11 replies to this topic

[biggav]

went to 34a Victoria Street, Staple Hill, Bristol today which is the address given on their website www.minis.co.uk and it is a house... looked on multimap and there appears to be a huge workshop behind and a large car park but there were no signs for it or anything when we went and the phone number on the web site is dead. any info?

[Wessie28]

wasnt there an article in miniworld about the owner selling up ? must of been a couple of years ago though

[Dan]

It's been at least 4 years since they shut down their industrial scale car ringing business. A mate of mine nearly bought a Pickup from them once, on the test drive he found the rare and irreplaceable rear side stiffener panels and parts of the rear bulkhead on the car he was testing had been skillfully crafted from cereal packets and body filler. Maybe that was a one off and I do know they had many satisfied customers over the years and their website was always good to peruse and dream of how many Minis I could fit in the garage. They did ship an awful lot of Mk1s to America fitted with headlamp levelers, MPi engines, airbags and rear innertia belts however and their shutdown happened roughly when the DVLA tightened the rules about rebuilt and radically altered cars.

In short, they are closed!

[stickycreambun]

They were great....con artists. I had the misfortune of being ripped off by them several times, the last I knew of them was when they charged my mate £650 to put his mayfair through an mot. claimed it needed engine-out welding, which when we stripped the car 6 months later had clearly never been done. scumbags. saying that, just around the corner from me is a really nice mini 'MBM Special' written down the wings.

[miniT]

We had a member in our club called Mel an american staying at St Mawgan, she had her mini called Felix tarted up by MBM did a great job but no doubt cost a fortune, they also put whacking great MBM logos on the bootlid and down the side of the car, looked awful and they didn't even ask if it was ok!!

Edited by miniT, 10 February 2008 - 08:55 PM.

[stickycreambun]

yup I remember that one too, a big logo stuck on the boot!

[Shifty]

I have seen them advertising on fleabay.

From memory(so don't shoot me if i'm wrong?)

The guy said he sold the site for development, he is still operating just from a different address, his ebay ID was the same(can't remember what it was)

I assume he is still doing the same thing but from smaller premises as he was selling a mini shell and a reshelled mini 30.

Seamus

edit

check out ebay item as its from MBM!!!

270209069910

Edited by shiftyseamus, 10 February 2008 - 09:20 PM.

[stickycreambun]

yeah I remember they trade as snoker or someone I think. Well I would not touch them again, ever, and to be honest I would never even consider slating a company off on a forum but after the incident with my mates mot I have no problems doing it whatsoever.

[biggav]

Graham Packer is the man behind it all. I dealt with him a few times when i worked for Rover in 1997/8/9 as people were trying to get Automatics, cabriolets etc and he seemed to be able to find them from nowhere.. after putting a lot of business his way (not what rover wanted me to do) he tried to get a mini only franchise similar to John Cooper but they wouldn't have it.. i kind of lost touch with him when i changed Jobs but Minwah had trouble with him on a couple of cases... and went on to buy a car from him which was an SPI which they added a sportspack to for him.

Seems strange that the Web site still apears functional even though it's no longer there.

[bert998]

i live about 30 sec from there. I have no further comment to make on mbm and the quality of their sales

Edited by bert998, 11 February 2008 - 12:44 AM.

[minicooper1.3i]

Well..MBM stuffed me big time when my SPi Cooper blew the fuel pump relay. Was living in Bristol with my girlfriend at the time, and had no time or space to find the fault myself, so had the AA tow it to MBM. They charged me over £300, had the car for a week, and still had to get an Auto Electrician in to find the fault. Despite my telling them there was a fault on the fuel circuit because the pump wasn't whining in the boot anymore.

Anyhow, when I finally picked the car up, it wouldn't excellerate past 2000rpm without getting serious kangaroo juice. It took ages to discover that some tw*t had managed to bend the stepper motor assembly on the inlet manifold. God knows how they managed, unless they took it off and dropped it. And that cost me another £150 to fix.

Glad they've shut down, because they were bodge jobbing to**ers! (and breathe!)


There was however, another Mini place in Bristol, down on the Gloucster Road somewhere near the sommerfiled, I think. They were a really small outfit, but really helpful and useful. But that was about 5 years ago now.

[stickycreambun]

yeah the 2 guys down Gloucester road were legends! total opposite of MBM... really good helpful guys, shame they went. overnight too.