In my early days on the road I owned — or at any rate regularly drove — a number of cars of types later judged to be classics. Sadly, this verdict was in all cases delivered after my decaying examples had long gone to the scrapheap.

Of the models, which included the iconic Volkswagen Beetle and Citroën’s 2CV, none was held by me in more affectionate regard than the Morris Minor.

This fine car, introduced to the design of Sir Alec Issigonis in 1948, was the first British model of which more than a million were produced. The 50th anniversary of its reaching that important milestone was celebrated earlier this month.

Considering the Minor’s immense popularity down the years, it is curious to consider Lord Nuffield’s reaction to his sight of the first drawings. “He called it a poached egg and everything under the sun,” recalled Sir Alec years later, “and walked out.”

Eleven years were to pass before the motor magnate offered his apology to the designer, whom he always called “Issie-wassi-what’s-his-name”. By then, Issigonis had also given the world the Mini.

My Morris Minor was one of the Traveller shooting brakes with a wood-framed rear. (“Oh look, possums,” said Dame Edna Everage spotting one on a televised trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, “even the cars here are half-timbered.”).

It was like the one pictured, except that instead of carrying plants it was occasionally to assist in their growth. The build-up of dirt and moss around the window frames encouraged a waggish friend more than once to sow cress there.

I owned the car from late in 1969 until about 1977. Though it was only five years old when I bought it, it was already in a pretty dreadful state. I was, of course, unaware of this, otherwise I would never have parted with my cash to the shady motor dealer who clearly knew a fool when he saw one.

Two days after the deal, a housemate of mine was driving down a steep hill in Sheffield (I was living there at the time) when the brakes failed completely on the descent towards a busy roundabout. Fortunately, Debbie managed to stop by using the handbrake. It turned out that the underneath of the car, including the brake pipes, were seriously corroded.

Three or four years earlier I had had my own, even scarier, incident involving a Morris Minor. I was the front seat passenger in a car driven by a friend who failed to see a halt sign at a crossroads. The mistake could have been fatal. We were struck by a Mini approaching from the left, and our car was sent rolling down the road, in the direction we had been travelling, for perhaps 100 yards.

Passers-by, helping us from the upturned car with its flattened roof, could not believe that none of us was seriously injured. The passenger door had taken the full impact, and my seat had concertina’d to half its width. A policemen who arrived on the scene gave his opinion that the fact that five us us were packed into the car (without seatbelts) had probably saved us.

Certainly it was testament to the strength of the car’s construction that its passenger compartment had survived the impact. My Traveller, I fancy, would not have proved as sound.When I backed into an unobserved tree stump in the car park of the Caversham Bridge Hotel, in Reading, the rear collapsed like a load of orange boxes.

One of the good things about the Minor was that its comparatively simple design meant that even a technological duffer such as I could occasionally cope with problems.

Ignition difficulties could usually be dealt with through a turn or two of the starting handle. A nylon stocking could, and sometimes did, substitute for a broken fan belt.

When once I had trouble with a radiator that leaked almost as quickly as I filled it, a friend had an easy and cheap solution: “Put a couple of spoonfuls of porridge in. It will solidify and block the hole.”

It worked — and for months, even I think years, after the ‘repair’ there was no recurrence of the problem.

In the end, it was to be the car’s rotting body that saw it off. Each year I spent a fortune on welding to secure an MOT certificate. Eventually, it proved beyond repair. I gave it to a young friend who had asked if he could use it off-road. Driving it the next day across a field, Ian was surprised when the car literally broke in half.