Well , we're back from our little trip to the South Island of New Zealand , a week in Wanaka with visits to the snow at Cardrona and also Treble cone followed by a week driving around the Island roughly in a clockwise direction before flying out again from Queenstown yesterday . This is some of the mini's we came accross , some good ones on the street in Christchurch and Nelson but virtually none on the west coast .
This one was on the street in Arrowtown , a goldmining town near Queenstown and didn't look too bad for a daily driver , the stripes say MINI LE .
We had a look at the transport museum in Wanaka , pretty impressive , 80% of it is one guy's collection and according to the bloke on the door he buy's another car each week or so . Most were either restored or in near excellent condition and ranging from 1910 or so to almost current . 450 cars or so , 20-30 planes and several thousand toys amongst other things with another 150 cars to come from his home yet ..... He only had 2 mini's ,
From there we didn't see another mini till Nelson in the North East but no more photo's till Christchurch , happened on the workshop "Denis Moore , The Auto Electrician" and in the smaller signwriting "minisport NZ" . Denis was busy arguing with the fuel system on a v12 daimler so didn't get much of a chance to chat , his mini's were elsewhere unfortunately but he has a pickup , a cooper S he runs in some events and other mini's . These are a couple of photo's on his wall but I didn't get any details unfortunately , check out the early aerodynamics , and the later shot .....
The Town of Oamaru was a major find though , was looking in an antique shop and commented on a "mini parking only" sign marked not for sale and got talking about mini's to the owner . He then took me out the back to see his two mini's and his "special" . Roger is the owner (Told Roger about ausmini , are you here yet Roger ?) , the GT is an Aussie assembled GT that he uses for hillclimbs etc and was quite neat though in something of a "racing trim" .
The special was originally built and raced by his brother and while not a mini it's worth posting here as a lot of the suspension and brakes are mini and it's hand beaten aluminium body was brilliant . To get the idea of it's size , it's sitting on 10" mini wheels ..... Roger is rebuilding it after finding it in very a sad state , basically the back half missing and it's powered I think by an Anglia motor and Renault gearbox (help me here Roger ???) .
Roger is also working on a Cooper , the body had to be seen to be believed .
Nearby there is a tourist type shop (Oamaru wool shed from memory) which also houses the Oamaru AUto Collection , basically a few people have gotten together and stored their cars together and people can see them , amongst other things was a Ford GT40 , a WW2 jeep , a Tractor and Caravan that's driven around the world , a real assortment but well worth the NZ$6 to see . They have a mini halfway into the shop , a roundnose in rally trim with cage , lights and dash looking very similar to the works item .
Inside was this semi race Austin Cooper S
Complete with what a lot of people would kill for over here to finish off their restoration , two almost brand new 60's dunlop racing tyres .
The collection had a Riley Elf as well that was owned by "an old guy that has several of them and regularly brings his grandkids in to polish it" .
Lastly while getting back into the center of Dunedin I took a short cut and found this poor thing languishing in a back street , a 5 door Austin Metro just pleading for someone to save it .
you should grab that metro though 
