My younger days lol

[macabethiel]

Cooper S by Ted Bagshaw, on Flickr

Came across this old photo (scanned) from 1979 when I rebuilt our Mini Cooper Mk2 to full 1275 "S" specification with an Alexander Twin Carb (1.5" Strombergs) conversion with genuine factory uprated hydrolastic suspension & works negative camber suspension, Koni front shocker kit,731 cam, lightened flywheel, fully balanced crank, Mada Dash, Michelin XAS tyres, fly off handbrake, competition straight cut gearbox, Group 4 spats, etc etc.

After 10 years ownership from 1973 when it was a battleship grey 998 Cooper I sold her only to buy it back 3 years or so later. Wish I still had it as it was such a fun car.

 

[Wallace]

Nice, worth silly money now.

 

[jims-terrano]

Nice but interesting front indicator sidelights, look like the standard lamps fitted to loads of BL vehicles.

 

[macabethiel]

Austin 1100/1330 front side lights - BL type units

Nice but interesting front indicator sidelights, look like the standard lamps fitted to loads of BL vehicles.

There was a reason for the change of Indicator lamps at the front - the headlamps were the standard size of the period and were common across not just UK made vehicles but also some foreign ones.

I bought a set of Carello Pajod Parabolic Headlamps for a Vauxhall Victor they cost me an absolute fortune back in 1965 - I got them at trade prices for around £18 the pair with 4 Quartz Iodine Bulbs - the dip cut off was brilliant they were wired up for 4 bulb main beam via a relay but had no side lamp provision.

At that time a Lucas sealed beam unit cost about £1. 10s. in the trade. Pajods were fitted as standard equipment in some later E-Type Jaguar models when they did away with the headlamp cover front end design. Only trouble was there was no side lamp window.

They went in an Alfa, a Bond Equipe, eventually into a couple of different Minis so had to fit separate side lamps. I tried some small side lamps as fitted to the Lotus Elan but they were pretty poor so when I got my third Cooper decided to do some cutting / pop riveting/ glass fibre laminate/ & filler to fit the Austin 1100 lamps as they were dirt cheap from the Scrappers.

Looking back it was an awful lot of work just for some side lamps.

 

[macabethiel]

Cooper S prices

Nice, worth silly money now.

You are right they are mad, I had a 1967 Mk1 1275 Cooper S VRM was "DJC323E" I bought it for £400 in a closed car auction in Birmingham when I sold it a couple of years later it fetched around £800, it was not in concours condition but was tidy for it's age and standard to look at probably worth £16-20k now.

The Cooper in the photo was heavily modded, I doubt it would fetch the sort of money you see them up for sale at today. That said I preferred the drive, comfort & performance of the later BMW Mini Cooper S when it was the Supercharged version. Very thirsty but brilliant to drive if you are okay with a bone shaking ride.

 

[Wallace]

My ex had a 1000 Clubman that we ragged about and had a lot of fun in, she started complaining about it pulling to the left. I took it out to investigate and she wasn't wrong, let go of the wheel and it went left, not drifted left but turned and under power would go to nearly full lock. The tie bar bracket had broken off the subframe, Lord only knows how long she had been driving it like that.

 

[macabethiel]

Torque Steer experience !

My ex had a 1000 Clubman that we ragged about and had a lot of fun in, she started complaining about it pulling to the left. I took it out to investigate and she wasn't wrong, let go of the wheel and it went left, not drifted left but turned and under power would go to nearly full lock. The tie bar bracket had broken off the subframe, Lord only knows how long she had been driving it like that.

When I owned my first "S" back in 1966 I thought they all had Torque Steer due to the power. I took it for it's Mot in Bradford at the main BL dealership and it failed on the offside front lower suspension bush. I was well miffed as I took pride in looking after my motor.

When I took out the cranked pin that holds the lower suspension arm in place the rubber was none existent just the inner steel part of the bush remained!

I replaced both sides and found it drove in a straight line, I had put up with the surge to the right for almost a year!

As the vehicle had been used for rallying by the previous owner I also had to change the rear tracking. To make it drift at the back end the geometry had been changed from the usual small amount of "toe in" to" tow out".

There was no 70 mph speed limit back then. With rear wheel "toe out" at speeds over 80 mph I would break out in a sweat to try to keep the car straight.

 

[Banshee]

Scary stories!!!!