36 July 2019 MiniWorld
[ 1959 Morris Mini-Minor De-L xe ]
bonnet badge. “It was in an old BMC
wrapper and I put it on the ‘59.”
Once the car was painted, attention
turned to the interior. “There were little
bits of interior left. The seat material
would crack when you touched it. The
black with Grey Fleck was only available
in ‘59 so trying to find any of that
second-hand was near-on impossible.
I managed to save some of the fleck
from the old door material and I’ve
made my own dashboard with it to try
and keep a little bit of the original car
still with it. I know it doesn’t look proper
but I think it adds a bit of character.”Newton Commercial was able to
supply suitable replacement seat covers
and trim. “So I had to bite the bullet
and go with Newton at a cost. They’ve
got the colour and texture of the Grey
Fleck right and they were very helpful.
They ask a premium for their stuff
but where else are you gonna find it?
We bought it as a set and fitted them
ourselves. We put all the sponge in. It’s
all about saving money to be honest
otherwise it all takes off. We did a
jumble at Himley in 2017 which meant I
had enough money to buy the interior.”
Newton Commercial also supplied the“He taught me things that some
might think it stupid to replicate...”
This is how the sad-looking November 1959 Mini
was when Dave collected it in September 2014.With the very rusty floor pan removed, the new
M-Machine Special Floor was then welded on.This was all that was all that was left of the rear
subframe after his son Ryan steam cleaned it.He braced it to add strength and his sons: James,
Liam, Ryan and Tommy posed for a photo.He took care to preserve all the original panels
that he could so the inner wings were repaired.20 September 2015: Here's how the underside
looked once the new floor pan had been fitted.By 9 August 2015 he had saved up enough funds
to start work on replacing the rotton underside."I preserved this body number that I believe
the factory used to write on the car."November 2016. The underside, and inside the
Mini, were primed and painted in Dave's garage.The b uild
who goes to a lot of Mini shows called
Allan Thomas. He lives locally to me.
If I’m ever stuck for something I send
one of my boys up and he usually has
the part so he’s been a massive help.”
Dave was lucky to find certain items
at autojumbles. “The headlights were
cracked so I found replacements at
jumbles.” Some items were brand new: “I
found a new-old stock-grille moustache
and a new-old-stock exhaust from a
jumble, which was a real good find.” He
found second-hand indicators and a grille
which was sand blasted and painted.
By now he had also bought a 1960
Morris Mini, partly with a view of using
parts from it for the ’59. The glass
washer bottle was taken from the ’60
and it is now shared between both
cars. With the '60 came a spare NOS