Classic car insurance and the pampered Morris Mini

Some people will do anything to protect their car insurance no-claim bonus - and a man in Guildford is so worried about his 1963 surf blue Morris Mini that he has gone to rather extreme lengths to keep his motorised treasure safe.

He keeps it in his living room.

Yes, the classic car fanatic has built double doors onto his living room to enable him to drive the Mini in and out whenever he wants. And he loves it so much he treats it as a piece of art.

He says the unusual colour makes it really striking and he didn't need to drill any holes in the wall to display it. Of course, he's forgetting the garage doors he had to fit to the wall of his front room - that's some installation.

However, the man's car insurance provider is extremely happy with his choice of safe parking space for the Mini as older cars don't have the anti-theft devices that modern vehicles come with and so by keeping it inside the family home he is probably saving a bundle on his motor cover.

It was noticeable that the article did not say whether the man had a partner, or whether or not they were happy with the front room/garage combination living space arrangement. And as the car insurance workers in the duck2water office mulled over the ramifications of keeping your motor somewhere between the three piece and the flat screen, one worker sullenly said, "At least he put doors in his walls to get the car inside."

It turns out that this person's partner drove their jointly owned car through the front room wall in one of those bizarre 'gas pedal mistaken for brake pedal' incidents that we see occasionally in the national press.

She wearily told, with not a hint of smile, of the carnage and mayhem caused by the car crashing through bricks and mortar and landing squarely on the Leksvik coffee table from Ikea - luckily no-one was in the house at the time - and how the subsequent insurance claims managed to put the whole sorry mess right in the end.

The rest of the car insurance personnel sat for a moment, there was the odd open mouth and at least one stifled giggle, but at last she spoke with some positivity.

"Well, I suppose it was one way to get the front room redecorated - and he did it without a word of complaint!"

Hmm! I think if you really want a car in your front room the Guildford man has got it right.

Of course most 'normal' people know that keeping your car, with its factory fitted alarm and engine immobiliser, in a locked garage is enough to get you a fairly decent reduction on your car insurance costs, but then some people have to be different, don't they?

Classic car insurance and the pampered Morris Mini

News archives