beautiful
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| Mini Life https://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=94127 |
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| Author: | cranky [ Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:18 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Mini Life |
I love my car. After thirty-five years, that must be apparent to those who know me, but for some reason I have resisted admitting it. ‘Min’ is a 1970 Morris Cooper S, bought for $2750 (a loan from my father) in Brisbane, shortly after my twenty-first birthday. Min is a ‘she’, and this has nothing to do with objectifying women – it’s really about anthropomorphising the car, in the same way others do to boats, dogs, shoes, houses and movie stars they will never meet. I had two Minis previously – a yellow ’67 Deluxe (with windup windows and bumblebee black stripes from a rattle can) which I wrapped around a tree in Fig Tree Pocket, shortly after taking my girlfriend home. The second was a scrounged body shell with the unbroken bits of the first grafted on, and survived two years in the wilds of Gold Creek and Pullenvale, which at the time was an eclectic mixture of wealthy ‘ranch-style’ houses and crumbling dairy farmers’ cottages occupied by left-over hippies and alternative life-stylers. The road was dirt and rough, marihuana grew in the fields, and they were some of the happiest days I can remember. Not so for others however. A reckless moorhen dashed across the road near the Queensland University pond and I couldn’t avoid it. Its neck was broken and I wouldn’t leave it suffering. I had seen mutton birders despatching their catch with a flick of the wrist – so tried that. Moorhens are not strongly put together, and most of the bird landed on the windscreen of a car in the other lane, whose occupants may not have understood why it appeared I had stopped just to dismember a waterbird…and didn’t wait to find out. That Mini was consigned to a paddock, after an early morning thrash through the Surfer’s Paradise in a mate’s Cooper S - Weber carburettor growling behind the dash as 7000 rpm splashed off the concrete and glass. No radar traps. I could not believe how fast it was. The current Min came into my life in ’81, and I rebuilt her in ’84. Then for thirty years, she took a back seat to raising a family with the girl from Fig Tree Pocket. I have since developed Parkinson’s Disease, and over the last three years have spent a lot of time and money on Min - working on her when I am able – to perhaps finally finish what was among the first, and what will be my last and greatest car. She tolerates my slow and clumsy ministrations, but we will get there eventually, and she will keep going well after I have pulled off the road. An indignant man once berated me outside Woolworths for “butchering a classic”, because I had repainted my Cooper S in a non-original colour and fitted mag wheels. A fortnight later another august gentleman waited by the car for a chat, and I couldn’t prevent a flutter of anxiety. But he smiled broadly and told me he once raced for Mercedes Benz, and was delighted to see the car being used. He had visited one of his racers in a German museum, and it had been totally restored – all dents, marks and his initials scratched inside the door removed -- and “It was like meeting an old and passionate lover, now with a facelift, who can’t remember anything about you.” “But this old car,” he laid a gentle hand on Min, and I’m sure there was a glint in his eye, “I think she is loved”. And so she is. |
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| Author: | Pommy bastard [ Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:25 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
How nice is that |
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| Author: | DavidE [ Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:53 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
Thumbs up!! |
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| Author: | deluxe67 [ Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:18 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
Thats a seriously souped up mini....! |
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| Author: | simon k [ Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:56 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
beautiful
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| Author: | 9YaTaH [ Tue Nov 01, 2016 9:16 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
"The road was dirt and rough, marihuana grew in the fields, and they were some of the happiest days I can remember."...bet it was  Nice story and you are living in some great Mini-road country...enjoy 
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| Author: | TheMiniMan [ Tue Nov 01, 2016 2:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
hits "like" button
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| Author: | shnitzee [ Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:58 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Mini Life |
Yes, totally understand your devotion to the little car. My resto has consumed my life for the past 2 or so years; always thinking about how best to get it looking like a proper mini (as it deserves). I think when it finally comes home it will become part of the family.
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