Found this on the Oxford Mail site... SELF-CONFESSED Mini fanatic Brian Hore thinks all seven of his classic cars are truly magnificent. But it is the Didcot pensioner’s 1967 white E-reg Mini Cooper with a black roof which is his pride and joy. It has taken 12 years and about £5,000 to restore the vehicle, which needed a new shell from another car of the same year as well as a completely new interior. But his hard work paid off when he was one of 50 Mini Cooper owners invited to take part in a display on Saturday, November 5, at the world’s largest free motor show in Regent Street, London. Mr Hore has owned a Mini every year since 1965, apart from the two years after his twin sons Martin and Christopher were born in 1973. They are now 38 and join their father at Mini rallies. The retired aircraft engineer said: “Once you are hooked on Minis you are completely hooked. “I love meeting other Mini enthusiasts at rallies and I have got friends all over the country and abroad.†Mr Hore’s favourite Mini Cooper dates from February, 1967, and is one of the last Mark 1 Mini Coopers, which finished production in October, 1967. Mini-mad Mr Hore fell in love with the model when he and his wife Valerie got married in 1965. “We hired a cherry red 850 Mini and drove from Didcot to Brighton for our honeymoon,†said Mr Hore. “Then in August that year, when I was stationed in Germany with the RAF, I bought a 998 Mk1 Mini Cooper, which was island blue with a white roof. It cost £498 in the UK at the time but we got it tax free for £400.†Mr Hore said buffing up old Minis has kept him busy since his wife Valerie died, aged 60, in 2004, and since his retirement as a nuclear project engineer at Harwell Laboratory at around the same time. Mr Hore said: “I’m a member of the Oxford Mini Owners’ Club and the Mini Cooper Register and staff from the register called me and asked me if I would like to display my 1967 Mini Cooper at Regent Street. “The car only has 72 miles on the clock so by the time I drive to London and back I will have doubled the mileage. “I shall take the 1967 Mini Cooper to shows for the foreseeable future and I have no plans to sell it – I love driving it because it holds the road like a go-kart. “I started working on Minis in a really big way in 1990 and after my wife died it kept my mind off other things – I find it very therapeutic.†Mr Hore, who once owned 13 Minis, is unable to keep all seven at home and four are stored in garages. As well as the 1967 Mini, he owns a 1960 cherry red 850, a 1963 fiesta yellow 850 deluxe A reg, a 1966 850 super deluxe island blue D reg, a 1968 Mini Cooper Mk2 island blue F reg, a 1969 Mini Cooper Mk2 red G reg, and a 1973 Innocenti 1300, with an X-reg plate. Crispin Slee, a spokesman for the Regent Street Motor Show, said: “Brian is just the kind of driver we are looking forward to seeing next month.†The motoring spectacular, which will also feature 50 E-Type Jaguars, will close a third of a street to traffic to make way for 300 cars.
No pun intended... He's a kind'a Mini Hore don't ya think? :lol: Seriously, what a great way to pass the time. I'm jealous, have the time and need a car to get started on.