Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

Rick · Site Admin Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22840 Location: UK

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137795/Worlds-oldest-unrestored-Mini-dusty-barn-sells-40-000.html

So, you spent £40k+ on an early Mini in barn-find condition. Do you restore it to factory fresh condition? or try and preserve it as a time capsule (bearing in mind the non-original driver's door)?

RJ
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exbmc · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:01 pm Post subject: old mini

Well for me,it would have to be restored enough to make it a runner, at least. The driver's door may be not original to the car, but looks to be the right type, so not a problem. My plan, would be to make it sound mechanically, and de-rust the bodywork, followed by an original colour respray. Then use it sparingly in the summertime.

BigJohn · Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 954 Location: Wem, Shropshire

If I had spent £40k on any Mini, especially one as rough as that, the first thing i would have to do would fit a sleeping bag and gas burner, because SWMBO would have thrown me out of the house!

alapimba · Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 181

if i had spent that amount on a mini i guess i would not restore it because i was bankroupt
lol

Rick · Site Admin Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22840 Location: UK

Ellis · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 11:14 pm Post subject:

Last year, the oldest known Mini - a Austin Se7en, one of the pre production models assembled by Mr Albert Green, the Longbridge foreman to test assembly practices - was referred to in a topic on this forum.
It was found in a hedge by a then well known Jaguar concours enthusiast called David Worrow in the 1980s, registration was KEG 77. There was an article about it in either Classic Car or Classic and Sportscar in the early 1990s where the said Mr Worrow described how he scoured the country for original early Mini parts for the restoration.

There was, I recall, only one photo of it in the article as found in a hedge, dented and corroded to a wreck.
The finished car looked brand new and even had a zeroed odometer. I remember thinking then, superb though the Mini was, that it was NOT an original example and I wondered how little or how much was left of the car as built.

Very little I suspect which is perhaps why it sold for a modest sum £12500 or so in the early 2000s and it now resides in a Japanese museum.

Which is most desirable - the one which sold for £40,000 or the reconstructed one I referred to above ?
For me, without doubt the, former.

But £40,000 !?
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alan 869 · Joined: 07 Mar 2011 Posts: 388 Location: Linköping Sweden

Rick · Site Admin Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22840 Location: UK

I think older cars, with separate chassis, lend themselves to being "oily ragged" so long as the chassis is sound beneath the frilly and rust-spotted bodywork, but I'm not so sure I'd feel confident in leaving a monocoque bodyshell in this condition. To me the Mini looks a bit beyond leaving "as is". Maybe it looks better "in the metal"?

RJ
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bob2 · Joined: 06 Dec 2007 Posts: 1728 Location: Malta

I am a big mini fan but 40,000 for that is insane!!
Like Rick if I had that amount to spend on a mini I'd have gone for the rarest of the cooper Ss the 970 and would have got a show winner for that amount and most probably with some change!!

lowdrag · Joined: 10 Apr 2009 Posts: 1600 Location: Le Mans

I'll always remember when Dave Warrow produced the pre-production Mini and proved that it was older than the ??? AOK in the factory collection. They'd always been proud that it was the oldest until then!

But why on earth would someone pay that much for a wreck of a car anyway? I could understand if it was an important race car with a long history, but after all it is only the 8th Mini (and production one at that) and not like Dave's pre-production car, which on the basis of the price of the above must be worth around £80,000.

Riley Blue · Joined: 18 Jun 2008 Posts: 1751 Location: Derbyshire

Get it running, get it MoT'd, make it safe.

That's all I'd do if someone gave it to me but pay £40,000 for it? Not even if I won the lottery...

Peter_L · Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 8:54 pm Post subject:

It could be that the £40k price tag is not relevant. There are those for whom it is not even petty cash.

Taking that the world must have quite a few restored Mini's of this age, then I would leave it as it is. Not even trying to get the engine going.

After all it is only another Mini engine and the view through the windshield will be the same as from any other Mini.

A museum should be the place, where it can sit, untouched and kept free from any further deteriation.

To restore it, would result in another original "Geronimo's Axe", it has had three handles and two heads, but it is still "Geronimo's Axe"

52classic · Joined: 02 Oct 2008 Posts: 493 Location: Cardiff.

I love 'shabby chic' but that's too far gone to look anything other than a patch up job.

I agree that as a museum curiosity it could sit in doors as it is for ever but to enjoy it I would have to restore to the exact spec when it left the showroom. I would avoid over restoration so that I could keep it and use it until it started to look beautifully original.

40K though, that's obscene! You'd need to get best part of 100 for it to justify the restoration work. Still, a fool and his money etc....

Jim.Walker · Joined: 27 Dec 2008 Posts: 1229 Location: Chesterfield

Those pictures take me back.
At Easter 1960 I took delivery of the only Mini in my locality. It was a Morris (In Teal blue I believe). Registered 371 NRA.
It DID cost £497 and that was licenced and ready for the road. I still have the receipt.
I have never before or since had so much fun with a car. It could outperform almost all the popular family saloons of the time and easily out corner any contemporary sports car. I could travel to Skegness on one coast and back, or Blackpool and back on the other (from Chesterfield) on £1 of petrol!
Then I got married.
I was able to hang on to the car until a third party joined the marriage. Needing room for a carry cot and all the other tranklements associated.I changed it for a Minor Traveller
Ah well, sic crustum crumblii.
Jim.
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websnail · Joined: 26 Oct 2010 Posts: 78 Location: West Sussex

Looks like my old mini. Only mine was in far better nick.

It is the only car that I have had, that I wish I still had. Smile