Chapter 5: My First One!

At the tender age of 18, with my driver’s license still shiny and new in my pocket, I had managed to scrape together enough money to buy a car. Not just any car, but my car. This was a car that I had fallen in love with when I had just learnt to walk, and is a car that still today is one of my all-time favorites. A Mini. As you may have read before, Minis have pretty much always been a part of my life, and clearly this trend was bound to continue. Mine was an all-black 1978 1000, and on the day I picked it up, it was still in its original form. That was not to last for a long time.

There is something really special with the Mini. Unlike too many cars of today, it was a designer’s masterpiece. Small, light, fun, and oh so cute! I have often wondered how the British car industry could have gone so wrong ever since 1959, after having designed and built the car that is essentially the starting point for all compact cars of today. There were things not perfect, no doubt, but its simplicity makes so much sense still today. Then there all the little quirks that just makes it have its own personality.

As just about any teenage male, I quickly found that I could do with a bit more power. Sure, the lightness of the car made it respond well enough when first accelerating, but once past 60 kmh, the lack of power would become all the more obvious. Once on the highway, top speed was far too timid to satisfy my craving for excitement. That car stereo I had my eyes on for a while would have to wait in order to make place for a new carburetor. In digging through my stacks of car magazines, I had found an ad for a Nikki Twin-choke carburetor that would increase power by at least 30% (or so the ad said), which is precisely what was required. The order was placed, and my impatient waiting for the mail delivery began.

After what must have been the longest week in my life up until then, it finally arrived. All the pieces were quickly laid out in the garage, with the shiny stainless steel air-filter taking a special place so as to not get dirty. Now, I’m far from being a mechanic, but I knew that I would be able to handle this somehow. So, I grabbed the assembly instructions, and began to follow the required steps, the first being to saw off the original intake manifold from the header. Now there was no turning back!

The pieces fitted on easily enough, with the new aluminium intake manifold sitting snuggly over the header. At this point I did stumble upon my first problem, that would later cause considerable fear. The gas cable was for a right-hand drive, and so a bit too short for my left-hand drive. It did manage to fit, but the cable was a bit too tight. No matter, it all worked well enough. Time for the first test drive, with no time to put the hood back on the car. Driving around my block, with no hood on the car, on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, made the Swiss neighbors come out and stare. I’m sure if I would have gone around one more time, they would have called the cops. Twice more around and they would have shot me! But I wasn’t concerned with that as everything was working like a charm, and it was time for a real test. Back to the garage, and with the hood finally in place I set out to some more open roads.

After driving for a while, the engine would begin to run very rough. I was concerned that there was some tuning problem, and so pulled over to inspect the carburetor. As if I would be able to tune it! In touching the manifold, I discovered that it was freezing. Since the original cast iron one is connected to the header, it is automatically heated. Not so with the new aluminium one. It was at this point that I discovered a copper pipe running through the length of the manifold, and I had the idea of cutting the rubber pipe that served for the in-car heater. In its simple design, this is just a pipe through which passes warm water from the radiator. In passing it through the manifold, it would keep it from freezing. Problem solved!

Soon I found myself on the highway, ready to test the top speed of my “sports” car. The speedometer was a unit that was graded until 140 kmh, and I had previously been able to get it to maybe 135. Now the needle was pointing straight down, somewhere in the region of what would have been 165 kmh. As I floored it, and the carburetor would open fully, and a deep loud guttural howling would invade the already noisy cabin. It wasn’t me doing the howling, although at this point that would have been very likely, but the new carburetor. Satisfied with my test, I decided to exit the highway, and took my foot of the accelerator. That’s when nothing happened! The throttle was stuck full open as I raced up the off-ramp, and reality switched to slow-motion.

My first thought was that this was bad. Then I thought of the lousy brakes the Mini had, and bad turned to worse! Logic finally set in, and I pressed the clutch, put the car in neutral, and switched off the engine before it totally over-revved itself. Stepping hard on the brakes, I pulled over to the side of the road. Well, so much for a throttle cable intended for a right-hand drive. I got the throttle un-stuck, and puttered home a more leisurely pace. Tomorrow was Monday, and I would be able to get a proper cable.

Some time had gone by, and I was able to save up some more cash to spend on the car. After the improved performance the Nikki carb had given it, something had to be done about the lack of music in the car. Okay, the noise from the engine was music, but you did tend to get a bit tired of it after a while, and hey, I was still a teenager and needed to listen to my favourite tunes on full blast! I was lucky to have a brother who was very much in to electronics, and who was working for a small company in Sweden that built handmade custom amplifiers. He made me an amplifier for my Walkman, and all I needed was a good set of speakers. The rear seat was turned in to a sub-woofer by closing of the cavity underneath with a wooden board, and then inserting two woofers in this board. I then inserted a pair of mid-range speakers in the side compartments in the back, and some tweeters up front. For not a lot of cash, I had an outstanding sound-system, that would out-shine those of many friends that had cost way more.

It’s funny how as I write this, my mind is filled with all the memorable moments I lived with that car. Most of them are fun; some are exciting, and others downright scary. I suppose those stories will have to be put in paper at some point, but that will be for another post, as this one is about the car.

So, what could be done to improve the car at this point? Minis are known to have an outstanding road handling, as they are indeed like go-karts. However, a set of wider wheels with fresh rubber can’t hurt, and so I set off scavenging the demolition sites to find some appropriate wheels. Four scruffy aluminium 5x10 inch wheels would have to do the trick. A bit of elbow grease had them looking like new, and with some Dunlops fitted, the car was again ready to roll. Here I ran in to a new problem, the tires where a bit too wide, and the rears would rub on the inside of the fenders as I raced up some local mountain roads.

I headed back to my trusted car magazines, and found a place that sold spacers. These would move the wheels out slightly, providing enough clearance for the wider tires. On top of that, the wider width should further improve the handling, and so the order was placed.

Fitting the spacers was a breeze, and the new look of the car was simply stunning! The wheels would stick out from the fenders, giving the all black Mini a very aggressive look. Problem is that in Switzerland it is strictly forbidden for tires to be outside the fenders of a car, so some fender flairs would be needed, but that would have to be for later. A new test drive was necessary, and I headed back up my favourite twisty mountain road. My car was now perfect! The handling was amazing, the engine powerful, and the sound system would really wake up the neighborhood. And it looked great! This joy was not to last for long though…..

The following week, my mom needed to borrow the car to drive to town with. I thought nothing of it, gave her the keys and she was off. On her way back home, she was pulled over by the cops as they had noticed the tires. They set about measuring the width of the car, and declared it illegal on the spot. My mom was allowed to drive it home, but that was it!

When the car was later brought in for the required technical inspection, after I had removed the incriminating parts, the authorities scrutinized every millimeter. The result was that it would require a fortune to make the car road-worthy again, a fortune I didn’t have. So, in the end, I had to get rid of the car. I still have the pictures of it though, just after I had the spacers put on, and it still gets the adrenaline flowing when I look at them.