Hi,
Anyone drive a classic mini and do you rate them?

I’m thinking of getting another one. Had one about 20 years ago and really have the bug to buy another…

I know they are unreliable and are rust buckets, but still seem to want one.

Thinking of an older clubman model or an early 90’s model.

Can you get a roof rack that a bike will take a Thule bike carrier?

our 1964 1275S, fresh from the restorers. though not for driving anymore :(. radiator grill is wrong and for some reason it has had latter model wider wheels fitted 😕 Still waiting for a small chrome ‘s’ above the cooper badge. Fabulous car to drive, 0-30 virtually instantaneous and mid range power delivery makes over taking a breeze. Heater was non exsistant in the winter and needs to be run continually in the summer to aid cooling. Holds the road like a slot car but bloody twitchy at high speed with chronic trailing throttle oversteer, sometimes you have to keep that right foot planted 😉 Also suffers from massive front wheel understeer in the wet. All in All the coolest car I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving

This was my pick up with 1400cc engine. Went dangerously fast. Cooper S discs on the front, Minifins on the back, lowered with spax shocks. I regret selling it. Hankering after an unmodified ’59 mk1.

[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-HMfE4JG6u2A/TG1wPa3XEJI/AAAAAAAAI9Y/crx2wuLCSLA/s720/Raph%252520%252526%252520Mini%252520005.jpg[/img]

I fancy one. The Shrew has some nice ones just now.

Every now and then, when wearing my rose-tinted specs, I think I wouldn’t mind another one. But then I remember the hours spent lying on my back on a cold garage floor with rust flakes falling in my eyes and the never ending repairs and remember why I sold it.

It was an absolute hoot to drive though

Have owned close to 25 mins from standard 850 to my 1340 clubman amazing little cars. They are really small and you feel very close to what is rushing by. Actually I was amazed at how small they feel now, nothing handles like a mini 😆

1400cc engine
thats the standard capacity for 1275 after 2 rebores 😉 that long stroke engine eats piston rings for breakfast 😯 wish i had photos of the pistons after i failed to run the motor in properly after my first rebuild though it still ran pretty well !

some more pictures when I actually used it

I have a folder with about 70 odd phone numbers on notes with the message “If you ever decide to sell this car call me on…”. They would be stuffed under the windscreen wiper on regular basis

1400cc engine

I think it had Triumph GT6 pistons and the bores are slightly offset. It used a 1275 crank. The ‘head had huge valves and ports. I ran it with a single 1 3/4 SU carb, and an RC40 exhaust.

I sold it to my brother when I still stayed in Orkney. He drove it back to Edinburgh faster faster than his pal in my brother’s Golf Gti. Nothing could catch it on the old A9.

Check out the shrew. http://www.theminiworks.co.uk/

love this

Every now and then, when wearing my rose-tinted specs, I think I wouldn’t mind another one. But then I remember the hours spent lying on my back on a cold garage floor with rust flakes falling in my eyes and the never ending repairs and remember why I sold it.
It was an absolute hoot to drive though

Lol – I had that too – ended up in casualty having embedded rusty metal pricked back out of my eye after the cornea had started to grow over it.

I loved my Clubman 1275 🙂

My money pit:

Love it to bits.

Once you get a good engine and sort out the rust – no worries!

Drove mine to University in Aberystwyth from Norfolk once. Best drive there Ive ever had.

Not anymore, but i rolled my sisters in the snow once. 😳

What about the scars caused by the rad housing when changing the water pump??
Was my first car and ended up with 7 different ones, in various states of repair/roadworthyness..
Highlights? A 1293 1973 reshell that I had sorted out(ish) by Ross at MWA in Glasgow many years ago, so many stories.. Using borrowed fenceposts and two handy friends to jack the car up to change the wheel in a back road near Cumbernauld at 2am without a torch!
Got very good at changing head gaskets!

