Tails of daring do and general stupidness.

[biggelmo]

OK,I've started this here as I could'nt find anywhere else to put it.

This thread will be open to all to add there stories of general stupidness in Minis old and new.

Here goes..........

Back when the Eastbourne marina had just started being built the main access road was down Prince William Parade,which is a nice long straight road at the end of the seafront.
The parade was popular for a short while with the local car nuts and used on Friday & Saturday nights for a good old bit of drag racing until the police got wise to it and spoiled all the fun.
My chum Andrew (who some on here will know) was a decent mechanic and had a well tuned 1275GT Clubman (the full spec escapes me) and was a regular on the parade.
One night Andrew was up against a big yank Camaro and we expected Andrew to loose but he had other ideas.
When the flag dropped off they shot with Andrew in the much lighter Mini 1st off the line and going very well.
The Camaro bellowed after him but the screaming Mini just kept going and going and going until Andrew realised that he was going to be entering the leisure pool roundabout at well over 75mph !!!!!! and had to decide in a spilt second which way to go.........up the seafront or round to the right ?.
He chose round to the right and braked hard and put the GT into a massive slide which ended when the NSR wheel whacked the curb on the end of Wartling Road bending the arm and wheel under the car.
We replaced the buckled wheel with the spare and he limped home on the twisted arm and replaced it the next day.

He beat the Camaro by the way.

So thats my 1st there are a few more,lets hear yours.

[minimalal]

quite bad that i can think of so many
after each monthly meet we always go for a little bomb somewhere, there normally eventful, will normally involve overtaking, overheating and wipers falling off on golden jubilee way aye Nathan? have had 3 of us in our 998s struggling to overtake 3 slow movers on the marsh road at the same time, that was scary!

In bexhill once i had a vauxhall insignia vxr right up my chuff so i thought id slow it down to a steady 12mph on a twisty road where overtaking is tricky, we finnaly hit a straight and he zoomed past off up the road, only to find sam, doing exactly the same thing
i could go on all day haha

[monkeyjim]

I was 18 , I had a bought a limited edition Jet Black from new in 88 .
Rolled it on the way down to Exceat on the 259 from the Seaford side .

[monkeyjim]

Rad sensor blew out of the rad in mk1 when I had the 998 in it whilst I was nearly halfway up Ditchling Beacon . There was no-where to stop up there and I was not about to leave that abandoned on the bends so I kept going.
It seized at the top .

Towed it home , new headgasket and sensor and I ran that engine until I built the MED 1340

[Stephen]

Parked my Mini at the top of my steep driveway, only to see it roll off and across the main road and into a hedge, smacking the sump on the kerb and narrowly missing about three cars. That was very scary!

[biggelmo]

Thats the spirit,lets hear more of them.

Here's another of mine.........

In the mid 80's I bought a brush painted black Mini 1000 with a full length Webasto sunroof which was great fun on sunny days.
One sunny day I drove it to a mates house and parked it outside with the roof fully open,shortly after I got there 2 other friends turned up and came in sniggering like little boys who had been up to no good.
When we left the mates house I could see why they were sniggering,they had taken a pallet and other rubbish from a skip in the road and dumped it in the Mini through the open sunroof !!!
After that the Mini gained the nickname of "The Skip".

[coleman262]

Erghh.... loosing that wiper in the rain wasn't ideal!

[monkeyjim]

I did that .
We were on the way back from the first Brooklands the club attended ......... all 3 of us ..
It was torrential rain and we were on the A264 dual carriageway out the back of Horsham when my drivers wiper arm flew off the mk1 . We found it on the verge a few hundred yards up the road.

[delly]

ran out of petrol while out testing lisa,s 1098 engine
so called my mate dave to bring some fuel
he turned up with a can but no spout

so thinking i was clever i found an empty 2 litter coke bottle
cut it in half and used it as a funnel

but all it did was fill up and go all over dave covering him in petrol
there, some thing wrong with your car said dave panicking

but all i could do is laugh ;D ;D ;D ;D

i,d left the lid on the bottle