The National is basically where all members of the MMOC who can make it go and camp together in a huge field for several days. There are competitions, concourse judging for cars, parties and other general camping lulz, as well as the chance to walk round and look at everyone else's cars.
I arrived on the afternoon of the 29th with Matt, another young member who lives near me; he has a 1970 two-door saloon, similar to mine, but duck-egg blue, called Misty. He originally restored it, only to have an accident in it earlier this year. He had only just got it rebuilt with a new MOT in time for the National, and it was nice to see it turned out so well.
Overall, I had a pretty good time at the National. I met most people from the young members facebook group and had a look round their cars. One of them even let me drive her traveller, one of the other Minor variants, that I had not before driven; I've decided that if I get another Moggy, it'll be a traveller. I also drove another two-door saloon like mine, but with wider wheels, to see the benefit of the extra traction and stability they provide, which is quite considerable as it turns out. I also drove an Austin 1100, which one of the young members had brought along; quite a nice little car.
Undoubtedly one of the best bits of the weekend though, was the auto jumble. An auto jumble is basically a car boot sale, where only car parts and paraphernalia are sold. There is a huge one once a year at Beaulieu where anything and everything to do with any old car is sold, but the one at the National was only Morris Minor parts. You can, to a certain extent, get Morris Minor parts off the internet whenever you need them. However, the selection of parts will be limited, and the companies that sell them will usually charge slightly over the odds. You can also scour eBay for classic car bits, but that can often mean weeks or even months of waiting before something you want will turn up. However, at the auto jumble, anything you could want is there, being sold by someone. There's everything from original nuts and bolts, to super rare pieces of trim, to engines in all states of repair, to entire Moggies. What's more, because the seller is right there in front of you, you can haggle, and there's no delivery charges to pay.
I was mainly on the lookout for a new windscreen washer pump, since my current one was being not terribly reliable. I was expecting to be rooting around for ages to find one. I couldn't have been more wrong. After only 10 minutes, I managed to find a stall with a whole box full of them, all tested and working, for only a fiver a time. That purchase made, I would have been all set. But, like a child in a toy shop, I found several other things I just had to have. I noticed that most of the stalls had a few steering wheels for sale. This reminded me that my own steering wheel was incredibly sun damaged and scabby, and it would be stupid of me not to look for a better one while I was there. There were indeed steering wheels in much better condition than mine, but none of them were perfect, and they seemed to all be offered around £15; not an exorbitant amount of money, but more than I really wanted to spend, so I kept a lookout for a cheaper one. My persistence paid off. I found a chap selling lots of miscellaneous Moggy bits, including a steering wheel. Although not perfect either, it was in rather better nick than many of the other wheels I'd seen for sale, and leagues better than the one in my car. I asked the man how much it was, and he told me that the box I'd picked it out of was a "rummage box" and everything was on an offer basis, so he asked me how much I'd like to pay for it. I offered him a fiver, and he accepted. A steal!
Now armed with a new steering wheel, I thought it would be a shame to put my old, damaged and worn out horn button on it, so I set about looking for one of those too. I found a man selling two very nice original ones. One was in lovely, gleaming, unbroken condition, while the other literally looked like it had just come off a showroom car. However, for the first one the man wanted £15, and for the second, a rather substantial £25. I tried haggling with him on the first button, but he refused to budge, stating that they were the two best original horn buttons for a Minor 1000 in the whole auto jumble; quite a bold claim, but from what I had seen throughout the jumble, I had no evidence to suggest he was lying, so I forked out for the button. Still, £20 for a whole new steering wheel package isn't bad at all.
It then occurred to me that now would also be the perfect time to look for a new glovebox lid, as my current one has a hole in it. It took a bit of searching, but I found two at once with the same seller, one in burgundy, and one in the same green as my car. He let me have the green one for £3, another bargain. Granted, the paint on the green one is pretty badly faded, and there is a small amount of surface rust, but it's nothing that can't be sanded down and repainted with a spray can, and, crucially, the new lid is hole-free!
