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1965 Morris 850
1966 Morris Mini Minor
1967 Morris Cooper 'S'
1977 Leyland LS

maybe no more than 14k? I was looking at a pretty shabby S replica 3 months ago and he wanted 12k

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http://www.flickr.com/by_dan
Current: 1970 Mini K 2014 Focus ST
Past: 93 Rover, 64 850, 97 Rover, 66 Deluxe, 66 Moke
81 Austin Estate, 2006 R53MCS, 66 Deluxe, 1978 Clubbie
2014 Land Rover Defender 90

Bloody hell!!! I am getting sick of following this post. This is worst than Parliament. Leave the poor guy alone. He has already told of you that the car is a Mini K shell with S bits added on. Let the auction run and those who are bidding would know what they are they biding for so they know what they are buying!!!! I hope he gets a good price. It is a nice car and i wish him all the luck with it.

No he hasn't. His wording, which he adamantly defends, is that it's a Cooper S rebodied in a K shell. Which is a very different thing. And the fact that he's trying to sell it as a Cooper S is at the very least misleading, but more properly downright fraudulent.

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You're only supposed to blow the BLUDDY DOORS OFF!!

This always gets me. The rebody idea. The complence plate and body numbers should die with the car. Performance isn't the value adder for a cooper s, it's the history from being picked off the production line to the first drive and the memories the follow. It's bull crap to rebody a car with a pedestrian shell and call it a cooper s, even of the details are correctly copied over and the correct numbers stamped. It's just not original.

Plates or not, is no cooper s. It is a nice k though.

Is it yours as you own a mk2 1970 s with starting issues?

SO what CAN you change? You curb a wheel...you can replace that? A windscreen? A door skin? A sill? A rear beaver panel? Where's the line?

Belldane,
I have found this thread really interesting. I guess you need to bear in mind this is a mini forum and so it is going to have passionate mini owners as members. Fair enough that we/they care about details like calling a car a model it isnt.

If this was a general car forum it wouldn't have got so much attention. I for one appreciate how we can rely on the collective ausmini 'brains trust' to get the right information, regardless if we like it or not.

Oh yeah, you don't have to follow this thread if you don't want to. It's your choice to read it.

The line is a bit blurred. Hence the threads that pop up.

BUT, I am pretty sure calling / presenting a Mini K (Body with matching plate) as Cooper S is well and truly past that line.

My van has a cooper badge, therefore is is a 1970 Mini Cooper Van. How rare are they eh ?

For me the line is when a plate is put on a different bulkhead and numbers re-stamped. If there's a decent attempt to repair the shell then at least your preserving some history. To simply decide to discard the shell because it it too damaged to rusted is where I think the investment is lost and the car should be totally written off.

It's a bit of a "grandafther's axe" -type conundrum.

If each part of the car is replaced, individually, by a single owner, who bought the car new, and cherished it it's whole life, until there's nothing original left, is it still the same car? is it even a cooper S anymore? Technically, such a car would have more "history" than a car that came of the production line and went into a garage for 50 years, untouched, so which is "more" of a cooper S?

Whilst I think rebodying *any* car makes it a "different" car, the age of the car has to count for something - I'm sure there are a lot of Model T Fords kicking around out there that contain less "Ford" than a new Mondeo - but considering the age, certain concessions are made.

IMO, ultimately people's opinions on the issue will be philosophical as much as they will be factual...


Stu

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"smooth seas do not make skillful sailors"

here we go again down this rocky road to nowhere

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1964 998cc Cooper
1971 Mini K x 2
1972 Clubman GT

Its not tricky, I agree with the grandfathers axe analogy. a panel here, a panel there etc. Who cares, even if it does eventually encompass the whole car, the issue isn't maintaining a vehicle.

(personally) Its when a car gets past maintenance and is virtually gone, but the parts is transferred into a replacement body. That isn't history, that's a financial decision to salvage the investment.

Or a body is deemed too hard to fix because a cheaper replacement arises. the best efforts should always be made to maintain the body, if it cant be maintained then it should be written off.

as an aside
there was a DC3 flying in WA years back.
as with aircraft the maintanance is strict.
the only original part was the name plate/builders plate .
so is it the original plane or not ?
the same goes for any mechanical device
you maintain it with replacement bits eventually you could have replaced the whole unit.
so if you reshell a car it cannot be the original.

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65 panel van Sprog
73 panel van Iggy

Hi TUCK3r

No, not mine. Compliance plate and number stamped on body YG2S4 and so on match.