Most liked posts in thread: Show off your Classic

Well, here's a shot of my '64 which I found, by complete accident, in Northern California. Thanks to a wonderful wife of 26 years, I was able to pick it up on my anniversary this past June. I'll post up some more pictures after a bit. Enjoy...

 

i know i have a rebuild thread but i thought i would throw a few pics of the boogie monster


im getting her ready to move to the west coast with me and itll be time for some mountains!

 

Wife's car

 

and now...new pics...
some of the things im having done to my classic before it goes off to cali is having the engine bay cleaned up...

Before

After

 

Bruce, that looks just like the inspection station I had to take Buzz thru to get his VIN verified before I could license him.....

I'm surprised I hadn't posted a pic of Buzz in this thread yet......

 

Here are the three classics we have in our garage. MNE Eagle - Pynt Syz - Kreuzr

 

Here are some photos of my Mini getting a state inspection a couple of months ago, right after I imported it. That was the first part of the registration/licensing process. No, it didn't fall through the hole in the shop floor! The state inspection was easy, but I really got the run-around with local police departments in trying to get one of them to actually look at the car and inspect the VIN (necessary because it had foreign paperwork). Finally got a detective to verify the VIN and then I gave the DMV a stack of paperwork to satisfy them. The state's happy, and I'm happy.

As for the car, it's an '88 Austin Mini (and it really is an 1988 model - I wanted to made sure it was completely legal for import under the 25 year rule so I didn't have to worry about the feds potentially coming after it later on). This is the 7th Mini I've owned and for this one I basically commissioned the car to be built to my wishes by a good shop in the UK. I chose the white color as my first car was a white Mini when I was 17, so this is nostalgic for me.

 

1981 Austin Mini

My 1981 Austin Mini 998cc Automatic purchased on January 24th, 2015.

 

Here's mine:

 

Here is my Classic Mini "MNE Eagle" with the patriot theme.

 

Sir Reginald Stewart Rover

Reggie wants to play in this tread too. My sister and I bought this little guy on Ebay for my Dad to have fun with. He has a tartan interior, thus the reference to Stewart. He is a 1995 Rover and his marking is "Tartan". He is the Japanese version of the Sidewalk Package; automatic transmission and air conditioning with right hand drive.

 

That would be Lemoore Naval Air Station, CA

 

Classic winners

Reggie took in the Valley British Auto Club - British Car Roundup at the end of September and did well this year. He took first place in most creative oil drips and second in the Winners Circle. He also showed off his new bonnet stripes. A fellow classic (owned by Firebro) took first in Open Sports. Not bad for two little classics.

Reggie is in need of a new gasket for the front of his automatic transmission gearbox, don't you think? It did make him a winner however; check out the drip pattern on the paper (Mini Depends) just below the gearbox.

 

Thanks Kiki, for the notariety. What a great time it was, had by all.
Well, all but the Modified Healey owner.....:cryin:

 

The gold really adds something to the look of the car, I'm not normally a gold wheels fan, but since the rest of the color is so bland, they do help!

I don't think it would look as good with black or even silver wheels....

 

Sure, I’d be happy to tell you. I started my search for a new Mini about this time last year looking at Minis for sale in the US. I searched through Craigslist on a national basis (using SearchTempest), on eBay, and on MiniMania's site too. But I wasn’t happy with the selection, or the prices. Frankly, I’m picky, and sometimes it seemed like a lot of the Minis for sale in the US had repairs/modifications of unknown quality by many different owners over the decades, or they were later model Minis imported as a “re-shell” that I considered priced way too high. Plus, I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder worried about Customs coming for my car (I’m sure you’ve seen the recent video where the Feds delighted in crushing a late model classic Mini that was not imported correctly).

