I bought my Oxford back in 1997 when I was 19. I am the 3rd owner (the second owner only had it for 1 year) and it had just 54,000 miles on the clock. It was a real minter, completely original except for a nice paint job done in the early 1980's. The Oxford was my first car and was quite a jump up from the old rusty Toyota that my sister and I shared up to that point (in fact she had bought a Hillman Superminx a few months before). The Oxford was named Moggy, partly due to it being a Morris, and partly due to an old soft toy cat of mine which still sits on the rear parcel shelf, staring malevolently out of the rear window at gullible dogs.
Moggy has proved to be extremely reliable and it has needed little work to be done other than regular maintenance; more serious work has been some rust repairs to the rear wheel arches (where all Oxfords seem to rust!), new exhaust, new clutch, new suspension bushes and re-sleeving the master and slave cylinders for the brakes/clutch.
Moggy has a lot to answer for. Because it was such a nice car I decided to get another Oxford; as it turned out I bought a rare 1954 Morris Cowley (I'll give this a respray and it'll be on the road in no time...silly me!) and later on a 1958 Morris Isis (the Cowley was taking soooooo long to restore, I'll get this Isis on the road in no time...we're only young and silly once!).
In 2002 I drove Moggy from Christchurch up to New Plymouth for my new job placement, met Sheryl (now my wife) and have stayed here since (bought a house, have 3 children). The Isis was the next car to be made roadworthy and we drove it up in early 2003 and the Cowley was finally put back on the road in 2008, but it has stayed in Christchurch.
In 2009 I decided that it was time for Moggy to come off the road for a bit of a tidy up; there was a bit of rust visible at the top of the front inner wings and the engine bay needed a re-paint. Whilst taking the engine and gearbox out I put my finger through one of the chassis-members next to the gearbox. Opps! With a bit of investigation I found that the application of underseal 50 years ago covered up the drain holes in the chassis legs.As well as the above rust repairs and engine bay tidy up the engine is due for a bit of a freshen up, having travelled almost 90,000 miles. I'll take the head off soon and report back...
