A good old fashion 80′s Mini City.

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The Mini was still marvellous in the 1980s

While the performance Minis like the Cooper and mighty Cooper ‘S’ will always be the Minis most remembered, the Mini City of the ’80s and early ’90s will always be special to me.

Remaining faithful to the essence of what the original 1959 Mini was all about, the City offered basic honest to goodness transport, all be it with the trademark handling and built-in fun factor.

The 80′s was a funny time for the Mini, the arrival of it’s replacement, the Metro, seemingly meant its time was at an end, but the British love for the little car convinced BL, and then Austin Rover management to keep it going. A string of sticker special editions (Ritz, Chelsea, Piccadilly, Red Hot, Jet Black, Studio 2, Neon, and more) kept the public’s interest and continued to imbue the car with more and more character. There through out all this, without the bolt on glitz, at the bottom of the range was the humble Mini City (later to become the City E)

Having owned Minis from this end of the scale, and the later fuel-injected Rover Cooper variety, there’s something about the more basic Mini I miss.

Skinny little steel wheels, 38bhp 998cc A-series singing away, a bare bones interior with those great houndstooth trim seats, good, honest basic Mini motoring.
Trouble is, Mini prices are on the increase, with seemingly little to stop them. The end of production in 2000 meant the Mini could officially call itself a classic car, BMW themselves foisting the title ‘Mini Classic’ upon the car, aiming to differentiate itself from the all new MINI.

The days of the £50 Mini are long gone and for the moment, so it seems, are my chances of owning one, with eBay awash with rotten or incomplete cars changing hands for increasingly ludicrous sums of money. Even project cars are commanding silly money. However, there are bargains out there, if you’re prepared to look hard enough, and be patient enough, which is exactly what I intend to do.

In the meanwhile, has anyone got a Mini they fancy lending me while I wait? Anyone?