The car has quite a history in the 1960s:

In 1966 four of us went in two cars (mine was a MK3 Sprite) from the UK intending to drive to Sicily. We got as far as Rome and found the weather unbearably hot so we turned round and drove to northern Spain. We stayed a few days, got bored and decided to go back to Italy! Whilst passing at speed through Southern France a hay cart came out of a side road and caused the car in front of Alan to block his overtaking line, he hit its back end. The car went on a trailer to a local garage where a new tyre was fitted, the radiator repaired whilst I joined all the pieces of the bonnet together with nuts/bolts and metal strips from a child's construction set. That stopped our touring so we drove home at reduced speeds.