This Brookes third year is a celebrity in the classic car restoration world

When it comes to Morris Minors Matt Tomkins, third year environmental science student, is your guy.

I tried testing his knowledge of the cars with an online quiz, but gave up after he was able to, not only answer the first three questions correctly, but also identify the owners of the cars pictured (one of which was himself).

Matt has been a part of several restoration projects to date but his magnum opus is a 1969 Morris Traveller which he bought for a thrifty £500 in a state, so naked and filthy looking the picture is NSFW.

With little prior knowledge required to totally reconstruct a car, working twelve hour days under a gazebo in his parent’s garden, he painstakingly repaired, reworked or replaced virtually every part of the machine.

Kinetically skilled Matt said:  “Morris Minor spares are easy to get hold of, because they made so many of them back in the day, but I was operating on a tight budget which meant I had to make quite a few of the parts myself to keep costs down.”

He learnt as he went along, commenting on how he learnt to weld “If I got something wrong I would just make a bigger hole [around it] and do it again.”

Despite being an Environmental Science student, Matt is able to reconcile his unusual hobby with his love of the planet.

He said: “People are often asking me how I can justify driving around an old banger, but the Morris can do around 45MPG making it comparable to a 2002 Ford Fiesta”.

In addition to this Matt makes the point that the greenest car is one that has already been built, making his car greener than your mum’s Prius.

Matt at the Practical Classics Show

Matt’s Traveller has won him the title of Practical Classics Restorer of The Year Award, propelling him to minor celeb status in the classic car world.

He said at a recent car show: “I could hardly move for people trying to talk to me”.

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Enough blowing smoke up Matt’s exhaust pipe though, he wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of The Oxford Universities Motorsport Foundation.

Matt with the team at OUFM

Matt took me to the OUMF HQ to meet some of the team. I was shown some of their cars, most notably a Riley 1.5 which has become their signature vehicle, along side pictures of the various states of disrepair that they came in.

One keen member said: “The aim of the organisation is to allow students from both universities to learn or hone a wide range of skills from welding to laying the cement on the floor of this workshop”.

The group regularly attends the SOL Rally in Barbados, the Barbados Historic Rally Carnival, as well as the IRC GEKO Ypres Rally.

‘All mod cons’

Matt is also secretary of the Oxford and Berks Morris Minor owners club, as well as a member of the Young Morris Minors Owners Club. Each year he and 20-30 other members drive down France in a giant Morris Minor Convoy.

The third year said: “As soon as I finish my last exam, I’m heading straight of to join the group for the Morris Minor tour in Normandy. We’ll probably get in really late.

“It’s not very sensible, but were rarely are”.

We can only imagine what kind of wavy activities they get up to when the boys are on tour.