FONDLY REMEMBERING THE KINKS
The Mini has been remastered, but the original experience is tough to beat
A £100k Remastered isn’t what most people who like Minis actually want
A£100k Mini. I mean, golly gosh and all that. I am very lucky in that I managed to buy one in 1979 and then avoid losing it or writing it off. Good luck to David Brown Automotive and its Remastered take on the icon but, really, a six-figure sum for a Mini is just daft. Anyone who pays that is soft in the head. You can get a real Cooper S for less – a proper 1960s one. They are now entering silly-money territory, but more on that later.
Now, I am always inches away from buying a Mini, although I managed to kick the habit of collecting Issigonis mobiles a few decades back. More recently, though, I have been getting involved again. Usable Minis are not a few hundred quid, of course, but they certainly don’t have to costs six figures.
First off, I was slightly involved in the purchase and sale of a Mini Designer. That’s the Mary Quant one. However, there wasn’t much Quant left in it apart from some ropey seats. It had been given the 1293cc treatment, bigger brakes and a terrible red paint job with loads of dribbles. It cost £3000 and the buyer treated it as a winter project and bought a few bits and fresh sporty seats. Cutting out some of the rot from the floor helped, then it got sold in the spring for £4000.
My involvement was nodding occasionally and lending a heap of manuals that held the answer to an electrical issue, so I think I did my bit.
Then there was an early 1990s Cooper for sale near enough to me to be tempting. Well, tempting enough to buy and resell. A local trader had it and was prepared to barter. It had an MOT but enough rust to cause concern and a soggy interior. That was a circa-£2000 car that I think I could have sold on for £3000, but at the time I had one unregistered old heap so couldn’t face having another.
Months later at a classic car show, a late-1980s Mini Sprite with a year’s MOT was being honestly proffered as a £2000 bargain. You know what? It actually was. The A series engine ran sweetly and I poked around underneath and it was surprisingly solid. Another potential flip right there online for a quick £500 profit.
If you want an Cooper S, the Mk2s from 1968 are in the £35k ballpark, which is mad but not half as bonkers as a remodelled Mini Remastered that isn’t what most people who like Minis actually want.
At the high end of the market, it is about branding, of course. Something along the lines of the Minis offered back in the day by the likes of Radford or Wood & Pickett might work today. So perhaps David Brown Automotive simply needs time.