A Morris Minor called Maurice

My friend Martin picked this project up a few years ago and it sat for quite a while under a sheet in his front garden.  The year before last a number of us gave him a hand to put a concrete base down at the bottom of his and then he constructed from scratch a wooden workshop. He finished that earlier in 2016 and then moved the car in and has been welding and fabricating floor panels with the odd one purchased from the parts suppliers. He's finished the underneath on one side and has so turned the car over to get on with the other.
   Here's the email that he sent with relevant information.


Saved this from the crusher -  1954 2 door Morris Minor, plans are to first restore the body shell and then install the engine and transmition that I have so far collected - a 2003 83K Ford Focus ST170 2.0ltr 16v engine (170bhp output) using its original injection and using information gathered from the net - hopefully use the Ford ECU.
 This engine is of course designed to sit in the car in a tranverse manner but luckily the rear wheel drive Sierra 5 speed gearbox bolts straight on so I have one of those too along with a MK2 Escort axle that is pretty much the same width as the original Morris one but much stronger.
Plans are to make a 5 bar rear suspension with coil over shocks(just like our bikes) instead of the leaf spring and lever arm suspension and for the front - you can buy(can I make?) coil over shocks and lower A arms to replace the torsion bar and lever arm suspension.
Body work I'd like to keep it pretty much as an earlier model - as you can see in one of the pics I have a 1948-50 front grill to straighten out, this puts the small 5 3/4" headlamps down in the grill as first designed and not as most will remember ontop of the wings(to meet American laws).
It will have wider wheels that I'd like to keep period looking if I can, Colour? I can't make my mind up - off white, light or mid grey, pale beige, pale green? a period colour any way but that's a long way off for sure!