Did a little intro as I joined the forum so have tweaked a bit more for here. I joined this forum after finding the site whilst hunting the internet for information and pictures etc. The reason I joined up is because I was/still am restoring my Grandfathers Mk1 Mini and this forum seemed to provide the best platform for picking some knowledgeable peoples brains whilst going through the project but more about that later...
I’m not a diehard Mini fan like most on here; I am however, a diehard car enthusiast who likes all types of vehicles. Even before I could drive I have been obsessed with cars and once I could drive the passion has only increased. Throughout my years I have attended more car shows, events, meetings than I care to remember and that’s still the case even today. The cars have changed along the way but I still love wandering around and seeing and speaking to fellow petrolheads. I’m 35, living in Surrey and my current cars include an E46 M3 as my daily hack and my fully restored Lotus Carlton which I carried out all the work to a few years back.
M3
LC
And more info on the LC via an article I did for the PistonHeads website - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topi ... ton&nmt=RE: PH Carpool: Vauxhall Lotus Carlton
So onto the Mini, well being around them is not all new to me, my father owned a ’61 at the time I was born which he owned for many years as I grew and my Grandfather also had Mini’s as he owned a brand new speedwell blue ’59 and then traded it for a new surf blue ’63. It’s the surf blue car that he owned continually throughout his life and it’s the one I remember seeing over the years as I grew older. This car was laid up in his later years when he could no longer drive and he passed away 10 years ago now with the car during this time still laid in storage. It was November 2010 that myself and my father decided that we should pull the car out of storage and restore to pretty much as-new condition so that it can be enjoyed and driven again with the justification to ourselves that as it was a Mk1 it was worth putting in the time and expense that’s required (not that its going to up for sale due to the family connections).
Mini (with my father back in the day)
The car in question is a 1963 Austin Mini Mk1 Super Deluxe in Surf Blue and will be restored by myself and my father to hopefully as it was when new, with no tuning or alternative mods being added. If you want to see the build thread I have on this forum it can be seen in the link below.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1224
Updates have been slow lately as the car is currently having its new paint applied but new pics will be added very soon
and hopefully this year I’ll be able to attend shows and meets in the little blue machine, although quite how I’ll cope with 35bhp on tap will be interesting. 
So apologies for the rambling but that’s me, so if you see me asking questions on the forum you’ll now know why but i'm glad I joined so will be staying on here going forward.
Cheers
David