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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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Min - 1970 MkII S, 119hp Dave Anton 1380, SH Engineering belt drive, 1.5 rollers, 123Tune ignition, 48 DCO SP Weber, HP Headers, MSD, Maniflow ex. Swiftune SC/CR 3.7 + ATB, all KAD front, antiroll bars and gas shocks, 6 inch Minilites with Dunlop Sports
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