So I expanded my search to the UK. Since Minis, and Mini servicing and Mini spare parts are much more available in the UK than in the US, it made sense to me to either find my ideal car outright, or, instead, find a good car there and have it tailored to what I want. After a while I realized that even if I found what appeared to be a great Mini on eBay.uk or one of the classic car classified sites for sale by a private seller, there would likely be a good deal of difficulty in making all the arrangements with an individual selling a Mini to me, an unknown overseas buyer (think of the “Nigerian Prince” scams), as opposed someone local to them who wanted to buy their car. So instead, I started focusing on Mini specialty shops and used car dealers with that specialized in Minis. In other words, I wanted to find businesses that I could research and evaluate. The downside to sourcing a Mini from the UK is rust – it’s not exactly a dry climate and Minis are not immune from the tin worm. Recognizing that nearly any Mini from the UK would have some rust issues, the important thing is ensuring the rust could be dealt with the proper way (i.e. cutting it out and welding in new metal). I specifically wanted a shop that could handle the whole thing. By that I mean bodywork, mechanical, paint and interior, etc. And I wanted a shop that could effectively deal with extensive rust repair. I scanned the Internet, read customer comments, sent emails, and made phone calls to narrow things down to 4 places. Then I looked at cars in inventory, flexibility to creating what I wanted, and the quality of the services they could provide. And since I was dealing with paying in a foreign currency, it would make things much easier if the shop I chose would accept credit card payment – that way I’d avoid the whole money transfer/wire hassles. I am naturally cautious, but I had a lot of conversations, via email and on the phone, and I then I decided to put my trust in one shop. As it turned out, it was a great decision.

I ended up selecting a shop called The Mini Place The Mini Place, Sunderland. Everything for your Mini needs . It’s run by a very nice guy called Jon Snowdon, and it’s been in business over 35 years. If you look around their website you’ll see they have extensive experience in restoring Minis – there are tons of detail photos of hundreds of cars they’ve worked on there. They know how to work on Minis inside and out, and the results of their work look great. My car started as a special edition Mini of the 1980s called the Jet Black and it had about 56K miles, and had 2 owners in its life before I bought it. The second owner acquired it as a present when she was 18 back in 2006, but she never drove the car. It sat in a garage under an oriental rug for the last 8 years, only putting on about 90 miles since she got it. Yes, yes, I know this sounds way too good to be true. But I looked back at the history of the shop’s Facebook page back 6 months before I acquired the car and I could see the photographic story of where the car was pulled out of the garage, complete with the rug over it.

I made a deal with Jon to buy the car and then for The Mini Place to tear it down and rebuilt it to my specification. That’s not to say I had an unlimited budget, because I sure didn’t. And I’ve got to admit my budget did expand a bit as the project went on – mostly for sensible upgrades. In the end, I got just the car I wanted. And I spent less than I would have paid in the US for a comparable Mini. And I’m figuring in shipping too in that equation.

The completely black car was stripped down to bare metal, and new panels were welded in where needed (just a door skin and an A-panel). Then it was painted Pepper White color as used on modern MINIs (I wanted a paint color that could be touched up easily down the road) with a black roof, a popular color combination for early Cooper models. A 1275 carb engine was fitted, along with a used interior from a mid-90s Cooper (nicer seats). I picked the wheelarches I wanted and the black wheels with the polished rims too. The very nice thing about the UK is the much cheaper prices for new Mini parts, so sensible selections were made to update the car with many new parts as it was reassembled. Start to finish was about 6 months, and some of that time was waiting for various parts to arrive. All along the way, I was kept up to date with emails and photos. and I talked with Jon on the phone too to discuss next steps. Even though I’ve owned classic Minis for 40 years, Jon has more experience with Minis than I do, so I followed his advice on various items along the way. I sincerely recommend Jon and his shop if you are thinking of getting a Mini. And by the way, you don’t have to follow the complete tear-down and rebuild path I took; I’m sure they can get you a Mini with a lot less involved if you want one.

The entire shipping process, from the car being picked from The Mini Place, to the port of Southampton, to being loaded on a ro-ro car carrier, to arriving in the port of Galveston, to a truck delivering it right to my driveway, took about 6 weeks. It was about a week or so on the docks in the UK, then about 3 weeks on the water, and about 2 weeks after it got to Galveston before it came to my home.

 

Look for a bad ground connection, either on the fenderwell near the headlight or the main ground straps, between the body and engine or the battery and the body - but that's what's wrong.

You've got BB pretty spiffed up these days, don't just leave him in the garage to rot, get him out weekly and drive him!

 

I love the color of yours.

 

I was thinking the same thing. What color is that?

Jim

 

Very nice classic, where did you get the John Cooper signature sticker?:cornut: