OWNERÕS VIEW

ERIC PADMORE

‘My wife, son and I own seven Minis between us and we’ve had this 1979 1275GT for about three years. Restoring them as a hobby, this one was off the road for 25 years so needed plenty of work. Apart from the door cards the interior was missing so I had to sort new seats and the dashboard, and I replaced the entire roof panel to get rid of the nasty aftermarket sun-roof. I did manage to save about 95% of the original metalwork, though, and the engine and running gear is original, although I hated the Pageant Blue paint so chose to respray it in Denim Blue, which is much nicer. It took around five months to restore, fitting it in around other jobs, but I do all the work with my son, and we were actually restoring two other Minis at the same time for club members. This one was intended for my wife but when I presented her with it she said she didn’t really like the Clubman shape, so I was persuaded to restore a 1961 model for her instead! I believe in using the cars properly so this one’s not just for shows.’