As I have mentioned before, Minis have always
been a part of my life. After being more or less forced to getting rid of my
first Mini, I had moved on to a number of other cars. For sake of security and
peace of mind, my next few cars had been new cars, but soon it would be time
yet again for another Mini.
I am obviously very much in to cars, and love
to drive. My wife, on the other hand, does not really enjoy driving. She tries
to avoid it whenever possible, which obviously suits me fine most of the time.
Nevertheless, there came a time when I felt she could really use her own car so
as to have the freedom to move around whenever and wherever she needed to.
Riding a Solex down to the train station was all fine and dandy while she was
working in Geneva, but later on getting to other locations became important.
Oh, and I thought it would be fun to be able to buy another car!
Her response to this was that she didn’t want a
car. When pressured, she finally said that she would want a Mini Automatic. She
hates manual gears, and a Mini would be small enough to easily get around. The
problem was, and she knew this, that there were hardly any Mini Automatics
available. She actually thought they didn't exist at all. A small number had been imported to Switzerland at the end of the
60’s, but according to registration records there were something like three
left on the road. So, pretty much impossible…
Well, one day I came across and ad in a local
paper for a Mini Automatic. This was in 1988, and the ad said the Mini was from
1970 with 14’000km on it. I figured that it must have at least 114’000 km, and
had simply gone around the counter once. However, when I called the seller he
confirmed that it had indeed only done 14’000km, but that it was very old.
Obviously we had to go and have a look at the car, but I feared the worst.
We got to the house of the owner, and he
explained that he had bought the car new for his wife in 1970, but she never
used it due to sickness. He instead would occasionally use it when his regular
car was being serviced, and otherwise the Mini was kept in a garage. He
mentioned the colour was not very nice, and then proceeded to show us the car.
My jaw dropped to the floor as I saw it. Here
was basically a brand new Mini Automatic, in a beautiful mint green paint from
the late 60’s. I opened the hood, and for the first time in my life I saw a
Mini engine with not a single oil stain on it. The car was incredibly clean and
well kept, and I honestly had trouble believing what I was seeing. We went for
a drive around the block, and all the mechanics seemed very sound. It was my
first time driving a Mini Automatic, and I was quite surprised to find that the
‘box actually allows you to manually select any of the 4 gears you want, which is
actually really handy when driving in the mountains. Often auto ‘boxes from the
60’s are very simple 3 gears that really only provide a D or an R option.
This was quite more sophisticated and beautiful to drive.
We got back to the owner's house, and I asked
him how much he wanted. I was concerned he would be asking too much for me, but
that is when we got the next surprise. It turns out he didn’t really know what
the car was worth, and so he had asked his mechanic neighbor for a proper
price. This neighbor, hoping to get the car at a cheap price, had quoted CHF
3’000 which was quite ridiculous. The thing he did not suspect was that the
owner really didn’t like him, and so did not want to sell the car to him.
Instead he offered it to us for CHF 2’800. I simply could not believe it, and
we wrote him a cheque instantly for a deposit before we could wire the rest.
When we later brought the Mini to a mechanic
to prepare it for road testing, it turned out to be the famous neighbor. He was
furious that we had gotten the car, but that’s karma!
We still have this Mini today, and I never
intend on getting rid of it. We don’t take it out so much anymore, but it still
gets to shine from time to time. It is still entirely stock as it was 45 years
ago, and almost like new.
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