Been told I can get another one once I get my para ticket but that’s not gonna happen for a coupla years- bah!

got me a 1980 clubman with a 1275 engine in, will see if i can find a pic later

I had a 1275. Got it rebored out, stage 2 rally head and a dellorto twin choke carb on it. Had to get the front brakes changed, the ones it came with were scary.

That was an awesome car. Handled like it was on rails and was great for giving Cosworth owners a real shock in the twisty stuff. Always fun watching Xr3i owners crap themselves when it left them at the lights too.

However, I did have to keep a stock of radiators in the garage for it’s weekly replacement and the bodywork at the back was like cheese.
Sold it for an XR2 which was a silly thing to do.

So wanted another, but these days you pay £2K for an ‘unfinished’ project thats just a pile of rust and boxes of bits, or REALLY daft money for a runner with a ticket.
🙁

There are two rotting away in a private car park near me – been there years now without moving. I’ll pout a note on the windscreens if anyone wants them 🙂 one older with a roll cage and wide wheels, the other more recent but a heap of rust

I used to have one of the last carb mini coopers before they went to fuel injection . Paid £1500 for it sorted the a panels and rust in the boot it never let me down only sold it when kids came along and sold it for £2500 wish I still had it now as have you seen what tidy ones go for!

On the road it felt like you were in a kart and at normal road leagel speeds is was so much fun, having such a tiny car with such good road handling meant you could make the most of the bends.

Went to a few mini meets one in Oxford was very good and had a lot of help from other owners keeping it on the road.

One day old English white mk1 stock looking 😉

Great cars, nothing else like them. Mine had a lightly tuned Metro engine, was converted to LHD when I took it to Budapest for a couple of years then back again for the UK. Crap heater whichever side you sit!
There’s a guy in Warks who is a genius tuner, builds competition and road Minis. Southam Mini & Metro???
Unfortunately they are getting more and more expensive.

Some great mini restoration/modding threads on PH at the moment:

carbon wheelarches and 2 litre engine (build details on pg 11)
1275 stage 1
very orange mini resto

Alas, have never owned one myself. 🙁

The bike engined specials on PH look well lairy 😯

there was a guy at fod last time i was there packing him, his mate, and 2 bikes *into* a regular mini. He didn’t have a front passenger seat, but it can be done

Dammit, I’m all nostalgic now.

I had a 91 cooper 1275 with 44 SU carb, I gave it the stage 1 – K&N filter, janspeed LCB, RC40 exhaust, rolling road tuned at an excellent little place in Milnrow.

Mental good fun, gave polarising opinions from passengers – either I want to get out or I want one!

Found some pics last night, wife was saying I never should have sold it.

I want mine back now…

Mini Checkmate, 998cc block, with Cooper S head, Dave Vizzard specced carb, nice minisport SS exhaust, janspeed LCB, Weller 8 Spokes, eleccy radiator fan. I learned a lot about cars, as it needed something doing to it weekly. The thing flew, when it was going.

Nah.. Rose tinted specs, I drive a new one, the big ****, it rocks.

All those years under them I even had a Wolsley Hornet, the posh one, it still rusted, ripped thru front tyres, span off in the wet, we even parked the office minivan in a florists window one Christmas eve.. A lot of fun at the time, but the new Kraut minis are so much better.

I learned a lot about cars, as it needed something doing to it weekly.

that would be the points 😀

No need to use “classic” in thread title. The new things are just small BWMs not Minis. 😉

Briefly had a Mini Mary Quant. Bought for £1000, sold for £500 a year later after £750 of work. Doh! Still wish I hadn’t sold it, but GF needed a reliable car for work and the Mini wasn’t it…

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MINI-PICK-UP-/220910182434?_trksid=p4340.m1374&_trkparms=algo%3DPI.WATCH%26its%3DC%252BS%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4931988093429946980
hubba hubba!

OP – used to run Thule footpack / bars with a carrier.

