I'm doing some work for a Lady in our village and whilst hunting through various Barns for some paint I noticed she had a very old Morris minor stored in one. Not sure of its age but it has flippy out indicators and black and white number plates so guessing it's a very early car. She told me that it is one owner from new car and she has all the pre delivery paper work. She later mentioned she might want me to sell some things for her and if the moggy is one of them I just wondered what it might be worth as she's a lovely lady and I don't want her to be ripped off! She also has a funky looking bedford Rascal pick up in great condition (been in the barn for the last 8 years)

 

Black and white number plates only mean pre 72 , year and condition are everything , is the windscreen split in the centre , two door or four , convertible

 

Didn't look at the screen and I'm pretty sure it's a 2 door ,not exactly the most observant person am I It looked it pretty good nick but she did tell me that the floor is rotten ! Just found out trafficators were phased out in 61 so it's a 61 car or older

 

My father saw a Moggy in a barn 20 odd years ago and made an offer - then found out how much more rust there was on it when he got it home Not quite the bargain he thought, but he ended up teaching himslef to weld and spraypaint etc and replace a rear wing, front one, sills and part of the floorpan.

It was my first car for about a year until I got an offer of something more sensible for the 180 miles weekend runs home I did at the time.

Great fun though, and if I went for a classic now it would be high up on the list.

Mine was a 1098cc 1968 2 door - relatively modern

More go than the 948cc option, but not sure how much difference in practice.

Better to drive than you might think.

Mechanicals pretty robust and easy to work on, plus spares, parts etc very easy to come by - or at least they were 20 years ago.

Downside was the bodywork - curviness made bodywork tricky and therefore pricey if you did not do it yourself.

Bits my dad replaced as above are common ones to fail - roof side guttering also another common problem area, and even more difficult to repair.

 

They were an early monocoque and they didn't fully understand what that meant.

I know of several that have ended up being scrapped due to the amount of floor work needed.

You'd really need advice from the owners' club.

 

I'd be surprised if it isn't rotten

Most 'barn finds' were put in the barn twenty years or thirty years ago because they were so rotten back then that they failed an MOT

Things are unlikely to have improved...

Unless there is something very special about it, then it's not worth more than a couple of hundred quid

Having said that, if you can buy it for that, take lots of photos in it's present condition, you could double or treble your money on ebay

Classic prices are badly overheated at the moment

You know there is a crash in store when the dealers are advertising cars as 'POA'

I had about thirty classics a year ago - lots of stuff people like such as Fulvias, Stags, etc

I've sold the lot and nearly quadrupled my money (eg Fulvia bought for under a grand sold for £4K, Stag bought for £1500 sold for £5K, best was a Capri I made £6K on and did nothing to it beyond a new exhaust and painting the bonnet)

The cars were all shite and I was delighted to get out when I did

As I like to say, no-one ever went bust taking a profit

 

Nice job! Pleased to see someone doing well out of the fiat-money bubble whilst it lasts.

Aside from the banksters, of course.

 

would have been better had I put £100K in to start

unfortunately it was a fair bit less than that

I thought there would be money to be made in buying Greek luxury cars

saw a prog recently where it said the Cayenne was the default Greek loadsamoney choice until recently

and that now people are desperate to sell

well, have a look for yourself

the prices don't seem very desperate to me - even if there are lots of cars on sale

ditto a nice beachside apartment

so some crises are clearly more of a crisis than others...

 

It's not a Bedford Rascal, it is actually a Daihatsu Hi jet and it really has not rust at all, just lots of dust and cobwebs