Morris Minor Tourer

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Memorably dubbed ‘the poached egg’ by Lord Nuffield, the first Morris Minor made its debut at the 1948 Earls Court Motor Show. If his Lordship had known quite how successful it was going to be, he might have been a little more respectful with his choice of words.

By the time production came to an end in 1971, over 1.3m had been sold worldwide and, at the last count, over 19,400 were still going about their merry way in Britain alone. Great fun to drive, cheap to run, easy to maintain and still capable of holding their own in most modern road conditions, they are now as much a part of the streetscape as the red telephone box, the village green and the vicar on a bicycle.

Most fun of all was the cheeky Tourer, which offered top-down motoring for the masses at very modest cost. It stayed in production from 1950 until 1969, winning the hearts of generations of drivers along the way and inspiring fierce loyalty with many owners.

This delightful example is a case point: bought new by a local GP from HE Sheppard of Leicester in September 1967 for the princely sum of £650 (including a radio, underseal and seat belts), he has hung on to it faithfully ever since - despite being fortunate enough to have a much more exotic collection of classics also at his disposal.

During his 48-year ownership it has clocked up 135,600 miles, been restored twice, and was fitted with a replacement Gold Seal engine about 10,000 miles ago. It comes with a very large history file from new, including the original purchase invoice, and was fitted with a new hood fairly recently.

A much-loved family member that has never wanted for anything, it is only reluctantly being sold due to an impending ‘down sizing’ and consequent loss of storage. MOTd and ready to go, it now only needs a caring second home to go to.