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Mike decided that he really needed to occupy his time during his retirement was to restore a classic car. Mike and Flossie had previously owned a 1952 two-door in the early sixties as their young family was growing up. They found the Minor very reliable and easy to fix with plenty of cheap spares to be had. He recalls that Dominion Motors in Auckland had assembled Minors.
Then one day their daughter, Alice, phoned to say that there was a dead Morris Minor Traveler outside her house in Mairangi Bay, and that the young student who owned it wanted to sell it. The chassis number indicated that it was a 1968 Deluxe 1000 Traveler with 1098cc engine.
Mike straight away convinced himself that the car looked a good proposition and drove it home. The drive home was hair-raising as only brake that worked was the handbrake, and the car also kept jumping out of second gear. He told Flossie to drive behind him, “just in case”. She did until they reached the Auckland Harbour Bridge where she pulled out and passed him, giving him a friendly wave before vanishing into the blue.
It was then that things started to go wrong. Mike started to smell burning rubber and the engine started to cough and splutter. He says that by this time he had reached 'suicidal indifference' to his surroundings and managed to pull over to lay-by and stop using the handbrake. He tried to switch off the engine but it had a mind of its own and continued running for about five minutes before, with a final gasp, it stopped.
He tried to lift the bonnet but "by this time you could fry your breakfast on the heat coming from the engine!" Mike let things cool off for a while and then checked the radiator. It was no surprise that just about every little hose between the head and the block was rotten and had sprung a leak. He managed to obtain some water from a service station and, using a plastic milk bottle, filled the radiator.
Arriving home he was greeted by Flossie, who asked him where he had been all this time? When asked why she had left him in the middle of the busy Harbour Bridge, she said that she had felt embarrassed holding up the traffic. But Mike says that she was the greatest supporter of his restoration project, which took five years and 950 hours to complete. Mike managed to trace the history of the vehicle right back to its original seller - The Morris Garages Newbury Ltd of Thornbook Street, Newbury, for the total on-the-road price of GBP 685.18.3d on 13 Februaary 1968 (They have a copy of sales invoice). The car registered PJB637F and finished in Almond Green with Porcelain Green trim, was brought by a school teacher from Brindlington, North Yorks, a Mrs Joan Kemp-Gee who moved to Marton, NZ in 1970, along with her Morris Minor. Mike contacted Mrs Kemp-Gee, now living in Bedfordshire, who recalls that the Minor was her first car, bought with money left to her by her father, and was very reliable.
It spent most of the first couple of years of its life in North Yorkshire, then three months in London before coming out to NZ in January 1970. Mrs Kemp-Gee signed the customs papers for the car in Wellington on 22 May 1970 and it was registered on 2 June the same year. It was only the cost of transportation back to UK that made Mrs Kemp-Gee leave it behind when she returned to the UK in 1973. The car passed on to various owners including 4 owners in Marton and the young student in Auckland, before Mike acquired it on 7 August 1989.
Since then Mike has successfully restored the engine, suspension, wheels, upholstery and roof lining, replaced the carpet and wood - all in just 950 hours! Mike and Flossie have been involved in the Morris Minor Club for 18 years and have been the magazine collators for 16 years.
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6279304 (24 hours), 0273165151 (Finlay) 
