Hi Everyone, I've been a mini owner off and on since 1998. I started off with a Rio which I kept for two years. I was fortunate enough to get a Cooper Sport in Solar Red/Silver in 2000 which I kept for 3 years. After 5 years of mini daily driving and being 6'3 I moved away to larger cars.
I came back to the fold in 2006 when I bought an Italian Job in red which was pretty much unmolested. He's called Trevor, named after the previous owners father in law. I'm pleased to say that almost 10 years on I still own trevor. Sadly I can't say that it's in the same condition as it was when I bought it.
I last drove Trevor back in 2010 
I have no reason for not using other than I just parked him up, he's always been a second car so I've always had something else to use. He sat on the drive from 2010 until we sorted the garage out enough to get him inside and he's sat there since.
I had a bit of an epiphany at the weekend whilst I was looking at him after washing my other car. I poked a bit of the rust and quite a decent sized hole appeared in an A panel. Its time to sort him out and get him on the road again!
The last time he was properly used was to do the 50th anniversary L2B run and for that he needed a new rear sub frame which I had put on, other than that he was running really well so mechanically getting him up and running again shouldn't take much. I will do this myself.
Bodywork is another story but on the bright side it's all at the front end. From a quick poke around it needs new front panel, bonnet, wings a panels, passenger door step and scuttle. I'm having a look around for somewhere local to get the bodywork done as I'm likely to make a mess of it and I want a proper job doing. I'll get a full respray done too.
Plans are too keep it pretty much as it is, there will be no crazy modifications. At the moment the only deviations from factory original are
- RC40 Cat back exhaust
- Hilo's with gaz adjustables
- Cobra clubman seats (tempted to put the original seats back with seat extenders)
- Mountney 12 inch wheel (so that I can get into third gear without having to put the gear leaver behind my knee!)
- A modern head unit, shelf mounted speakers and amp.
- Chrome Cooper grill
- Yoko A048 tyres.
It's likely to take me a few months to get back on the road but I'm hoping make Trevor look like he used to
