British Racing Green '91 Mini City

I've owned a fair few mini's over the last ten years and last year I parted with a mini pick up project after 8 years of owning it. I kept back the best bits (wheels, brakes and suspension) that I'd bought for the pickup and so they have swiftly made their way onto the City.

We bought the City about 6 months back from an elderly couple who live next door to my misses' gran. They had owned it for the last 10 years and covered less than 5K miles in it. The mileage now stands at just under 23,000 but it's in daily use. It was completely standard but was starting to show it's age with rusty steel wheels and perished tyres

Sadly I didn't take any pictures before making any changes, but I found these pics online which help give an idea of the wheels, grille, exhaust and ride height of the standard car. Ours was the same, just British Racing Green






The first job was to fit a chrome cooper grille, replacing the factory grey grille. I then started with the refurb on my 10" x 6" GB alloys, the pictures show each stage, a previous owner had painted them with Old English White household Gloss!

Then I fitted the Ripspeed (reputable brand back in the day!) hi-los and Koni adjustable dampers which allow you to dial in the height of the car on the threaded section (sort of similar to coilovers). The 10" alloy was trial fitted, but couldn't go on until I refurbished the 7.5" Cooper S brakes as the later mini's had bigger brakes that don't fit under 10's. You can see the standard 12" steel wheel fitted to the front of the car in the pictures.

I then made a trip to Harrogate Mini spares and bought the refurb kit for the Cooper S calipers, ball joint kits and wheel bearings as well as new discs and pads. The car was still fitted with the standard pea shooter exhaust, so I bought a stainless steel RC40 millennium exhaust, I already had a 3 into 1 exhaust manifold and an alloy inlet manifold, meaning that the exhaust could be fitted that weekend.

The last jobs were to rebuild the calipers, get some 10" tyres and fit a tunnel basket for the tape cassettes.  I've also added a pair of Rover spotlights, AA badge and tinted one of the reverse lights to give an earlier look to the rear. 8)









I'm considering refitting the grey grille and getting a set of raised digit number plates to finish it off.

Nice mini and a dam good find.