Legend has it that Nelson is the home to more Morris Minors than any other place in New Zealand.  (Nelson also has 2.2% of the population and 17% of the breweries, which seems about the right proportion to me)   A handful of them gathered on Sunday afternon on Rabbit Island for a barbecue and a chinwag, with models dating from the early 1950s (27.5hp, 64mph top speed – downhill with a tailwind and bare feet) up to Emily, Jenny Adams’ 1962 model (38hp, 77mph top speed).   Great condition after a scrub-up (the car, that is – Jenny’s a good-looker in her own right..) which caused one of the purists to sniff quite condescendingly with the remark that he actually preferred “unrestored”.   Which were all painted in the drab blues, browns, greys and greens that were the fashionable military camoflage colours in the war that had just finished.

Lots of paint left over…   I mentioned the guy in Motueka who’s got a whole yardful of Morries.   “Oh HIM” they said “He won’t even sell us SPARES. Old men tend to get a bit grumpy.”   They could have been kind and said “Present company excluded, of course”   Never mind…..

02 Mar This entry was published on 2 March, 2011 at 12:00. It’s filed under (Not) the Nelson Daily Photo, not the nelson daily photo and tagged jenny adams, morris minor, nelson, rabbit island. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.