1998 MINI COOPER
‘Ihave always had a passion for classic cars and loved Minis in particular through watching Mr Bean and liking small, quirky cars. I even used to visit scrapyards and take bits o the Minis even though I didn’t own one!
‘Minis were always the first cars that I’d look for when I started going to shows and I was always pressurising my dad to buy a restoration project. He got this Mini for me but kept it under wraps for a while until he felt that I was ready to take it on. I was very excited when I first saw it, ready with my spanners in my hand!
‘The car was in fairly rough shape and someone had fitted all sorts of aftermarket decorative add-ons so I switched the car back to original, having managed to get hold of a couple of scrap donor cars. I also managed to fix the seats, which were a bit saggy.
‘I used the money that I’d earned from ‘flipping ’ an old Astra that I’d bought to overhaul the front and rear suspension with all new dampers, brakes, calipers, boots, ball joints and bushes, and stabiliser arms.
I had to remove the petrol tank just to get at the dampers.
‘The engine is original and just needed a bit of a clean-up. I have sorted the exhaust, overhauled the wheels and painted the underneath, which had been in all sorts of dierent colours. Whether this was from the factory I don’t know, but it was having a bad eect on my OCD, so I had to sort it. ‘The paintwork was pretty good but full of scratches and I bued the heck out of it every day when I came home from school. I’ve since bought some rally-style gauze headlight covers to complete the eect.
‘I’ll be able to drive the car on the road in October and can’t wait to take it to shows. I was thrilled when my dad told me that I’d been chosen for the Pride of Ownership awards. I’ve always loved the NEC and wanted to display a car there but never thought I’d get the chance.
‘I’m now restoring a Cortina MKII that my dad has had for 30 years.
‘The Mini is my first classic, and I’m very lucky to have it. I’ve done 99 per cent of the work on it and my dad bought the car for me so I’ll never sell it.’