This section is designed to help with the identification of some key features that distinguish a 1959 mini Body Shell from later minis.

Some of these changes are from very early pre October 1959 cars to later post September 1959 cars.

We hope this will aid people in buying and restoring their cars.

If anyone has information to further our understanding about the changes outlined in this section, please feel free to contact us

Starter Button housing

These pictures show an early spot welded starter button housing on the left and later blended in type of mounting on the right . The early ones were different from later ones by not being part of the floor pressing.
As far as we can tell so far these changes in floor type happened In the first or second week of October 1959.

Floor pan depression

These pictures show the difference between the two types of front floor pressing. The floor on the left is an early type pressing, with the depression covering the majority of the area. This is in quite stark contract to the right hand picture that shows the later post September 1959 style floor pressing.

Toe board to floor join

On the left is a photograph of the floors in a 1959 shell with the floor underneath the toe board. This left the seam exposed to water a road dirt and split the seam leaking water and eventually rotting out the floors.
On the right is the “normal” or correct seam join adopted later on to cure this problem.
You can see that the join is higher up on the toe board and the floor sits on top of the toe board.

Front gutter rain hole

These pictures show the difference in the front gutters, both of these cars are early non recessed window shells but the picture on the left show a 1959 shell with no drain hole in the front corner.
On the right is a 1960 shell showing a factory drain hole in the gutter.

Drip rail on roof gutters

The blue car in the left hand picture shows a 1959 car with no drip rail on the gutter unlike the red car in the right hand picture that clearly shows a drip rail present.
This drip rail was introduced in approx May 60.

Non recessed window aperture

In the left hand picture you can see that the window aperture is a flat panel with no lip or recess for the rubber
.
This is in marked contrast to the right hand picture showing a recessed aperture for the rubber to sit in. The recessed window apertures were introduced in autumn 1960.
These should be present front and back.

1959 doors

The two photos above show the 1959 type door in red along side the later normal type door.
Note the hole in the end of the door that acted as the drain for rain water. The later ones drained down 2 rubber tubes out of the bottom of the doors.
These changes to the later style of draining took place around May 1960.
The door tops are also markedly different but this difference is hidden under the window.

Square raised sections

These raised lumps are found all over an early shell and are most noticeable on the slam panels of 59 cars.

They are to locate the metal tags for the wiring loom.
Each tag was welded in place by hand and these tags look to have been a means of location for the welder.
These seem to be phased out sometime in December 59.

Bonnet detail

The picture on the left shows a very early bonnet. These bonnets have a longer stay that secures in the bottom corner of the bonnet instead of on the cross member bracing as in the right hand photo.

The inner wing on these earlier cars with the longer bonnet stays have a different locator for the stay that is vertical as can bee seen on the picture on the left, instead of horizontal picture on th right, as on later cars.

The earlier bonnets also seem to have a very amateurish stiffener attached with pop rivets to steady the bonnet catch. This changed somewhere between body number 1248 (8th September) and 1837 (20th September) on Morris cars. We are very keen to establish a similar change point for Austin’s, if you have a car around these dates that shows either type we would be delighted to hear from you to see if we can pin point the change, or if you have a Morris that would narrow the date down a little.

FE Numbers

In between these two Morris body numbers (1248 – 1837) there is also the start of the inclusion of FE numbers spot welded on to the n/s inner wing above the radiator shroud. The picture on the left clearly no FE number whereas the picture on the right shows FE number spot welded on. Before this change no 59’s had FE numbers on the shells.