Mini legend

Castle Combe Saturday, a 'mini' club day .... Amazed at the quality customisation on display ... and being chucked around the track ... 'Specialy impressed with a couple of Coopers (not Beemer shop trolleys) with Honda Type 'R' .. tuned ! motors Dyno print with one of 'em for over 240 BHP .... Almost tempted back !!

A mate of mine has a Mini (not a BMW 0.5 Series), Cooper S with a tuned engine. He loves it, he talks of nothing else. I have had a few rides in it, it feels like you are sitting in a rollerskate, great fun in the wet due to the stupendously wide tyres! It is quite fast, people have assured me that is because you are close to the ground but seriously, 0-60 times are pretty good (8ish seconds). Power to weight ratio is good. Gets 200 miles from a tank on a good day...

He often talks of the Type R conversions.

I think they are great cars, but I wouldn't want to drive one daily: you can't help but chuck them about on every corner and roundabout, but if things do go wrong then your crash protection consists of about 2mm of sheet metal.

There are a few V8 conversions out there too. Two I have seen on the net with Rover V8s mounted up front, and several I have seen with Yank V8s mid-mounted.

Please dont knock the new MINI as the O.5 series. BMiniW or whatever is in vogue - I, too was hurt when BMW took it over, but having driven one I was flabbergasted at what a truly brilliant piece of engineering this little car is - and those staggering sales figures will bear me out, even after 4 years there is still a huge waiting list, something unheard of until now!

It has got Cowley buzzing along at 120% of capacity, providing some 4000 jobs there, not to mention all those component suppliers, and I personally think our little legend is in the safest hands possible. WELL DONE BMW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well can they at least make the name more accurate? Why not call it the Maxi? Or perhaps the Minor (thus keeping with the Morris Mini name). Only, the BMW Mini is not in any way... mini.

I am not particularly passionate on the subject, but the mate of mine with a real Mini goes livid if you ask him if the 'S' in "Cooper S" stands for supercharged

It's great if it gets jobs going in the UK, but lets hope it doesn't go the way of the New Beetle (i.e. popular for about a year, then seen as an overpriced gimick). I doubt it will, after all the Beetle was just a rebodied Golf/Bora/Octavia/Ibiza and the M(axi)ini is a whole different car.

N.B. If it were wearing MG Rover badges I would love it. I am a man of principles!

My boss has a new style Mini Cooper on a 51 plate. He paid £10,500 for it 6 month ago and says it's an "investment" and is actually worth more now due to demand. Don't know if he's right, but if he is then it kind of upsets my own theory on cheap motoring!

There are other cars like that. Generally the first batch of a flash new Merc convertible will sell for a few K more than dealer price, so people can skip the queues.

However, in the long term, these aren't investments. As soon as there are enough on the market, they become like any other secondhand car.

Saying that, I have looked with interest at the slow devaluing of prestige cars, and wondered if it is worth the risk to have one and hope if devalues less than a "normal" car in terms of thousands of pounds rather than percent.

I guess it is all on the back of the great mini era of my youth ... 'mighty Monte minis' When they took the Monte Carlo Rally by storm .... withdrew on third attempt when they were first, but lost on a technicality concerning height of spotlights. I owned my 'S' when they were still an 'in' car, a go-kart really ... but great fun. Remember scaling one hill in ice and snow , the rear wheel drives were goin' nowhere ... stopped to help my mate extract his Lotus Cortina from hedge and have good laugh about his 'limited slip differential'., and scrapped Cibie Biode spots !!
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Garage near me, specialises in Spridgets and modding equipment ... Two refurbished frog-eyes for sale around £10,500 each !!!! circa 59/60 !
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The danger with expensive cars is ever present when selling ... some awful scams have / will be pulled on people .... I once bought a car very cheaply, the frightened, seller's friend, had been duped out of £8k .. fraudulent Building Society cheque, lost forever !
I suppose the method is ... On sale, hand over documents ... hold car until money is in account A ... transfer to account B ... when drawable here, then all is ok. ... Have read where seller asks bank if money paid in 'yes' was reply, car handed over ... seller tries to draw money .. 'sorry cheque has been stopped' ... Apparently this happens, so I think the twin account method should work fine ... any ideas ? I am supposing here.

P

I bought my car on my Switch card from a dealer, but I thought with private sales people use cash or a banker's draft (which I believe is as good as cash, but a little safer to carry).

Are private sales always "Sold as seen", "buyer beware"? Or is there some kind of cooling-off period. In case someone lies and claims something that isn't true (perhaps something as elementary as claiming it is a 16V but you then find out is an 8V). Can you demand they take it back, or is it an issue for the courts?

Garage near me, specialises in Spridgets and modding equipment ... Two refurbished frog-eyes for sale around £10,500 each !!!! circa 59/60 !

Click to expand...

According to this the Sprogeye Frite first sold for £660. So, say you took £660 and stuck it in a savings account at 6% in 1959. You would now have about £9085.

But, if you had bought a Sprite, stuck it in a garage for 45 years, you would now have £10500. A clear £1315 profit for just 45 years work... of course this would assume that you had a spare garage anyway for all that time.

Although, I would imagine a delivery-mileage car from 1959 would probably get quite a bit more than £10500...

Think of the fun in the frog ...
I shall now take a miniscule bow... see the octagon and arrow insignia on the MASC site ? Guess who actually drew that then ? I did say miniscule !!

It's a small internet, isn't it!

Even smaller world !!

http://www.mgcars.org.uk/frontline/index.htm

Look at the 1.8 K series sprite 165 BHP

Nearly cleared the garage and cleaned up the old tool kit ....