Well... I finally got to go look at this mini today... I was not very impressed.
It was being advertised as a Clubman GT. I think the owner thought it was one.
I had come armed with my list of body and engine prefixes and using it I confirmed suspicions that it was in fact just an everyday run of the mill mini.
The body number started with 022X2S4M09 and the engine number started with 99H889AJ.
Now the seller said that they had the engine rebuilt at a cost of about 3 grand or more... he said that it was a 1275cc engine. The engine code indicates that it isn't 1275 but instead 998. I don't know what the go is there... either this guy didn't get it rebuilt himself and had bought it thinking it was 1275cc... or the engine rebuilder guy has ****ed them in the arse... or he's lying... or it's a dodgy number (it looked genuine thought).
Also, I peered through the wheel spokes and spied the crappy drum brakes on the front. Apparently not legal if it does have the bigger engine.
On top of all that there were bubbly patches of paint everywhere. I haven't seen many minis and thus don't know how much rust to expect but this had little patches everywhere. Give it a year or two and there'd be RWC problems.
On the plus side though, it's roadworthy now, it did have the twin tanks, the interior was cool and it had been deseamed which also looked cool.
It's not what I expected for $5500
