Well that's the plan anyway. Hopefully I won't discover anything too nasty along the way.
This is the subject of the work:
A 1980 1275GT.
Being an NZ car it has not suffered the same rust issues as in the UK. My previous mini was about 20 years old when it died from terminal rust, this one is 34 years old and the body is in better condition than the other one was when it was 12 years old.
It's spent its whole life as a daily driver so is mechanically sound but is cosmetically tatty with a few minor scrapes and niggles. It's also suffered from sunburn with the paint very badly faded and worn through to the primer in some places. The fading and various bits of touching up are inconsistent so there are about 4 different shades of red/orange visible on the car.
The interior consists of seats, a steering wheel and some gauges.
The good news is that the previous owner accidentally let the registration lapse a couple of years ago which meant that to get it back road legal she needed to have re-registered. In NZ this means that rather than just passing a standard WoF (MOT) it needs to pass a far more stringent test more similar to SVA. This means that ALL rust needs to be cut out and repaired. I'm therefore fairly confident that I won't find anything too horrendous. A detailed check of the usual places shows solid metal and you can see from the interior shot above what the original floors look like.
I want a fairly standard look in a solid colour so the plan is to tidy up the bodywork, respray in Surf Blue with Old English roof and complete new interior.
The engine starts first time and pulls very well with no oil leaks so I'm not going to touch that for now but will put in some hi-los that I've had in a box since 1995.
The car is actually going to be in regular use round town once completed so the focus is on comfort and practicality rather than all-out performance.
if you get bored of this project I'll have it ;) haha
