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Mini Cooper Fans
richardjenkins
Member Posts: 20
Hello all,
Any one on Edmunds interested in Mini Coopers?
We own a 1967 left hand driver Austin Cooper S
1275. We bought it in England in 1993 partially
restored, and have completed it over the
intervening years.
"Magnus" is correct Tartan Red with a black roof.
The engine is a later Mark III S spec unit, with
the all syncromesh 4 speed. We believe the
odometer may be correct with (1)32460 miles, but
you never know?!?
We bought the car from Geoff Pettit, who worked on
the Rover Cars engineering team, with Mr. John
Cooper, to reintroduce the Mini Cooper to the UK
market in 1990.
We live in Orlando, Fl, and have been to the
Florida Area Mini Enthusiats (FLAME) Spring Thing
1999 at Church Street Station.
I would be delighted to see if there are any other
"Mini" fans out there...
Sincerely, Richard Jenkins
Any one on Edmunds interested in Mini Coopers?
We own a 1967 left hand driver Austin Cooper S
1275. We bought it in England in 1993 partially
restored, and have completed it over the
intervening years.
"Magnus" is correct Tartan Red with a black roof.
The engine is a later Mark III S spec unit, with
the all syncromesh 4 speed. We believe the
odometer may be correct with (1)32460 miles, but
you never know?!?
We bought the car from Geoff Pettit, who worked on
the Rover Cars engineering team, with Mr. John
Cooper, to reintroduce the Mini Cooper to the UK
market in 1990.
We live in Orlando, Fl, and have been to the
Florida Area Mini Enthusiats (FLAME) Spring Thing
1999 at Church Street Station.
I would be delighted to see if there are any other
"Mini" fans out there...
Sincerely, Richard Jenkins
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Comments
Well, your host is certainly a Mini fan! There are only a few British car nuts hanging out here at the moment.
Your Mini sounds great. What a kick to drive, I bet. I hope to run across one someday that might tempt me enough to buy. Not the least of its charms is that you can stuff a rather large driver inside, thereby making the exit all the more amusing for bystanders.
But...I would sure hate to get hit in one!
Great cars, a telephone booth on wheels!
But a Mini, there's really no substitute, and it's quite cosy in the cockpit. True, they are a bit fragile, but then not many people have them as primary vehicles.
How about the Mini Cooper wagons? I saw one last summer at a British Car meet. How rare were these?
Cheers!
Richard from Winter Springs, were we are sadly reflecting on the cost of replacement trim panels for Magnus -- $185 USD for a vinyl dash rail, ack.
PS Isell - I love your stories on the Disgruntled Buyers topic - great thread, that!
No, I'm not confusing it with a Morris Minor wagon. They had a couple of those there too.
Maybe it was a custom job or something?
But (phew!), none appears to have come out in a Cooper spec as a wagon.
Well done, you are correct -- First Mini Cooper was introduced in 1961. By association with John Cooper, (Formula 1 World Champion car constructor 1959/60) BMC added a 997 cc engine, twin SU carbs, teeny front disk brakes and a few other miscellaneous bits and bobs to a Mini de Luxe and they started selling like hotcakes.
This was redesigned in 1963 with the introduction of the 998cc Cooper of 50 HP or so.
The ultimate Cooper model was the 'S' specification. The largest engine that could be produced on the boring machines was 1275cc (this on a block originally set to 850cc). This car contained many 'race/rally' ready features and was designed to do one thing - win races. The engine had a stronger crankshaft, huge sodium filled valves, special extractor manifold, larger brakes, twin petrol tanks, etc etc. This spec produced 76 HP in standard form, enough to propel the little brick to 99 MPH and a 0-60 of 10.5s. It was faster from 30-70 MPH in top gear than a 911. This car won the Monte Carlo rally in 64, 65, and 67 in what could be called 'stock' form.
About 100,000 Coopers were built from 1961-69, with approximately 50,000 of the S spec.
We actually found Magnus (1275 S) after we met Mr. Cooper at his Honda dealership in Ferring, W. Sussex in 1993. We had our Accord serviced there, and, after we indicated our interest in Mini's, he put us in touch with Geoff, who had restored Magnus.
Mind you I have only had Magnus up to about 80 MPH when we had him in England. I could never quite screw up the courage to go much faster, but it was always fun to surprise the daylights out of the company car drivers when smoking them on the Motorway with 'just' a little Mini...I kind of slowed down when I started seeing daylight through the panel gaps around the doors (!) from the vibration...
These days we just drive him for fun. My three year old gets a blast out of taking a drive on Sundays, especially when we overtake the slugs in the SUVs (ooops, is that politically correct?)
Orrabest,
Richard
PS Best Mini Book I have (and we have them all, just about) is 'Original Mini Cooper' by John Parnell, pub circa 1993.
PPS Long live Mr. Bridger!
This guy who was kind of a wannabee, dorky type had what he thought was a pretty hot V.W. bug. He had spent tons of money on a big bore kit, special exhaust etc. for a VW, it was actully pretty fast out of the hole.
Well, one night some stranger with a green Mini Cooper " S" model showed up. At the time, few of us had seen one, and the guy with the VW was quick to challenge him to a race. he had to prod the guy several times, insult the Mini etc before the guy took the bait.
Well, much to the amusement of all of us, the Cooper made the VW look like a Cushman Motor Scooter!
Never saw the guy again but all of us were left with a healthy respect for the stranger with that wierd looking telephone booth on wheels!