28 replies to this topic

[tomb1992]

unless your buying road worthy minis and selling them for a bit more i highly doubt it. mini parts are cheap to buy compared to most cars but you still need a hell off a lot of them to to finish a mini. wouldn't surprise me if nobody makes money on their mini projects the amount of parts and labor hours minis needs and that's the main part Work hours! the time you spend wont be worth the extra penny's know matter how much you enjoy it.

its a very nice thought be lots of enthusiasts wishing about doing the same

[Badboytunes]

I bought one , got a good deal, washed it, flipped it 2 weeks later for a nice £400 profit. Didnt do anything to it

[Archived2]

to be honest its just a hobby for most of us and if our wives ever found out what we really spent then we would all be in the dog house lol

There are a few small businesses that manage to turn a profit from minis but they do this on small margins and get paid hr rates in line with other repair garages. To start a small business now and stock with the tools needed etc or run one from home will prob make a good loss for some substantial time.

The amount of minis in circulation is still dropping at an alarming rate, most businesses that specialise in minis are doing other things to get by now.
No get rich scheme with minis for some time.

Most (prob all) of my minis have costs me a loss in one way or another.

Edited by minihobbymini, 19 February 2013 - 08:17 PM.

[Cooperman]

The problem with Minis is that a lot of owners and prospective owners want everything 'on the cheap'. When I retired a fw years ago I did build a few engines, but I got fed up with being asked 'how cheaply can you build me an engine?", so I used to answer "I can't build an engine cheaply"!
If you buy a rusty and smoky Mini bought for, say, £1000, allow £1500 with labour for doing the engine inc. parts, then £400 for new panels plus 40 hours bodywork/welding. The add the cost of painting - around £1500 for a full re-paint unless you can do it yourself in which case around 25 hours plus paint.
Now add any other new parts like dampers, suspension bushes, brake re-build, pads, linings, interior work and new brightwork.
That makes a cost to the buyer/restorer of up to £6000. After that you might be lucky to get that as a fully restored car = no profit.
Better to do rtestoration for existing owners at pre-quoted prices with written estimates so that when you find rthe simple wing change also requires a new front panel, inner wing, A-panel, etc, you will be able to charge for this work.
Easy it ain't!

[mk3 Cooper S]

<sub>Buying them at the right price these days is the problem.

Easier money in breaking them - but there is a lot of people doing that at the moment too.</sub>

[Cooperman]

I bought a 1966 Mini 850 a few years ago for £1000. It obviously needed a lot of restoration and so Grandson & I stripped the car right down and first of all we did the bodyshell. The panels were £400 (Heritage ones) and it was then rust-free and in primer. That took 40 man-hours of work.
When we worked out how much to complete it it came out at c.£2000 in parts, plus painting by a local bodyshop (£1500) and hundreds of hours work.
We reckoned that a fully restored 850 in 'almost concours' condition would fetch about £6500 (that might be £9500 now).
So we sold the shell, the V5 & some parts but not the engine or front sub-frame, for £2900.

[ToM 2012]

i think the only way to make money what must never be done!! is to do quick repair jobs on them bang a dodgy mot on it make it look the part job done = wheeler dealers.

[Shifty]

<sub>Buying them at the right price these days is the problem.

Easier money in breaking them - but there is a lot of people doing that at the moment too.</sub>

Yup, the MPi I've got at the moment will be worth £2k when i've got it back on the road, I paid £900 for it, will have spent £600 on it so I'll have 'made' money. If i'd broken it I could have made about £2k and not spent a penny.

[robminibcy]

if you can make money restoring classic cars, your not doing them properly!

[Artful Dodger]

if you can make money restoring classic cars, your not doing them properly!

HE SPEAKETH THE TRUITH

unless its worth stupid money, like a mk1 S. you have to be crazy mad to spend 25k restoring a mini..

[racingbob]

only way realy is to keep eye out for a bargain and sell on make £500

always a lot more wrong with them than appears

[olds_kool_lews]

Me and a mate have been in business restoring minis and classic cars now just under a year, most work is customer related, so that brings the big profit in, but we also have 3 of our own cars that we are restoring bit at a time, using as little of the company profit as we can, as majority of it has paid for tools, a spray booth, a sand blaster, a snap-on welder etc etc there is money to be made restoring minis, its mainly customer based though (with some on the side from our own cars that we'll sell when there done) plus, if you can get a good rep and client base, you'll be flooded with work, i have some minis from on here and from facebook that were restoring (2 shells, and a full on bare metal rebuild) u just needs careful planning and staff who know what there doing :)

[iMurray]

i'll let you know if i manage it;)

[ChrisCityE]

Ultimately it comes down the amount of hours you put into it.

Bought and built my first Mini for £999 and sold it 4 years later for £2500 - hundreds of hours of work for a total of £1500 profit, probably worked out as the equivalent of work at around £3 an hour?

Bought and built my Estate for £450, sold it a year later for £900 - easy profit as I only did a floorpan on it.

My Dad did a full metal rebuild of a Mini 2 years ago purely to sell and it was probably equal to working for 50p an hour in the end because of the amount of labour involved - not parts.


You can't make money if you have to spend hundreds of hours on something, you're better off stacking shelves in Tesco.