So Im a long time lurker 
thought id finally get around to posting as Ill deffinitly need some help soon
WARNING long post
So Ive been interested in minis from day one the only car I ever wanted to own and it took some battling to finally get the parents on board when i did my test so been into the mini scene for going on 12 years now.
I got my first mini just before my 17th a 1982 mini city and although its now just a pile of dust i still have it
The plan was to buy it and drive it as is but i suppose with all minis that didnt last long and i think it sat outside the house for about a day before the decision to make some little changes quickly turned into a full rebuild!!
How it looked when it came home
how it looked not long after!
the car was in a state or so we thought, my old man had some experience in his younger days with some old school rallying and owning a few minis etc. so felt confident enough to give it a crack, some weeks later and with the help of the internet local club and forklift mechanic up the road it was put back on the road and passed its mot first time ( after losing clutch on its way 
) it was a very steep learning curve from welding it with a stick welder to paying for it to get sprayed at a local garage for it to end up sitting there for nearly 3 months with no work done to it! in the end it was painted with rattle cans!!
how it ended looking in it first reiteration! this didnt last too long!
it quickly changed to this!
i used this as my daily drive all the way until i got my apprenticeship and then decided to swap to a new fiesta due to my long motorway drive everyday.
but the bug had bitten!
the next one to come along was quite by accident chatting to an old chap who had a small car sales garage and was mentioned that he had a mk2 morris cooper and 80s pickup sitting in the garage!
unfortunatley he wont sell the pickup as he was adamant that it would be started and finished in the next 2 year. 12 years later and its still sitting there!!
i did however get my hands on the cooper! the only draw back was it was re shelled back in the 80s and the mk2 shell sold to an irish rallying team!!
still i got the car for £1200 which was ultimately still a good i think. this was then again taken home stripped and rebuild the car itself was in relatively good condition but some garage tools were upgraded, and with having a poor experience with 'professional' painters the decision was taken to paint it our selves! the first time was in celli and a couple of years later when it looked a bit tired it was sprayed in 2k. This is house it looks now although it is tucked away down the back of the old mans garage and hasnt moved in about 3 years!
it was kept as original as possible due to the fact that it was in the wrong shell
not long after this was complete it was decided to re shell the white one as it was rusting to nothing and a slight front end bump made it un road worthy. so a quick search on ebay and this was found. it was local and guy had recently moved into a new house and found this sitting in the garage under a pile of rubbish! it was won for £400 so winner!
during the strip down the vin plate was found and commission number! so after some back and forth with some people in the know it was decided to try and apply for the log book! after some back and forth with the dvla i had a strange letter in the post from the original owner! stating that somehow i had his car and was trying to change the ownership! this didnt bode well for me and thought this was it for the car! but it turned out the fella was a real nice chap lived about 15mins away from us and after some chatting it turns out that about 10years previously his friend had taken the car to do the welding needed in exchange for work that hed done on the house! theyd had some words or something and the car ended up staying in the friends house until i bought it! he was very understanding with what i wanted to do with the car and. admitted that hed never do anything with it so agreed to sign ownership of the logbook to me there and then!
this car was to be my play thing so was done to my personal taste and is a mismatch of stylings and eras. again everything was undertaken by us and came out quite well in my opinion.
all of these cars came in quite quick succession aver a period of about 5 years they were all used very regularly if not daily and had great fun with them! then life got in the way and i moved out and with no garage they stayed in my old mans where he just kept an interest with them and fiddled about. use of them became quite rare but always would carry on going to shows with and with out them. fast forward a few years and with a failed relationship behind me a nice new shiny house with a decent sized garage and a very understanding fiance i finally got the blue car to its new home! ive been using it regularly but styles have changed along with my tastes so its already back off the road and in bits! this time ill be undertaking the work all my self! and have grand plans so hopefully will turn out well! ill start a thread in the project section if anyone is interested!
the old man was feeling a bit left out since id moved out and taken the car so hes now bought a 74 clubby estated which is coming along nicely!
hope this wasnt to long and people liked the photos
Rhid
