Hello everybody

[Grant]

I’ve loved minis from before I can remember. After having one Golf Mk1 stolen and a second hi-jacked, under the auspices of getting a car less prone to going walkabouts, back in 2000 at the age of 20, I bought my first mini, a beautiful, slightly modified Mk1.

 

My unlucky car streak was set to continue. Four months after getting it, the lethal combination of a slightly spiced up engine, locking-prone drum brakes all round (recently “repaired”) and boy racer antics saw me rolling my beloved mini down Sandton drive ending with me hanging upside down in my seat, facing up the road I had just driven down. Luckily (paying homage to the tough old steel that my mini was made out of) I climbed out of the car with a slight case of whiplash and a bruise on my leg. Naively I ended up selling my somewhat squashed mini for “scrap” for R200 less than it cost to flatbed the wreck away from the site of the crash.

 

With ebbing and flowing levels of enthusiasm I kept my eyes open for a second mini, this time more as a project than my daily runner. Eventually in 2006 I rescued a pretty straight looking mini (although sadly sporting a purple paint coat) from a back garden in Witportjie. From what I understand she’s a pretty standard MkIII, 1098cc, first registered in 1975 – suspiciously on 01/01/1975.

 

My project was put on hold for five years, living in London for four, and spending a year driving back to South Africa in my trusty Landcruiser.

 

I’ve been back in JHB for almost 2 years now and have slowly been collecting bits and pieces to build a 1330cc fast road/ club track day mini.

 

Hopefully I’ll kick things off properly sometime before the end of this year.

 

Happy to see the forum up and running again just such a pity that all the info on the previous forum was lost.

 

I can’t seem to find any photos at the moment so will post when I get a chance to take some more – unfortunately due to space constraints my mini lives at my folks’ place.