be the case and I look forward to Minor Matters hitting the door mat.

I think the public at large are prone to make assumptions about people and to stereotype them. Someone mentioned that people spend more on bicycles than he spent on a car. Just as there are cheap and expensive cars, so there are cheap and expensive bikes. If you want something half decent, you really need to look at giving £1000.00. At the other end, you can be conned and the difference between a £100 bike and a £1200 bike is far more than that between the £1000.00 bike and one costing £3000.00. Vanity prevails in lots of cases and if someone buys a bike for £4000.00 someone else then wants a £5000.00 bike. Most of them forget that the greatest potential for weight saving and improvement, is with the rider and the marginal gains, at the top end, are only important amongst evenly matched professional riders.

Too often, non cyclists judge cycling by their experience of cycling and they assume that all bikes cost £100 and are ridden along at 10mph (Which is why they pull out in front of bikes or overtake a bike and then turn left; the old chestnut "I didn't see you" is an excuse which to them sounds less remiss than I saw myself on the bike). Similarly most people only experience old cars as old bangers and they see a Minor as much older than the bangers they owned and proportionately more clapped out. They assume you are going to be in their way (Like the cyclist) and can't wait to get in front of you. I get the same thing with my MGB GT V8 and that has the legs on most things. I think Minor owners are perceived as fuddy duddies and I have, on occasions, proved this not to be the case.

As I have said, I think vanity is the most popular hobby, manifesting itself in overweight men spending £5000.00 on an overpriced, blingy bike or buying a mobile handbag, in which it is alleged that a certain Mrs Beckham had a hand in the design. In most cases, they are buying things for image and to impress others (If Reliant were still making cars and they made a Robin SUV, which was marketed the right way, it would sell to those same people). At the end of the day, if you impress a moron, what have you achieved? I am sure I am seen as the poor sod, with a garage full of bangers but by people, who's opinions I don't value.

Yes, just do what makes you happy, provided it does no harm to anyone else.

firedrake1942 wrote:

if you weren't left wing in your youth you had no heart but if you don't become right wing with age you have no brain?

..... and if you do you have no heart !

I don't think compassion and kindness is related to political opinion in any way. There are good people and the other kind. In my experience it has no connection to 'left ' or 'right '.