Single Spinners new 1961 Hillman Minx

[Old School Cool]

So.....

Was thinking for a while about how much rust my green Humber 80 had and that I should probably look be looking for a better starting point, but never found anything which was much better than mine rust wise, the panel beater kept saying while I was getting bits fixed 'its a um a wee bit worse than i first thought'

but... then outta the blue(haha) while having a bit of a no trade me lapse found a really good condition 61 Hillman Minx (very similar to the Humber) in Temuka. Temuka? Where the f is that??? Its about an hour and a half south of Christchurch, in the middle of the South Island. Luckily(well unluckily really) I live in Blenheim and I have an uncle in Christchurch. So took a shiny new rental car for a thrash and went down for a nosey and it turned out to be heaps better than mine. I was sold pretty much as soon as I walked in, they weren't too keen to sell but with the kids going to off to uni etc, I managed to convince them it was going to a good home. They even offered me a bed, and gave me dinner, super friendly locals, stayed for hours having a yarn about cars and the old days

No rust around the rear or any in the chassis. Solid as, Reg on hold, It was pretty much a family heirloom, which was owned by this local called 'Tom' hence the name Thomas written on the back!!! Sorry Sexychevette!!! good for a laugh, Tom just used to drive it 500m up to the pub and back for years. Still got the black plates-original registration, engine, owners manual, all the factory mats and even this Lucas feeler gauge for adjusting the points. The owner was the niece of the original owner, they used to take their kids to school in it, freezing with no heater in the snow, lots of good memories and some she neglected to give to much info away on, they just parked it in the shed mostly keeping the reg on hold and drove around in modern cars only bringing it out for drives to make sure everything was working.

So pretty much straight away sold the green one on to someone wanting a project in palmy which pretty much paid for this. I was pretty gutted to see mine go though

To get it back home I was going to get it trucked but my uncle convinced me to drive it, which ended up being cheaper. So I went down the following weekend with my uncle, and a tow rope. Then they got on the yarn for like a hour talking about cars and jazz, while I stood around took heaps of photo's. They were pretty sad to see it go and had to have like a last drive together, before I left. I then drove it to Christchurch. It went pretty sweet, nearly made it, but lost clutch pressure about 5 minutes from the house. The master cylinder piston had seized solid inside the cylinder from sucking all the old crap out of from sitting. So we towed it back and I had a few weeks off. My uncle sorted it, with new seals and he even got managed to get warranted. I went down to drive it back. Was a bit nervous but it made it all good, 60mph on the flats and about 80 going up the hills. Engine stayed at normal temperature and drove pretty good, blew a few holes in the exhaust though. The Column shift was a bit hard to get used to, having no syncro in 1st and you have to match the engine revs to get it into gear but you kinda get used to it, slowing and taking off again for intersections is a skill I haven't quite mastered yet.

Now just got a few little bits to fix up, the windscreen rubber was pretty shot, so it needs some repairs to the front floors and got a bit starting around the windscreen, the original valve radio has been fixed and is working again it just needed a new valve, I've got a new exhaust made up and I want to change the points and distributor to electronic ignition with a bigger battery, to get things started a bit easier