Every few weeks we will hopefully be featuring one or two members' cars.
If you have some photographs and a short story about your car, and you would like others to see it, send details to jimgwillis@gmail.com .
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Morris 1800 MkII owned by Robert Thomson
My classic is a 1970 H reg MkII Morris 1800. I have owned this car for 12 years now having bought it in 1999.
The car was built in 1969 and bought from BMC Motors in Blairgowrie in August 1970. It was registered in Dundee hence the LTS part of the number plate and was owned by Bob Simpson who lived in Meigle, Perthshire. Bob owned the car up until the mid 90's when it was sold to a lady in Motherwell who used it until the MOT ran out then took it off the road. It lay in a local coachbuilders yard where it never turned a wheel for over 3 years.
I bought the car in July 1999 after passing it on my way to work every morning for a few months. I stopped at the coachworks one morning to ask about the car and ended up buying her for a small fee, which was lucky as the next step was the scrap yard.
When I came into possession of Auld Betsy, as she was christened by my family, she was in a sorry state. The Carlton Grey paintwork was so badly oxidised that it looked white, the clutch was slipping, the brakes were seized, the suspension was down at one side, the headlining was rotten and hanging down, the carpets were worn and there were mice nesting in the boot. Surprisingly it didn't take too much work to get her through an MOT. The suspension just needed pumped up, the brakes were freed off, and some welding was done in the form of two new sills and a small repair to the front sub-frame. The biggest job was the clutch as the engine and gearbox have to be removed to do this job. As for the bodywork, some T-Cut, Autoglym and a lot of elbow grease brought the paintwork and chrome back to a reasonable state. She duly passed her MOT in the October and has been on the road ever since.
In 2004 I took the plunge and did some serious restoration work. With the help of some club members I fitted a new front wing, rear wheel arches and a front valance. All the trim, bumpers and windows were then removed and she was taken to Allied Motors in Glasgow for a full bare metal and oven baked respray in the original Carlton Grey colour.
She was delivered back to me on a trailer and I spent the next few weeks putting her back together. I tidied up the engine bay, fitted a new set of carpets and stripped out the damaged headlining. I bought a roll of vinyl and my wife Mary used the old headlining as a template to make a new one. We fitted it and it looked brilliant. The original seats, door cards, dash, etc were all cleaned up and she was ready to go.
Auld Betsy has covered 96,000 miles now and is still going strong. She is part of the family and I would never part with her. Mary and I joined the BMC Car Club and we have met a lot of good friends through owning this car and attending rallies on a Sunday.
