Heritage Panel opinions?

[minitravellerman]

There's a bit of a debate has been floating around the local Mini shows here in NI about Heritage panels. I've heard of a few stories of folks restoring cars and how the Heritage panels are a bad fit, need a lot of fettling and so on to make fit.

My experience of Heritage panels is quite the opposite. Now I'm not a body man by any means - I have a friend who does all my welding and paint work on my cars. When I restored the Traveller I bought Heritage panels for her (quite a few I might add!) and my friend was very impressed by how easily they fitted together and the quality. He told me that if I ever do another project to make sure I bought nothing else other than Heritage. Again when the Mk1 was being restored I did the same, and again he expressed to me how good the panels were.

My impression of Heritage panels is that they are made on the same jigs and presses that BMC used, so therefore that would mean that the panels are exactly the same as factory.

Anyway - what has everyone else's experience been on this one?

[IAIN]

My opinion is the same as yours. Any Heritage panels I have used have been probably as good as you will get. The quality of finish isn't great on the wing seams around the headlight hole, for example but they can be improved.
I don't imagine the genuine BMC,BL,ROVER etc,etc, where much better.
The only choice is BMH and M machine for me. I would have to be desperate to use any one else or it not be available from BMH and M machine.
I have a NOS external hinge door from the late 70's and it is too tall, I have tried it on many cars and it will not fit.

[mk1]

In my experience & opinion, Heritage panels can be a bit of a "Curates Egg" (Good in parts).

I have heard (and seen evidence of) many horror stories, the worst recent one was a good friend of mine who bought a new Heritage shell, spent 2 years converting it to true MK3 spec, paid over 2 grand to have it painted and when he was fitting the door components he discovered that Heritage had forgotten to fit any of the captive nuts into one of the doors. I have also seen Heritage front subframes that have been assembled wrong and sent out 1/2 painted & rear frames that simply don't line up. Their customer service is a joke & I know from traders who deal with them that getting credit for damaged or incorrectly assembled panels & units is effectively impossible.

Having said the above.

I also accept that Heritage panels are without a shadow of a doubt the best you can buy & fit MUCH better than any of the pattern options. Yes they are expensive, but that premium price that you pay is usually justified. Heritage panels would be BRILLIANT if they just spent a bit more effort getting their Quality Control right, not just sending out the parts that they reckon are just about finished. A lot of the shoddy practices that eventually brought BMC, BL, Austin Rover, Rover group etc crashing down around their knees are alive & well living within Heritage!

Finally, a lot of people expect panels to fit straight out of the box, this is rarely if ever the case & nearly all panels do take some fitting, even if they are "exactly the same" as the panels that left the factory years ago (which they aren't) it is unlikely that the car that they are being fitted to is the same shape as it was 40 or 50 years earlier.

[nick@dunsdale]

I also accept that Heritage panels are without a shadow of a doubt the best you can buy & fit MUCH better than any of the pattern options.

It's a funny old world i dont do as many mini's as i used to do, i do remember though that hadrian panels were very good at one point probably around 15 years ago.

I have tried them since and found them to now be pretty bad most of the time.

one that went well with hadrian panels always sticks in my mind was around 1990 did a full front on a pickup inner and out A panels wings front panel and bonnet. all hadrian and fitted like a glove. did the job in a day no problem

Have tried fitting hadrian wings since the noughtie's and they are now really hard to fit, what went wrong ??

is their tooling worn out ?


p.s. sorry if i am wandering of topic about heritage panels

[apbellamy]

I've used mainly Heritage Panels on my resto - roof, quarters, a Panels, wings, front valance, boot floor, sills etc etc The only panel I had trouble with was the passenger side front of rear arch closing panel, ended up refolding it as it wasn't quite deep enough. The rest was fine.

On the other hand, tried a hadrain rear quarter panel. It was absolute garbage. Fine at the top, but 3mm out all the way across the bottom. It was like they had pressed it out of line. It's on the scrap pile in several pieces now...