This is a well known car with a story i've never got round to writing. So get comfy and i'll begin.....
Back in 2007 i was just 16, skipping school to work in a local garage. I used to ride my bike past a 78 clubman estate and always looked at it deciding one day i'll buy that. I'd always had a love for minis but loved the variants as they were different. One day on my way home from work there was a for sale sign on the house so i decided it was a now or never moment. A knock at the door revealed the owner was out but his wife was in. A brief chat with her revealed "Tim" had owned the mini 11 years and it had been off the road for 9 after the head cracked and the rust had set in. After looking the car over realizing it was worse up close than first thought i left my number expecting a school boy to be ignored. I received a phone call that evening regarding the car so the next day after work i went for another chat. Having had a second look it was definitely rotten and needing a fair amount of work but myself and dad was up for a challenge, until he dropped the bomb shell. "You can buy the car for £1000". Once we'd picked ourselves up we kindly refused and departed on our way. 2 weeks later whilst browsing ebay i spotted the very same car with a starting price of £100. Still with a passion for that car and with it being just 3 miles from home i decided it had to be mine. £260 later she was on the back of our lorry heading back up the hill to my house!
So there she was, finally in my possession and for nearly a quarter of the asking price. Next came the expensive bit, new steel. (being a school boy working a few hours here and there i didnt have a camera so didnt get many pics) Dad and a friend replaced the front floors, front wings, a panels, headlight surrounds, repaired the roof, bottoms of rear doors, part boot floor and a few other odds and ends.
Once all the new metal was in we came to the exciting bit, PAINT!!!. Now what colour to do it, i'm not an original sort of person so was never going to be the same colour. After looking through several colour charts i'd narrowed it down to 2. Well that was until a friend of dads popped in for a chat and to show off his new......... Focus ST in orange! That was it i was in love. So a phone call to morelli for some of that and some VW black magic for the roof and arches (cosmic group 2, new in the box £25, bargain!).
All shiny i was in love with her. Downside looking back is the fact i was more interested in bangers than my car atm, so i was aiming to get it done by my 17th birthday but as i was sidetracked i didnt get to this point until November 2008. 9 months after i turned 17. Anyway so we cracked on putting the car together piece by piece with a few custom touches like the Renault Alpine leather seats. No point telling you about each nut and bolt on that bit so have some more photos.
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Thats where most storys end. Unfortunately not my Tangos. Best grab yourself a cup of tea. Over the moon she was finally done 2 years after i brought her. Myself and dad had never undertaken such a project and were very pleased with the result. So off i went on my merry way in my new car. That was until one friday morning about a month later (the day michael jackson died) on my way to work i was forced off the road by a hot hatch driven by a "youth". I had to take drastic swerving action causing me to go over a bank causing alot of damage.
I had snapped the rear radius arm, rear shock, brake pipe and the rear trumpet, plus bent the new subframe, petrol tank and buckled all 4 alloys plus punctured 2 newish yokohamas. To say we were not amused is a massive understatement but i cant repeat the conversation at the time. Typically the hot hatch had not stopped and being 18 with a modified car claiming on the insurance was not an option so i bankrupted myself and we managed to get the car repaired in time for work monday morning.
