What a great story, love it

Proper 'Mini' - proper Eriba ! - great story too .

I had a 1968 Mini when it was about ten years old, great car apart from grinding to a halt every time the rain drove in at the front.
I took that car every where, even sleeping in it one night in Scotland when I couldn't find a B & B, good job I'm only little.

I had a 1978 Mini 1275GT, it was a great car, fast with go-cart handling. I traded it in for a Lada Riva...
The 1275GT now go for serious money, if you knew how much things would be worth in the future you would never get rid of anything and be living in a constant time warp.

Here is my Mini 1275GT in Russet Brown..

Mini 1275GT.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

I had one in orange I'll post a picture when I get home

Here's a much loved example. I thought of Agger when taking this shot and thought of gifting it to him for Christmas.

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Quote: Deeps wrote in post #7

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Here's a much loved example. I thought of Agger when taking this shot and thought of gifting it to him for Christmas.

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Quote: Poptop320 wrote in post #8

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They now call that a barn find and stick another 2k on the asking price, 15 years ago it would be called wreck and charged you to take it away
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Sorry on 2 counts, I nearly forgot these and secondly for the quality they are over 40 years old and not printed on Velum (which might be a bit cryptic for you!) The more astute will notice different number plates, but it is the same car. I bought it new as a personal export and it had BFG plates adddd (which are the black and white) then before going to Northern Ireland it had them changed to the more normal UK plates hth

Quote: Agger wrote in post #10

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Sorry on 2 counts, I nearly forgot these and secondly for the quality they are over 40 years old and not printed on Velum (which might be a bit cryptic for you!) The more astute will notice different number plates, but it is the same car. I bought it new as a personal export and it had BFG plates adddd (which are the black and white) then before going to Northern Ireland it had them changed to the more normal UK plates hth

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Quote: Poptop320 wrote in post #11

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The 1275GT came with Dunlop Denovo run flat tyres which were very expensive at the time, they were also impossible to find slow punctures and the side walls were incredibly thick making for an even more uncomfortable ride. Great little car and are they are now fetching up to £15,000 when restored.....

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My first every car way back in 1966 was a 1 year old Mini Cooper that I got for a good price from a shipmate who was being posted overseas. The registration number was 9978 RF - strange the little things one remembers.

Being totally naiave as to vehicle mechanics, at that time I believed that the radiator was similar in construction to a hot water bottle i.e. just a big container. So the following year, following a freezing winters night, I thought it best to check the water and upon removing the cap, sadness gloom and doom, I found it to be frozen completely. Nothing that a screwdriver and hammer wouldn't put right of course and I then set about hammering what I believed at that time to be the upper water level only later to discover that what I at first thought to be frozen water was in fact part of the construction of the radiator.

Life goes on though and finding and filling every spare container that my future wife's parents had dotted around their home in Boston, Lincs, we set off on our journey back south to Portsmouth stopping every 10 miles or so to fill up the now boiling radiator.

Believe it or not, but I carried on repeating this exercise for the next couple of year until mid December 1969. At that time I was driving to the Naval base in Portsmouth to collect my newly issued Passport ready to be shipped out to Singapore the following week. I was approximately 1 mile from the base navigating a roundabout when the dear old girl finally gave up the ghost and seized her 998cc engine. Looking around me I noticed a big sign in the direction of 2 o'clock upon which was painted the words - 'Scrap Yard' and it was here that I ended up pushing my beloved Mini to it's final resting home. Can't remember what I got for her now but I recall being pretty pleased as she was in excellent nick apart from the seized engine which no doubt got sorted.

Upon my return from Singapore a couple of years later I ended up buying a used green Mini van which unfortunately, as a result of my accepting a bet from a bunch of drunken sailors in the rear that I couldn't execute a full accelerator left turn at a country 'T' junction after closing time, met it's demise after going straight over the junction, through a hedgerow and half way across a frozen ploughed field. We all ended up walking back to the base each carrying various parts of the van. It was at that point that I decided that booze and me didn't make for the ideal couple.

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Our son had one in his student days at Cov Poly. It was van and a pale pea green. Did him well for the many trips between there and home.

I enjoyed that Beeb documentary a few weeks back about the mini factory as is and the travels through its design and production. Nothing like the old minis of course. Typically spoiled by their presenters getting in the way.