That was all the shopping I did on the 30th. I didn't plan on perusing the jumble on the 1st of July, thinking that all the good stuff would have been taken the day before, but finding myself with not much to do around midday, I had a stroll through and took a closer look at some other stalls that I had overlooked previously. On one chap's stall I found a new gear stick boot, something else which I had forgotten I needed. The gear stick boot is simply a square piece of shaped rubber that fits over the hole in the floor where the gear stick connects to the gearbox, with a small hole in the middle for the stick to protrude from. The one in my car had become dry and brittle, and part of the rubber had broken away, so a new one was in order. The chap wanted £8 for the boot, which seemed a little steep, but he insisted it was the last "New Old Stock" boot still for sale at the jumble and was "much better than that new Chinese stuff". "New Old Stock" is a term given to parts made by the original manufacturer, but have been never used. They are the holy grail for classic car parts. I had seen several other boots for sale, but they had all appeared to be second hand, so I gave the man his £8. Besides, I had the impression that he had tried to sell it for £10 the previous day and had been unsuccessful.
A couple of stalls along, I found an old lady selling bits and bobs, including a bundle of three head gaskets. There was a label on them for £5. She assured me that the gaskets were genuine New Old Stock ones, and although they were a little tarnished from many years in storage, were fighting fit. I know from other young members that the new head gaskets made by an aftermarket company are of inferior quality, but I didn't need a new head gasket, and didn't really feel like spending a fiver, but then the lady told me i could have them for a quid. Can't really say fairer than that, so I bought them. I later found out that two of the head gaskets are for a Morris Minor engine, and one is for the larger 1275cc A-series engine.
The last item I bought was a bit of an oddball. It was a jack, for lifting up cars. I already have a hydraulic trolley jack which I bought from Halfords, and very useful it has been. However, being a trolley jack it is rather large and a bit unwieldy, and besides, one jack is never enough. The jack I bought at the National for only a fiver is a rather antiquated but still fully functional screw jack. It is much smaller than the trolley jack, yet can still lift the same 2 tons. It has a long, S shaped handle that slots into a spindle on the side of the jack, and you turn like mad. The jack foot then rises out of the base. I've already used it to lift up my Jeep once. It's harder work and takes quite a bit longer than the hydraulic jack, but lifts a lot more smoothly and cleanly, and due it's small size, is a lot more handy and easy to position. In any case, it's very rare you see a tough and capable piece of workshop equipment like that for a fiver.
As for the rest of the National, when I wasn't spending money on parts, I spent most of the time getting to know the other young members, and having questionable discussions around a campfire. On the second evening, there was also an Abba tribute band and a 1970s fancy dress, but the less said about that the better. The weather wasn't exactly perfect; it was very windy with spatterings of rain here and there, but with some nice bits of sunshine, enough to give me a bit of sunburn. All in all though, it went very well.
The young members themselves are an interesting bunch; all quite eccentric in their own way (including yours truly), but then you'd have to be to want to own and run a 50-odd year old car. Generally though, they're all very nice people, and hey, we still did standard young-person stuff, ie, stay up way past our bedtimes in a field, eat copious amounts of fry-up food, drink a bit much, and suggest that the Minor Traveller should have been called the "Minor Dogger", due to being the ideal size to screw in.
Next year's National will coincide with the Morris Centenary, celebrating 100 years since Morris's first car was made in 1913. Needless to say, it will be a much bigger event, due to Morrises of every size and shape will be turning up besides the Minors. Perhaps some some trolling of the Morris Marina Owners Club might be in order.
The young members themselves are an interesting bunch; all quite eccentric in their own way (including yours truly), but then you'd have to be to want to own and run a 50-odd year old car. Generally though, they're all very nice people, and hey, we still did standard young-person stuff, ie, stay up way past our bedtimes in a field, eat copious amounts of fry-up food, drink a bit much, and suggest that the Minor Traveller should have been called the "Minor Dogger", due to being the ideal size to screw in.
Next year's National will coincide with the Morris Centenary, celebrating 100 years since Morris's first car was made in 1913. Needless to say, it will be a much bigger event, due to Morrises of every size and shape will be turning up besides the Minors. Perhaps some some trolling of the Morris Marina Owners Club might be in order.
