Original mini q's

So for all you original mini owners.

My wife wants to pick one up while we're in the EU before we inevitably go back to the states.

I've got a couple questions as far as ownership goes. As far as maintenance goes, what things should I look for that are common on old minis? For getting parts in the US is it difficult? Anything difficult to find that I should hoard and come back with?

I bought my Mini in 2007 or so and still have it.

Rust. Find one without rust.

Parts are not difficult to get - there are several places in the US and it is also easy to order parts from the UK. You will not find much at your FLAPS.

Personally, I'm not sure bring one over as there are plenty already here. I would also not consider any of the later fuel injected ones (MPI or SPI) since there seems to be a lot less expertise and parts available in the states to keep those running, so I'd go with a carb.

If you find a car that says it is a 1973 car, but has air conditioning and airbags, it is not what it seems. Mini Mania used to have a decent guide on their site to help identify a Mini and I assume they still do.

Mk1 cars are getting harder to find over here and there is a premium on them. I'd assume the situation is similar overseas due to age and lower build numbers.

As TJ alluded to, make sure the paperwork is correct and proper. You don't want to buy a re-VIN car and then have trouble with Customs. I understand they are not ignorant of Minis and will make your life miserable if you try to put one over on them - up to and including crushing the car.

Where do you live? It may be easier and possibly cheaper overall to have a broker do the actual import work, even if you find and buy the car yourself.

Cars with A/C are usually JDM cars as for some reason the Japanese often wanted A/C in their Minis. Coincidentally, I have a JDM A/C kit that I was planning to put into my car.

I had a '64 MkI and parts are generally not hard to source. I bought most bits through Heritage Garage in SoCal, who coincidentally helped with the CMS project Cooper S.

Owning a Mini was a lot of fun, and I'll probably have one again at some point. Mine was totaled in a wreck and I sold the remains to someone better equipped to repair it. With that in mine - bear in mind a Mini has rather horrific crash protection. I rear-ended a '76 rubber bumper Midget at maybe 15 mph. They drove away with damage that was hard to notice. The Mini was totaled and had to be towed. My particular car had been modified by the previous owner. It went like stink, but the side effect was it was loud as hell. I wore ear plugs if extended hwy driving was in the plan - otherwise I'd arrive at my destination with ringing ears. My '79 Spitfire feels like a luxury car compared to the Mini.

TJ: so find one thats a pre '70s? or should i go on over to mini mania?

I'm ok with surface rust but if it goes beyond that its a no deal for me. The wife wants something cool since she drove the el camino back home, she's missing it and wants something neat from here to take back home. i've honestly got no problem with that and its something id like to give her plus have fun with myself.

Ian: for watching out on re-vin'd cars is there anything you can provide to watch for? or is it just go off of the guide and hope for the best? sorry, never something i worried about with cars back in the US.

the plan would be to resto-mod it. new interior, coilovers, wheels and enjoy.

-this is something that both of you may be able to help with, if the best deal or ones that we can swing comfortably are fuel injected cars; is it common place to do a motor swap from another manufacturer? i was thinking like a honda b or d motor just for parts avail, expertise and simplicity?

thanks for all the help

v/r

TurboFocus

Honda swaps are fairly common although it seems like there are a lot of them that are put up for sale after the swap is completed. There are several places that sell subframes and pretty much all the parts needed to do a VTEC swap. There are MPI and SPI injected cars over here. It just seems to me that the knowledge base on them is lower in the states than overseas and the EFI related parts may have to be sourced from overseas. Honda D series engines fit easier than B series, but they both are used. A 1275cc BMC A series engine can easily be made to provide plenty of scoot in one of these cars since they are so light.

I would not necessarily be scared to buy an injected car and bring it home. If worse comes to worse, you could always convert to a carb easily enough if you wanted.

Getting the nicest body shell and a model year that you can legally import back home would be my priorities. The details can be changed easily enough.

