What made me chose a mini... The first time I ever saw minis was sometime in the early 90's. My father, brother, and I went to a classic car show at PIR in Portland Oregon, At that time I was head over heals with Ford Cobras I even have a picture somewhere from this show, me with my broken arm standing next to this Cobra. But the Cobras were not what is the most vivid memory from that show... There was this club section, it was laid where you could walk around all the cars... and they were tiny! Little trucks, jeeps, station wagons, vans, cars... And they had this engine sitting on a tire. But... wow, it was engine AND transmission... so small. You definitely didn't see these everyday here in the states. That was the jewel of that car show by far and stuck with me for many years.
Several years after that I had moved down to Oregon with my mother, I was around 15-16 at the time, I was into dirt bikes, my mother had a boyfriend at the time who was into classic american cars. We had a nearly defunct car lot in town a block away from our house, one day they took in one of those little cars as a trade in on who-knows-what, and that little car was put into their boneyard. It was in horrible shape. But when I saw it over there by the post office... I was in love immediately. I had my grandfather look at it, my mothers boyfriend look at it, everyone I asked told me without hesitation, you do not want that car you should not get it. My mothers boyfriend even went as far as telling me I needed to get an older chevy of X vintage and he knew where one was...
Not a very good outlook. Fate smiled on me though... I couldn't stop talking about this car, and my mother had an argument with her boyfriend and as punishment she let me talk to Southwestern motors about buying this car. We bickered back and forth, I had a 1990 Yamaha RT180 dirtbike that ran I was going to trade on it, they wanted another $100 along with it... My mother told them it needed to be an even trade and if they were not willing we could just leave. She ushered me along and we headed out towards the doors. As we were stepping outside the salesman hurried up and said that if the bike did indeed run they would agree to it.
I rolled the dirtbike over to their parking lot as it was without a chain, and promptly started it for them. I really disliked that bike, it was such an overweight pig. And they agreed and we signed the papers, they were going to have one of their trucks deliver the car with the Austin America 1275 manual engine which was not currently mounted in the car and various bits other bits. But being impatient me and my brother carried the all steel original metal flip front a mile home.
Then there is the story of what condition it was in.. and how mothers boyfriend said I would never get it running.. heh.
This is a collage of over 15 years of this cars life... this car was in horrible state when I first got it.
Chris