The Dark Side.

[demag]

Yes my badge slipped ever so slightly yesterday. The son in law and grandson coaxed me off to Santa Pod for MiniFest! I must admit it was an enjoyable day and the weather was lovely. The whole Mini thing with all the tweaks and mods and special paint is alive and kicking both with the original cars and the later BMW ones. There were some really special cars there and ones for sale were fetching phenomenal money. How about 9 grand for an original Mini?
A great day out and a suntan as well.

[demag]

[Hell Razor5543]

Pink Floyd it ain't, but fun looks like wot it has!

[demag]

Yeah wot he sed.

[Stickyfinger]

Get thee to thy naught step

[CitroJim]

Dave, Santa Pod is only about 15 miles away from me and do you know, I've never been there... Shocking I know, especially as when I lived in East Northants I used to pass it twice every day on my journey to work...

I'm loving the Minis The proper ones that is... Yesterday was a perfect day for it...

James, love your reference to one of my all-time favourite albums

[Hell Razor5543]

I am glad I chose the right option for my first post in this thread. I could have begun it "Darth Vader it ain't...".

[NewcastleFalcon]

This yellow mini convertible was unsold at the Anglia Car Auctions Classic Cars sale at Kings Lynn which I went to back in June. It's up again at the August sale with a reduced estimate.

http://www.angliacarauctions.co.uk/en/c ... nvertible/

Its a Keith's Convertibles Conversion.....discussion here on miniforum with links

http://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/to ... ible-mini/

Regards Neil

[demag]

The first picture above, which somehow got duplicated is the new electric Countryman. If you look carefully at the white Mini with the bonnet open you will see it has a Lotus twin cam engine tucked in there! In fact there were quite a few there. We also saw a Nissan tc tucked into one and one brilliant one that shocked me so much I forgot to take a picture. It had an original 1275 lump which may have been bored out, I can't recall but it had been converted to twin cams using the head from a BMW K3 (or maybe K4) motorbike. It was simply stunning, as were so many of the others.

There was a white original Mini, possibly the one in the pic that was blowing everything into the weeds on the dragstrip, including the later BMW ones with chipped ecus. It was going through the timing lights at 115mph! And yet you would have not given it a second glance on the road apart from maybe to comment how nice it was.

[xantia_v6]

I remember reading in the 70s about a mini that was converted to a Fiat 124 (twin cam 1600cc?) engine and rear wheel drive, but kept absolutely stock to look at, even original wheels and hubcaps. It was apparently a bit of a blast to drive.

My brothers first car was a 1962 mini pickup which the previous owner had spent copious amoounts of money on, having the engine blueprinted balanced and tuned to something like Cooper spec. He had it over 100 MPH, and later, when he added a tachometer, realised that the engine was doing 1000 RPM for every 10 MPH....

A mechanic who worked at the local Dominion Motors BMC agency (and I think owner of a genuine Cooper) would not believe that a BMC engine could reach those revs without self destruction, so test drove the car with his own tachometer fitted to prove the point, and yes, it would rev to about 12,000 RPM. A longer ratio diff from an 1100 was fitted shortly thereafter.

[CitroJim]

My brothers first car was a 1962 mini pickup which the previous owner had spent copious amoounts of money on, having the engine blueprinted balanced and tuned to something like Cooper spec. He had it over 100 MPH, and later, when he added a tachometer, realised that the engine was doing 1000 RPM for every 10 MPH....

12,000 from out of an A-Series is pretty incredible Mike! I guess it was an 848cc engine and that, being fairly short-stroke by A-series standards could be made to rev well with a suitable crank...

Valve bounce became a problem at high revs too..

The best engine for high speed was the original (and rare) Cooper S 970cc engine. It was over-square and just thrived on revs...

David Vizard's masterwork 'Tuning the BL A-Series Engine' is still worth a read for anyone interested in how massive revs and powers could be extracted from what is fundamentally a totally unsuitable engine for performance tuning on many counts!

[Zelandeth]

Nothing wrong with a Mini, though I admit to being utterly underwhelmed by the experience when I drove a modern one. Only thing which really puts me off the originals is the absolutely daft prices they go for.

Oddly though, a classic Mini is one car I've never actually driven! ... probably due to the cost issues noted above.

Can't see me ever having one...could get myself a tidy MGB in a decent colour and get all the inevitable niggles sorted and still have change for what a real project of a Mini would cost.

[van ordinaire]

Nothing wrong with a Mini - that a can of petrol & a match wouldn't cure! Why there are any left is a complete mystery to me. I drove several & they were, each in their own way, equally hateful.

As a design exercise it was brilliant - but that's as far as it went, or should've gone but, unfortunately, some fool didn't realise it was a joke & put it into production. The only car, at the time, I (eventually) refused to work on!

[CitroJim]

Nothing wrong with a Mini - that a can of petrol & a match wouldn't cure! Why there are any left is a complete mystery to me. I drove several & they were, each in their own way, equally hateful.

That's harsh Van! I love the original Mini - perhaps because it was my very first car...

Mind you, having said that I feel about the Morris Minor exactly how you feel about the Mini... Hateful bloody things.. Leonard Lord hated them too and complained they looked like a 'bloody poached egg' A good description of them...

Rumour has it they were originally going to be called a Morris Mosquito...

And they are both from the pen of the same designer...

All the rest of the cars penned by Issigonis I have a love of, especially the 1100/1300 and Landcrab which I think still look god today and were stunning designs in their day...

It was just a crying shame how badly they rusted...

[van ordinaire]

The Mosquito was the flat 4 prototype/forerunner.

Now I actually quite like Minors (except the brake master cylinder) they were fun at the time & have a certain charm now - although the MO Oxford was probably better proportioned.

The 1100 was the original 4 wheeled Tardis, the amount of room inside was just amazing - & huge, comfy seats! I was completely sold when the garage I had holday job at took one off the forecourt as a parts chaser - after the service van failed its MoT! There was a private, unmade, road I used as a shortcut, the 1100 was much better than the LR 109 breakdown wagon down there!.