Path: utzoo!utgpu!alliant.com!UUCP Reply-To: british-cars@alliant.com Errors-To: british-cars-request@alliant.com Sender: british-cars-request@alliant.com Return-Path: Date: Fri, 23 Feb 90 17:55:12 EST From: sfisher@abingdon.wpd.sgi.com (Scott Fisher) Message-ID: <9002232255.AA07464@abingdon.wpd.sgi.com> To: british-cars@alliant.com Subject: Re: Minis Newsgroups: list.british-cars Distribution: ut Approved: devnull@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu So, what can anyone tell me about Minis? Quite a bit... Alternately, can anyone recommend any good books on Minis? Lindsay Porter's Guide To Purchas & DIY Restoration is a good place to start, as is the Practical Classics Mini Restoration book (can't remember the exact title, but PC is a British mag that rebuilds wretched heaps of iron oxide into show cars and publishes stories to pay the cost.) These are both excellent sources of information on the Mini. There's a Mini 850 (1960-1963, the owner's not sure) with an 1100 engine and a Cooper head for sale here, Sounds like the 12G295 head and 1098cc block out of an MG 1100. A common retrofit into one of the small-bore Minis (my Traveler had just such a combination). The 295 head is the best-flowing head of the small-bore engines (1100cc and lower). Check under the valve cover for a casting number. and I and a friend are more than vaguely interested in its value as an SCCA racer. The car's been modified enough by past owners that I wouldn't mind hacking it further. I haven't seen the car yet, so I have no details, and the owner was less than knowledgeable, but it sparked my already budding interest in Minis (I have a warm place in my heart for both tiny cars and A-series engines). Good choice! Minis are great cars in GT5, where the SCCA has them classed right now; the class records at both Sears Point and Laguna Seca are held by a Mini. They require only a tiny amount of re-engineering (mainly additional chassis stiffness and disc brakes, which were used on the Cooper S cars and are therefore available fairly easily), and they are very much an understood quantity in the racing world. The A Series engine is also a good base for a racing car, as it has been hacked a bit over the last 30 years. Prices vary, but nun-rusted, running Minis seem to be selling for about $2500 in only moderately ratty condition. They can sell for as much as $10,000 in impeccable condition, or if it is a historically important car for more than that, but $5000 plus or minus a grand or so seems to be the average price for most Minis in very good condition.