I picked up this Mini today, it has only done 4700 miles from new. I dropped it off at a garage that are going to chop it about, and basically turn it into a cooper S. This is going to cost £18k Why wouldn't you buy an old heap and have that chopped about ??
You want to see what Fellows were asked to do on a mint SA Early Bay in that blue colour that suits them so well. Basically - it was all original - and ended up 'Spurs' Purple and Silver, with stupid big alloys and a new interior that looked flatpack.
Wouldn’t it have been great if they just refused to do it. Said to the customer I’m sorry but you clearly haven’t thought this through. Come back in five years and we’ll discuss it.
The genuine 1960's Austin mini cooper s with the 1275 engine fetch high prices. Even rot barn finds command high prices. One was sold on a recent car restoration tv program which fetched 18k at auction, for just the VIN plate as the car was rotted out and would be reshelled and new engine gearbox and everything else, projected eventually to be a 50k car. The later mini coopers are more available and good ones are on ebay for less than 20k restored and ready to go.
1081 was the weapon of choice in Cooper land and are worth a fair bit more than the delicate 1275. I sold some Dunlop deep dish 10inch wheels that were pretty much the same as Cooper S, just available on non coopers for £400 last year so who knows what's real cooper wheels are worth. Never see the point of taking a car with wrong numbers, hubs and brakes, engine, doors, windows, dash, carbs, fuel tanks etc etc and retro fitting as it will be worth only what those parts are.
The 970cc is rare, only produced for a couple of years so the Mk 1 Cooper S could compete in the under 1000cc class. 1071cc and 1275cc were the other capacities used in the S, all of them long strokes.
