Morris Minor Owners Club

My dad's first car was a Traveller, bought in '63 and it was probably a 1959/60 model in that light grey colour. It had trafficators.
One thing I vividly remember was that the passenger glove box had a cord to allow it to hang down to the horizontal, and that the lid itself had a flat (I want to say grey painted metal) insert with two circular depressions clearly intended (and used by my mum) to hold a couple of tea cups.

I assumed this was standard until I saw that no other Minor seemed to have such a thing.
My dad was the least practical man ever so definitely wouldn't have fitted it let alone made it. I suppose it might have been a period accessory but I assumed it was a factory fitment.

Can anyone shed any light on this as I'd love to get one for mine...

No cut-out to fit a cup was standard but a 1959-1961 Minor WOULD have had a passenger side glovebox lid which opened to form a suitable shelf. Strangely deleted on later models.

They weren't cut outs, just approx 1/8" depressions in the otherwise flat inner surface.

Very unusual......unlikely to be a factory mod.

Post revised after finding posts in the link below.

From mid 59 (when the parcel shelf was extended) until the elimination of the lids, the glove box lids received a chrome edging and fabric covered wooded inserts. The passenger side had a sliding metal bracket that would hold the lid level. No depressions.

Jaekl
You mean one like this. I cannot recollect ever seeing one of these lids/stays fitted ex factory but there have been several posts on the MMOC message board in the past relating to fitting inserts and the slotted stay from the likes of the Riley 1.5.
I also found these posts from way back relating the lids and stays
viewtopic.php?p=614974&hilit=glove+box+lid+stay#p614974

Yes that's it. Rather common over here. It might have be part of the deluxe package although it requires a different way of holding the lid shut. Some of which needs to be done before painting I think.

It is nothing to do with the de-luxe specification. The glovebox lid pictured along with the chromed surround and the stay allowing to it sit horizontally is the bog standard glovebox lid fitted to all Minor 1000 cars from about February 1959 (saloon chassis number 695736) until around November 1961 (Chassis no. 939695) when the lids were deleted.

I prefer no lid(s) because of the satisfying sight of their contents hurtling rearwards due to the blistering acceleration!

243959 left hand glove box lids - that number seems very high to me for such a short production run.

philthehill wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 3:53 pm 243959 left hand glove box lids - that number seems very high to me for such a short production run.

BMC claimed production of 100,000 Minors per year for the first few years of Minor 1000 production, so 243,000 doesn't seem unrealistic does it in almost 3 years? It is hardly a short production run

It does to me
Numbers below sourced from several sources on the web.

Production of the Minor 1000 1956 - 1972 (inclusive) produced 847,491 cars. That is around 56,499 cars per year over 15 years (possibly 16 years but will calculate on 15 years) for the purpose of this exercise.
So production from 1959 to 1961 (inclusive) = 169,497 cars (approx.).
The above does not take into account any variants i.e. traveller etc.
The production of travellers over the same period was 49,922 (approx.)
So add the two figures together and you have 219,419 cars/travellers (approx.) made over the period in question.
So my query regarding 243,959 glove box lids over a three year production run (1959 - 1961 inclusive) appears to be a valid one.
I am happy to be corrected on this.
Phil

Well!
All very interesting. I found a lid with a fabric covered insert on ebay... I'm starting to wonder if my 'depressions' were all a fever dream!
So, does that older style flat faced lid fit the later cars... I so like the idea of a flat shelf when it is down as our Traveller will be doing New Forest excursions which should, as is proper, involve tartan thermos's!.

See the link I posted earlier as regards do the doors with the stay fit.

philthehill wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:25 pm It does to me
Numbers below sourced from several sources on the web.

Production of the Minor 1000 1956 - 1972 (inclusive) produced 847,491 cars. That is around 56,499 cars per year over 15 years (possibly 16 years but will calculate on 15 years) for the purpose of this exercise.
So production from 1959 to 1961 (inclusive) = 169,497 cars (approx.).
The above does not take into account any variants i.e. traveller etc.
The production of travellers over the same period was 49,922 (approx.)
So add the two figures together and you have 219,419 cars/travellers (approx.) made over the period in question.
So my query regarding 243,959 glove box lids over a three year production run (1959 - 1961 inclusive) appears to be a valid one.
I am happy to be corrected on this.
Phil

Phil. You seem to be assuming that Minor 1000 production carried on at the same rate throughout production.
That did not happen.
Minor 1000 production begun late in 1956, so relatively few were manufactured in that year.
1957 was the first full year of Minor 1000 production. Records show that approx 104,000 were built.
1958 saw approx 115,000 built, making that the most successful year for the model.
1959 saw approx 107,000 built. The glovebox doors in question were introduced in February of this year so the majority would have been so fitted.
1960 added a further 95,000 or so cars
1961 which saw the glovebox door in question deleted in November, saw a whole year's production Minor 1000 cars total 60,800, so a good number of these cars would have been fitted with these doors too.
Those 3 years saw an approx total of 263,000 Minor 1000s built. 4 months production of which would NOT have been fitted with these glovebox doors. Therefore I believe the figures I quoted to be about right.

Guildbass asks an interesting question. Do the chrome surround lids fit the later - and indeed earlier - apertures?

I have always been told that the dashboard did not change in terms of basic pressing from October 1956 (Likely October 1954, later Series II) to the end of production. Changes were simply cosmetic.

That being the case, and knowing that the glove box lids on my 1957 Saloon are a very tight fit, how could they stick a thin strip of chrome around the lids and still make them fit unless the lids, with the inserts and stay, were reduced slightly in size.

It has always puzzled me.

The change in lids to have the chrome trim required a new die to make a smaller lid. The ash is the same. However, you will need to fabricate the mechanism to hold the lid closed.

The attached photos are the clearest I could find of the glovebox lid in question and showing the correct catch and stay which was standard on that model. As Jaekl says, you need the correct catch, or something similar, to fit this type of lid to a different model.

And here is a copy of the page taken from the BMC parts book of the period showing all the components of that design of glovebox lid.
The stay is shown as Item no. 25 Support - lid).
An extraordinary number of components go into making that lid. No surprise that BMC simply deleted them during the next "facelift"!