My first car
It was a mini. A ‘64 mini. BFN 807 B. It was white (well, very occasionally, most of the time it was muddy brown). It had front seats from an Austin 1100. It had a modified engine (high overlap cam) - although I didn’t know that when I got it and spent ages trying to make it tick over evenly with no success.
It leaked. Not in the usual places for a car, but upwards! The gear lever grew up from a hole in the floor, well forward of the usual place these days. It was surrounded by a rubber gaiter - except in this one the gaiter was split. Everytime you went through a decent puddle, unless you remembered to lift your feet up to the dashboard, you got shoes full of water. If you just cocked your left leg up, your right shoe copped it. You had to get them both up to avoid it.
It went fast - did almost 80 - very good for a mini. This was thanks to the camshaft (which I only found out about when I stripped it down many years later). It beat virtually anything off the line up to 15 mph - probably partly because of the camshaft, partly because I only used the throttle as a switch - on and off - and partly because I probably used to jump the starting gun.
It was frugal on petrol. It was not frugal on oil. Each time the gauge got down to ¼ full, I went to my garage and asked for 2 gallons of petrol and a pint of oil. That lot was about a quid and lasted about a week.
It was noisy. Very noisy. After any journey in excess of 50 miles, when one finally got out of the car, one’s head buzzed.. and buzzed.. and buzzed.
I went to school in it for a couple of years. I went to university in it. I once took three others to London in it (100 miles), and the brakes failed on that run. A huge car (probably an Escort or something equally massive) pulled out in front of us. The shove on the brake pedal saved a smash up - but in the process burst a couple of slave cylinders. I found out about that when I tried to stop next time. Straight to the floor. Drained. Car kept going without having slowed at all. Shoved it frantically down to first gear - and broke the gear linkage between the gear lever and the box. Drove it home in first gear - holding it in place alternately with left knee and left hand and willing passenger’s right hand as we both got tired. Repair bill... £70.
I loved it - it was my first car. I payed £90 for it. I spent a fortune on it. I broke it for spares for my father’s mini when I decided I wanted a real big car - a Morris 1100. I’ll tell you all about that next week.
I won’t bore you with the dissection - but the real sight to behold was me and two mates shoving the upturned shell about ¾ of a mile from what was then home to the breakers yard. He gave me £2.50 for my cheek - although I still think it should have been a tenner. It said on the gate “If you can drive it here we’ll give you a tenner for it”. We drove it there...