Another Brown Elf Society member ..

I always intended to buy and restore a classic mini when I retired, but redundancy, retirement and the acquisition of a 1969 Faun Brown Elf all happened suddenly, without planning, with a few weeks of each other ....... Anyway, my brown 'un is just about as late as you can get for an Elf, being first registered in mid June 1969. She came from Staffordshire, having been owned by the same family since new (mother and son) and was delivered along with loads of history, right down to a Petrol Ration book and the original invoice when first registered - she cost £550 when new and a Hillman Imp Californian was taken in part exchange (I wouldn't mind owning that one too !). To date, she has only covered just under 31,000 miles, so hardly run in yet ..............

When I retired, a friend asked if I would like to drive his van delivering spares for Mitsubishi cars .......... then just a while later I started getting involved with the Riley Motor Club and it's spares service which just happened to be based in Kenilworth too, well in the same street I live in actually. This year I took over selling the spares for the Riley Motor Club in my spare (no joke intended) time, so can increasingly bore for Britain on RM Starter Handle Tubes, right-angle breather hoses and the finer points of Pathfinder suspension bushes .... yawn ....

My other 'classic' is a rag-top BMW E30 and I find my other half is now hankering after a rag top Moggie Minor. When you get bitten by the old car bug, where does it end?

it never ends!!

Big Al's right! I currently have 5 other Minis and a VW camper in addition to my Elf. And that's downsized from the last few years!

I visited a couple of classic car owning friends last week, who admitted that they have 17 cars between them - mostly Minis and Smarts!

And I thought it was just me.
I'm getting serious grief from my other half as she thinks I have a problem. 3 Rileys, 1 Mini Copper and Rover Cabriolet + my every day car (Mondeo). In addition to the cars, I have a collection of vintage petrol lawn mowers, how sad is that.

Elf Service wrote:And I thought it was just me.
I'm getting serious grief from my other half as she thinks I have a problem. 3 Rileys, 1 Mini Copper and Rover Cabriolet + my every day car (Mondeo). In addition to the cars, I have a collection of vintage petrol lawn mowers, how sad is that.

Very sad Andrew! You can't get lower than a lawn mower !

so when can you do my lawn mate?

A big Hello and welcome vc131, that brown low milage Elf sounds like a beauty! We would all love to see some pics!

You're spot on about the car collecting thing, it's a disease!

Don't know about lawnmowers though

Welcome from another Brown Elf Society member! I'm so glad you've stuck a toe in here, if there's anywhere you'll find others sympathetic to the old car disease it is here! They've all been nursing me through since I was diagnosed. It seems I am a hopeless case!!

I hope you'll soon post some pics, although I've had a sneak preview thanks to my contact with you through the Riley Spares dept., and know what a fabulous little Elf you've got but then I'm biased in favour of brown 'uns!!)

I know your expertise and knowledge will be really welcome here.