10 replies to this topic

[splintercat]

went to Rockingham over the weekend .............saw an Australian mini with Metro style exterior door handles.

has anyone/does anyone know how easy this modification is to do?

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

That isn't a modification, internal door handles were standard on Australian cars along with their quarterlight windows. 

 

There was a guy selling a set of Aussie doors (with everything needed to refurbish them, although pretty rotten they are just based on Mk1 bin type doors, the main part is the perished rubbers which can be tricky to find unless you have a source in Australia) at Beaulieu, he wanted £600 for them, they already owed him £1100. 

 

Mini doors are pretty flat so I'm sure if you wanted to go ahead and were good at bodywork you could figure a way to make Metro handles work. Metros and dozens of other cars share their door handles across the range with some models like the VDP Metro even having chrome ones so you could source some of those. I think your closest match as far as curve radius goes in the Montego which is also pretty flat. Go ahead and impress us I've never seen it done before. 

 

[alex-95]

Theres this one about with metro handles

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Metro boot lock too

[Carlos W]

Metro boot lock too

CRAIG

You're back

[lawrence]

I was thinking of doing this too only today. Saw an old renault Clio. They were plan black plastic but looked like they would fit a mini nicely. Anymore phots of that red one Alex?

[alex-95]

It was chriscityE's , I found these pics of his (hope he doesn't mind me putting them here)

 

[timmy850]

They were standard fitment on the last couple of years production on the roundnose and all of the Clubmans here. They are designed to be pedestrian safe and be burst proof in a crash..

This is one of the last Australian built Clubmans, a 1275 LS in Hi-Ho Silver


As time went past the local content had to be increased to avoid import taxes, and new ADR (Australian Design Rules) had to be met for safety. 70's Australian and English minis were actually really different.

[evansisgreat]

I also think mini handles look much nicer.

[Albino_Hedgehog]

Gonna have to bump this!

Anyone done any more recently?

[lawrence]

So me being me and liking my modern mods i tried it out a while back with some cheap door handles from a corsa b that I found.

Issue was it was too big and bulky but I did like the idea of the metro handles like the photos above. The handles are common however to get the cutout is not. That was why I scrapped the idea as to find suitable handles with the pressing for them just didn't exist on websites such as eBay