As an example,I personally, would look for a car with 7.5" disk brakes up front because I like 10" wheels and do not like the idea of drums up front. The later cars will have 12" or 13" wheels and their larger brakes will not work with 10" wheels. The 7.5" brakes are available to buy, but they are not cheap, so I would look for a car that already had them if possible, but a good body shell still would take precedence for me.

Recommend you sign up here and when you start looking at particular cars post pictures and questions there. Folks will be glad to help.

got another 500ish to pay off the rest of the CC before i start seriously looking at a mini w/ a personal loan.

priorities are the same as yours with a nice shell, she wants a left hand drive one but i don't think that's gonna happen in our price range with a 10hr trip on the way home. sorry sweetie, you may not get the dream mini butat least youre getting one..

thanks for the site

I've seen some nice Minis that came from Germany. LHD with that little extra german fog light on the rear. No idea how common they are over there. Good luck in the hunt. FWIW, RHD did not take very long at all to get used to. It makes it difficult to pass since you cannot easily see around the car in front of you and drive thrus can be interesting, although I can reach across and out the passenger window in a pinch.

oops, i meant the opposite way... like if you were driving on the left side of the road. oops

normal way is only avail in germany it seems

My main concern with an EFI car is that it would raise a big flag in customs, so you would need extra documentation to prove it is a legitimate engine swap and not a re-VIN of a newer car. No Mini's fitted with EFI would be eligible for import under the 25 year rule. Personally, I like the idea of a MPI (multi-port injected) car although I'd plan to convert it to MegaSquirt for easier tuning and diagnostics. Also, the Mighty Car Mods conversion to a R53 supercharger had me dreaming as well - to the point where I bought the old supercharger that was on my ex's '03 R53.

Honda swapped cars seem to sell for around $25K, give or take, depending on quality. If that's what you want - save up and buy one that's already done since they invariable cost more to build than the finished value.

LHD cars tend to command higher prices because of being easier to drive in the US plus they are simply more rare. Most Mini production was for the UK market, so most are RHD. A agree RHD is pretty quick to get used to, but it can also be a PITA in modern traffic.

Sadly, at this point I'm a bit sour on buying another Mini and I lean more towards buying a '06 R53 JCW. About the same money and more usable on US roads. Granted, my Mini left me recently so perhaps time will heal that wound. But I have a lot more experience wrenching on the R53, so I actually find those easier to work on than my experience with my Mini. For example, I wouldn't think twice about swapping a steering rack in a new MINI - I've done it a number of times. It's easy. I tried to do the same task on my Mini and ended up paying a specialist LBC shop to do it. I could not for the life of me get that sub-frame to lower...

The EFI on the Minis isn't particularly good anyway, it was really a band aid to somehow make it pass emissions (that were very lenient for small displacement cars at that point in time anyway, thanks to a bunch of lobbying from French car manufacturers). I'd really skip one of those even if it were legal to import.

The big killer on Minis is rust, which is a concern especially in Britain as they like throwing salt on the roads there. Even the last models had sub-par rust protection.

Regarding parts, while this is not specific to Minis I still buy parts from companies in the UK that I used to business with when I lived there. The process is usually hassle free and I've had better and faster service than I've had from specialists catering to the same clientele 200 miles away from here. I'd definitely not worry about getting parts from the UK.

Re LHD vs RHD - I've got experience with both and while it takes a little getting used to, I wouldn't be too worried about it, especially not with a car as small as a Mini.

Regarding re-VIN'd cars - that should not be an issue when buying a car in the EU. They take as much of a dim view of that over there than they do over here and being more familiar with the cars they tend to detect this kind of shenaningans much better. That doesn't prevent necessarily prevent you from buying a chop shop special, but those aren't that common with classic cars anymore these days.

One thing to keep in mind when buying one in the UK - for a very long time, cars from the 60s and 70s would be identified via the engine number. Not sure when they switched to chassis number, but at least one of my Minis over there still had the old paperwork and only a very faintly stamped engine number. I can't remember when they switched to the chassis number, but all the UK paperwork I've seen since the early/mid 2000s lists the chassis number.