Lottery win and I’m building one of these,
http://www.pro-motive.co.uk/R1KitInfo.html
with a bit of creative weight loss, down to say 500Kg (probably need a Mk1 and some carbon bits,Ti subframe and beam axle) and with a standard 164 Bhp R1 , power to weight would be 328bhp/tonne, for comparison a Lamborghini Gallardo 5.0 V10 Spyder is 324bhp/tonne
😯 8)

nice comparison, the Gallardo doesn’t have the aerodynamics of a brick though 😉

I recently sold this after owning her for 5yrs

I find them quite reliable – but they are most deferentially rust buckets!!!!

Oh the hours spent, de-rusting and filling, redoing ball joints, wheel bearings, water pumps, radius arms, drum shoes and slave cylinders, head gaskets (1340cc), dodgy solenoids/electrics, wet distributors, CV joints etc.

The way they would snap into horrific over steer if you really took the p*ss…………

Would I have another, probably not, but thanks for the memories.

My 18yr old nephew has one & I couldn’t wait to have a go in it when he got it last year…….Well,you really do forget how crap they really were,slow noisey pieces of junk…..End off !

you’re missing slipping clutch from a leaking primary gear seal from that list typicals ming. Worse to diagnose was a tiny crack in the distributor rotor arm shorted out the ingnition took forever to find it.

sefton that is amazing.

True Clunk, but it would be a quick brick (well if the sites to be believed all the way to 125!! wouldn’t fancy that in a mini)

i haven’t ever owned a mini,but my mother had a few.i remember a couple of funny incidents (well i thought they were funny).one time,my grandfather had borrowed my mum’s mini,so he could go and get his hair cut.i went with him.as we were nearly there,he went for a gear change ,and the gear shift came out in his hand 🙂 my friend also had a mini.we both went to swindon in it (to look at computer games/music).as we were driving back to devizes,we were just talking,suddenly a duck landed right in front of us,on the road.my friend didn’t have time to avoid it.unfortunately he got a new ornament in his grill 😯 i still remind him of it to this day (he really appreciates it 😉 at least it was quick (then again it was a mini city 😉

No pictures, but I dearly loved my ’75 850 (became a 997 with NOS engine from a chap who worked at Cowley and had it in his garage *ahem*). Left in my parents garage – my mother sold it without telling me. 🙁

Had it resprayed in a lovely BMW metallic blue (Mauritius blue) – not dissimilar in colour to that one up there^^^. Returned from two trips to Cornwall on the back of a towtruck… 😳

Hung out with a few guys in my home town – one of them had a pickup with a tuned metro turbo engine in it. Torque steer so violent it’d jump to the side of the road when accelerating hard..!

Sefton’s there is a beautiful example. Very nice.

Mine looked nothing like that. Mainly because inside was all stained from the water that leaked in through the sunroof.

The choke! I’d forgotten all about that. Kids nowadays. 😉

My first ever car was a little white Mini 850. I was 17 at the time, and inherited from my Mum, and used to drive it to school. It was on its last legs by the time I got it – was stuck in third gear so always had to park it on a hill to get going again. The radiator was so furred up it had been bypassed so overheated regularly – always carried a jerry can of water.

By some quirk of fate, everyone’s school locker keys fitted the ignition, so I never knew where I’d find it at the end of the day – remember looking out the classroom window once to see it parked between the rugby posts in the playing field.

It was so cool having a car of any kind while still at school though…

I’ve had loads and love them. Had a 1961 when I lived in Australia, sliding windows and the whole bit, brilliant car with a magic wand gearbox, then came over here, in the end owned a Red Hot limited edition bought from a little old lady one owner car, had about 20,000 miles on after 10 years, wonderful thing, then really got the bug, bought an RSP Cooper with the John Cooper Works S conversion, that is the car I wish I had never sold (which I did when I went back to Oz for a couple of years and have regretted it ever since) and a Wolseley Hornet called Ivy that I bought from the original owner in Bournmouth.

They are great cars, would have another one tomorrow and if I could buy my S back for twice what I sold it for, I would. 🙁