The history of the car is fairly straight forward and easily traced. A 998 cc Mini Mayfair, in black with originally a blue interior, first registered in March 1983, with 3 previous owners, including myself, my mate and her first Lady owner. The first owner looked after the car really well, the car was regularly serviced, only covering forty thousand odd miles, before being sold to a friend of mine in January 2000. He owned the car for two years, but only drove NWS for a year, put a further thirty thousand miles on the clock, and took what was a mint condition mini and ran it into the ground, the car was finally left to sit in a garden when the MOT ran out.
A year later with my then current Mini a 1986 Piccadilly was on its last legs, I was offered the car for nothing, just to get it out of the garden it had sat in for the previous year. The idea was to use it as parts to keep my other mini on the road.
I picked the car up in the dark, not even giving it a quick look over, just tied it to the back of the works Transit and pulled it to my parents drive and left, to take my mate for a pint to say thanks! Needless to say, the following morning with a hangover she did not look good, faded paint, holes in the floor, inner and outer sills rusted through, a hole in the boot floor, the clutch had seized and it would not start (Not that different to its current state).
In the end it worked out that the Piccadilly was in a poorer condition than I had realised, a quote for the repairs to the bodywork ran into a couple of thousand pounds, money at the time I just could not afford. So there I was broke and stuck with two cars that would not pass an MOT. Thankfully it was decided that NWS could be saved. My Dad coming to the rescue and offering to repair the rusting floor, the sills and to patch the hole in the boot floor, a much easier proposition than replacing the complete front end of the other.
From picking the car up in the November of 2002, to finally passing an MOT took just over a year and approximately £800.00. The car had a few modifications, namely a brake upgrade from front twin leading shoe drums, to a 7.5” disc set up, spacered rear drums and an adjustable brake bias valve, with parts sourced from the younger mini.
Over the following three and a half years further modifications evolved, a stage 1 kit, leather seats, a stereo install with CD changer, amp and 6x9 speakers, a new carpet and door panels, a planned new adjustable suspension set up including adjustable bottom arms, rear camber and tracking brackets and adjustable ride height suspension (Hi lo’s), that was put off until I could afford a full rebuild/restoration.
Having decided upon rebuilding at some point the idea was to keep the car on the road as long as possible, but the best laid plans and all that. The car failed its last MOT in April of 2008, with a rusted sill, rust in the floor within the prescribed distance from the rear sub-frame mounts, and a seized radius arm. All of which was repaired, the welding again done by my Dad.
But as described previously, the clutch went, tyres were worn and replacements difficult to source and wheel alignment impossible as all the machines in Bristol could no longer be used on the little 10 inch wheels. So slightly earlier than anticipated the Mini is off the road and the rebuild set in motion.
The car now sits on my parents drive once again, soon to have its own space next to the green house, waiting for the strip down to begin.
The pictures show the car when I firts got it, the Gold Car was the '86 Piccadilly (so wish I had stripped more from it and sold the parts off on e-bay), and the other picture is NWS back in 2002 just after its MOT.
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