Introducing another South African MK3

I have absolutely no problems at all with 'questions' ...........





.......... the 'answers' however are another matter ...................

Nice! Glad she/he made the journey safely! We'll need to see you at some Mini events now. Now you need to name him/her if you haven't yet.

Stunning job on the restoration, and an awfully big adventure for a little car. I'm not sure I could have entrusted mine to some sailors for that long without having a breakdown.

Good luck and enjoy.

Beautiful family by the way, all round lucky guy.

Thanks! Been lucky.
I've had to trust a lot of people along the way. We had the car trailered from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. When we missed the boat because of slow export clearance paperwork, we had to store the car at an airport parking lot (private property, business). They were excited to see the car and said they had it parked indoors instead of outside where the lawnmower kicks pebbles. Then we moved the car to East London for the next boat docking. While waiting to be loaded on the boat, the car began spilling fuel. Luckily the local customs agent had his father in law pick up the car and bring it to his home where he changed a perished fuel hose. Seems these Mk3s are somewhat beloved in South Africa and everyone involved have been very kind. I had to relax and trust a number of people from many many miles away.

It has been really fun driving the Mk3 around NYC. I displayed the car at a street fair and won a third place people's choice trophy. Then this past weekend I drove out the NJ for a Triumph club event and won first place in the Mini category. Met some great people and had a number of conversations about the car. So far, driving RHD has been no issue. The car keeps up with traffic fairly well, just stay in the slow lane on the highway and avoid potholes. The car gets so much attention, especially in Manhattan. Even taxi drivers were taking photos of the Mini. Cheers,
Mark

Excellent pics Mark.
The car looks amazing !  

Congrats on the first place That fourth picture, the one with the car parked in front of the graffiti, is really cool!

Had a nice weekend at the Jersey Shore with my family and some friends. It was a smooth 1 hour 45 minutes drive from Brooklyn. While the Mini ran really well, cruising at 50-55 mph, it wasn't enough to keep up with the 65 mph speed limit. Luckily my friend followed with his blinkers on. Seriously, this was my first experience driving a car and not passing a single other car
Even a fire truck flew past me. But seriously, I was smiling for every mile. Even better, I won second place in the Mini category (a Morris Minor won the first place trophy). Met a bunch of nice people and got to sit behind the wheel of my all time favorite car, a Ford GT40.

Looks to be going really well Mark, glad you're enjoying it!

No new work on the car. But we've moved out of Brooklyn to find room for a growing family. Now the Mini gets a proper garage. Amazingly, the car lived almost a year without a single drop of oil on the floor, which I thought peculiar when I left the Brooklyn garage for the last time. Then, after driving to its new home the Mini puked a small puddle on its new home.

Hahaha!

A 'Mini' that doesnt drop any oil is a 'Mini' with no oil in it !!!

Usual suspects would be diff oil seals or rod oil seal or crank case oil seal ???

Happy skipping !

Just marking its territory.

Well, I figured it out after a lot of fiddling and shimming with washers to get the switch plate to sit flush with the repro pad. I had to carefully sand away a lot of excess foam from under the pad so the vinyl can wrap around the front facing edge of the lower dash rail and allow the clips to squeeze in place. And then the trick of getting the moulding to fully snap over the clips (I'm waiting for a friend with a little more muscle to help with a few stubborn clips. But the result is sooo nice, simple and clean, I'm not even sure I want to put my fancy Smiths tach and its wrinkle finished pod back in. Next up is to get some gray door bins and figuring out how to ship two bumpers from South Africa to the USA. Cheers.

Hello,

I need urgently a good picture of a South-african Mk3 to illustrate an article about special Minis in the french magazine Gazoline; Can you help ?
It can bea nice picture of your car (that must be in original condition, like the grey/white one), a period press picture or a copy of the original brochure.
Than you very much in advance.
Bernard

Hi Bernard,
My Mk3 is restored but all original. Do you have an email address I can send some photos to? Thanks.

SAMK3 wrote:Hi Bernard,
My Mk3 is restored but all original. Do you have an email address I can send some photos to? Thanks.

Mark, if you click on the Letter icon under his user name, you can send email through the forum.