How has reliability been? I've fallen in love with this British Racing Green car that is on EBay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MINI-67-COOPER-MANUAL-L-H-DRIVE-MINT-CONDITION-SHOWCAR_W0QQitemZ190000982988QQihZ009QQcategoryZ107007QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Where do you get the car serviced? Can it be used as a DD?
the specification of that car is very far removed from what a 1966 car should be. Even if it has been totally rebuild. I suggest that it might not be anything like as old as advertised. Check the chassis number with English Mini Cooper Club. Mark Shannon p.s. Any reasonably well looked after classic Mini makes a great DD. Just don't go too far in it.
It will be constant work from what I hear. Any old car will need lots of love all the time, it's just a fact.
My Minis have been just about the most reliable classic cars I've owned... great club and parts support, exceptionally fun to drive, and garner the most positive public attention of anything I've owned. As with any old car, they will need tinkering, but nothing is hard to do. I would use as a daily driver only if your commute is limited. These cars do NOT deal well with salt... The interesting things with Minis is that they all looked basically the same from 1959-2001 (really close 1970-2001) and bad ones are worthless in the UK... so it is possible to import newer Minis with earlier identifications. (I am making no statement or implication about the car you are looking at... just providing general info.) These are somewhat risky from a legal point of view but the real problem is that the level of sophistication in these newer cars takes the maintenance to levels above what you standard backyard mechanic is capable of... and there are really few places that can work on them because they were never sold here. Parts can also be an issue. I frankly don't like the later cars for a number of reasons (soft-mounted subframes, big wheels and tires, cramped interiors, very rust-prone, flakey fuel injection systems) but they do bring big bucks. I would expect this British Open (special edition) to bring close to $20k. About half that buys a true early 70's big bore (1275 vice 850 or 998) carbed car with 10" rims and Cooper S brakes... which is what I currently drive. Fell free to contact me offline for more detail... or go to minimania.com and look around the forum... MME (Mini Meet East) is in Frederick, MD this weekend (Thursday-Saturday) and I suspect this particular car may well attend... Bill
In 1968, while working as a stocker at a grocery store, paying off my first wreck, a fellow worker had a mini. He would put it in reverse and do little 1" wheelies. Cornered like a go-cart. Have always loved those cars.
Thanks all for the words, What concerns me about your posts is that the cars do not do well with salt. I live in S.E. Pennsylvania, where we have salt on the roads for a good amount of the year. (Similar to Maryland) I would be O.K. with taking public transportation some of the time in the worst of snow season, but not being able to drive the car from late November or December to March or April would really turn me away from buying one. My commute is about half an hour or so each way, all on decent-condition backroads.