Hello one and all!
Welcome to what appears to be yet another Mini project - as i'm not one to buck-a-trend, this is a project which started initially as a "couple of quick mods" and "sorting some minor rust issues" and has somehow turned into a full blown strip-down and rebuild. The current plan is to create something which is hopefully a little bit different! Nonetheless, on with the back-story.
The Mini in question is a 1991 998cc Mini Neon was purchased back in early 2012 for £1,800.00 with 40,000 miles on the clock, its intended use being as a daily driver for newly qualified 17 year old's first car (that 17 year old being me!). The car was in very good nick, with no rust being present in the usual places you would expect and being pretty standard bar the aftermarket Sportspack arches and 13 inch wheels. It was duly run around through College and University with about 15,000 miles being put on the clock. The picture below shows it in all its original glory a few days after it was purchased.
Through College the typical mods were made; a Stage 1 kit was added for the enviable extra power and of course the "Fuel Economy" (inevitably neither of which was all that noticeable once installed and tuned appropriately)!; a new interior with Black and White Cobra Bucket Seats with matching dash and centre console was added; and the choice to install a 7.5inch disc brake conversion with 6 x 10 inch JBW Minilight Wheels with an Offset of ET-7 was taken to gain some "retro street-cred'". In its final guise it looked something similar to the next picture; (cue the terrible artsy photo which shows literally nothing of use)
If you noticed the Group 6 Race Arches then congratulations...
After 3 years at University in Portsmouth (which coincidently seems to be quite wet and salty), the mini was looking slightly worse for wear. The decision was taken to replace the Off side door, have the near side door repaired with a bottom inner repair panel and to have some rust repairs beneath the rear windows. Following the works the mini started to take on a very tame "Rat look" which wasn't intentional and which I wasn't a fan of (I just couldn't afford a paint job!) - looking something like this;
It's the one on the left unfortunately...
And the next picture is where this (bane of my life) project all started from - only kidding, building a car from the bottom up it's great fun! What follows appears to be an act of sheer genius therefore please feel free to plagiarize it for you own minis. Some of the lovely Portsmouth inhabitants, (the culprits of which where never identified therefore I shall comment no further), who I can only conceive got this impressive idea after a few too many down the pub, decided the mini was hitting too many height restriction barriers going into car parks and it was time to try and make it smaller...
Quite a shock to find one early morning on my way to a lecture!
Nevertheless this is where this first post will end. To the keen eyed of you the Topic Title has kind of given away where this project may be going. Bar the help of a few select specialist undertaking work that is out of my remit, I have basically been working on this project singlehandedly for past year and a half so I am quite far into the build. If you've read this far then Thank you for your commitment to what is inevitably me rambling on. Hopefully it will be rewarded as the next post will start to contain some more of the juicy stuff in terms of whats happened so far, the current plan and how its going to be achieved!