A new game... Post pics from your cel phone V.1.0

[94touring]

See if a 120 degree bank and nose down recover video will upload. 

We also attempted an Air India crash recovery trying it a couple different ways and crashed every time.  Couldn't get the engines back up soon enough.

[MiniDave]

yep, that was exciting......do you feel the weight/mass in the sim like you would in the real thing?

[94touring]

Yeah it's full motion so you get all the sensations. Not necessarily G forces but everything else.

[94touring]

Driving right by minispares

[MiniDave]

Surely you're going to drop in and say hello?   

[cstudep]

I was thinking we should probably all come up with some parts lists he can "smuggle" back for us LOL

[BruceK]

I went to MiniSpares in 1992 when they were on Friern Barnet Road in far north London in a store front. In those pre-internet times, it was kind of a pilgrimage to visit it if you were visiting the UK. The only way to place an order was to phone them (very expensive at that time) or send an hand-completed order form in the postal mail. (Or fax it to them). Then a follow up call to give the credit card number a couple of weeks later.

Anyway, when a Mini nut from a country like the US or Japan stopped in they were extremely gracious and basically just let us walk behind the counter and up and down the warehouse aisles, filling our own boxes of what we wanted. It literally was like being in a candy store and getting to pick everything you wanted. When I was visiting there, there was also some Japanese Mini people and they were going crazy seeing all the things that MiniSpares had.

[BruceK]

Found another photo (not mine)

[94touring]

How long have you owned minis Bruce?  That had to be a cool experience.

[BruceK]

How long have you owned minis Bruce?  That had to be a cool experience.

I got my first Mini in 1974 when I was in high school. It was a '62 Austin Seven (with the "Seven" script on the boot lid) fitted with an Austin America 1275 engine with Cooper S discs. It was my first car and I didn't even know how to change spark plugs when I bought it for $800. Within 18 months I had pulled the engine and was rebuilding it by carefully following a trusty Haynes manual.  Since then I've always had at least one Mini, sometimes two. But I tend to hold onto them for a long while so I think I've only owned 7 Minis over the 50 years or so. 

Yeah visiting MiniSpares was great. I also visited MiniSport up in the north of England on that same trip to the UK. Completely different situation. Not welcoming at all. Grumpy people they who didn't appreciate visitors. Probably why I still don't really buy from them even now. 

[94touring]

First impressions are the most important ones for a reason!

[MiniDave]

Bruce should post the pic of him in his letterman's jacket standing next to his Mini, it's a classic!

I got my first one in 68, it was a 63 Cooper S with the tiniest disc brakes I'd ever seen, single tank, dry suspension. The only pic I have handy is one I took when I first moved to Colorado. I had rebuilt the engine and only started it for the first time the day before I drove it to Colorado! The exhaust at that time was a straight pipe with a megaphone on the end, and boy howdy was it loud! I put a supertrap in it the day after I got to Colorado, that helped but shortly after that I added a stock muffler too.....

I had bought a set of 6" wide Cosmic wheels from Mini City and the only tires I could find were 145-10 Pirellis, and to me they were just too small.....so I found some boat trailer tires that were nice and wide, only problem was the sidewalls were so stiff I was running on the very centers, so I had to let the pressures down to about 15-18psi to get them to "flatten out"   
 Silver was it's third paint job, when I got it it was red, I moved out to the lake and ran a boat service dept for a while and traded favors with a guy I met out there and he painted it white - I thought I was going to do the British flag on top but never did figure out how to do that.
 Then when I moved back to KC a few years later I again traded work with a guy who did a much better job of it. This was a 1071 S and it ran like a scalded cat! I paid $400 for it but it was been hit on the left side and the door and pop out window fit poorly. A guy gave me a shell that had been hit on the right side and I traded favors with a guy that owned a body shop to cut out the left side of the wreck and weld it into mine - it fit perfectly after that. I spent a week with paint stripper out on my driveway getting it down to bare metal, then it went to the guy and got painted silver.

That's my Honda 550 4 cyl with a big Vetter fairing and crash bar, it was fun to have up in the mountains, riding it one day was how I found out that it rains for about an hour in the mountains almost every afternoon!

[BruceK]

Well, since Dave suggested it, here's a photo of me and my Mini when I was in high school.

This Mini was produced as a Super de Luxe trim level which was a big upgrade from the plain Jane Mini 850s. The Super de Luxe trim level had all the special things later associated with Mk I Coopers like bumper overriders, aluminum wheel arch trim, chrome around the door windows, central speedo pod with oil pressure and water temp gauges, two-tone brocade upholstery, carpeted board board, key start, etc. All the goodies expect for the 997 twin carb engine and disc brakes which the first Cooper of course got.

By the time I bought it, it had changed from red to white (with go-faster stripes) and it was a full wanna be Cooper S with an AA 1275 and Cooper S discs.


I had that Mini in high school and throughout college too. Kept it for 14 years. Supposedly it still exists somewhere in Missouri.

[MiniDave]

 

I love this pic, I wish I had more pics of my first Mini and working on it.....