Bought another MINI

[ianking]

Hi folks.

I have just bought (collecting in a couple days) what I believe to be a rather special MINI.

It is I believe a pre-production, press car. The chassis number ends TC00090. I have been told that production Coopers started at TC00101 and mini one at TA00101.

A friend of mine who works at Mini has confirmed that TC00001 to 8 are not on the system and were destroyed way before the press cars were out and that the next 40 or so numbers were all on X reg cars and subsequently were crushed.

The car I have bought actually appears on some BMW UK launch pictures etc.

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/2001-bmw-mini-cooper?phrase=2001%20bmw%20mini%20cooper&sort=best&excludenudity=true

its the red one in the link above.

My plan is to make the car very clean and get all the trim etc exactly as it was when it was used for the press launch etc.
I was thinking about contacting MINI press UK and seeing if they would make me up MINI UK PRESS FLEET reg plates as it would originally have had them.

I plan on keeping the car as it will go nicely with my CS500 and CS500 S Works, the R50 incidentally was registered before both of my classics.

I will post up pics after I get the car.

[N12 JLK]

Nice Ian. See it soon

Loved my old cooper. Should have never got rid of it. Was my favourite out all the minis I've had including the two S cars. Loved the sound kit we both had.

[Craig]

Sounds good Ian :). Sadly I'm going backwards in MINI's and garage space as I'm getting older :(


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[ELFMAN]

A genuine piece of Mini History - and now he's bought one if the first New Minis! Seriously though, great find Ian. It'll be a real collector's piece in years to come, and arguably already is. Look forward to seeing it when you've worked your Concours Magic on it.

[weefossy]

Nice one Ian, look forward to seeing "before & after" pictures.

[MINI William]

Great Ian. Looking forward to seeing your progress with it.

[badwolf340]

Nice find Ian ,always nice to find one that some how got away

[AndyP & Lenore]

Great find. And incredible it was "registered" before your classics. :thumbs up::thumbs up:

[Crombers]

Superb, looking forward to seeing this :thumbs up:

Do you have any more details re it's ownership history

[ianking]

I will be its 6th owner, the first being the press office at Oxford but that's the only ownership history I have at present. I will be able to get all the details from DVLA after I pay their admin fee.

I might not actually get anything done to this car until next summer as I'm just about to undertake a full rebuild (hopefully to concourse level) of my John Cooper Garages S Wks 500, one of only 23 CS500s that got an S Wks conversion from new. A very collectable car.

[Crombers]

The Collection King & the King of Shine .......... a new sig :thumbs up:

[MiniSnaps]

Lucky you, I've been looking for one of the early cars [emoji106]

125 came up for sale recently, although it's now a Cat C write off.

From memory, production officially started on 25/04/2001, however some cars were built on the 24th (I'd need to double-check however I think 125 was one of them), so it'll be interesting to see what the production date is for yours.

01 was, iirc Pepper White and in Australian spec, so presumably a hot climate test car.

I don't see yours in the link, I presume it is red with a white roof?


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[ianking]

If you scroll down on the link I gave you will see my car further down the page. Several photos of it 'Y401OBL'.
The other cars pictured next to it at the press launch no longer exist.

[MiniSnaps]

Not when I scroll down the page, a couple of classics and nothing else even car related [emoji107]


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[MiniSnaps]

The strange thing is 90 was built on the 21st May, yet 125 came off the production line on the first day of production - 25th April, one of the others I came across on Ebay had a 24th April build, making it technically "pre-production"...


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[ianking]

Dont believe what the web site tells you on real OEM. Mine has a build date on the car of April which is much more plausible.

Go with chassis number, not what real OEM states.
chassis numbers have to come off the line in order, not randomly all over the shop.

[MiniSnaps]

That's not from realoem, realoem is a parts catalogue. I agree with you though, your car should have a first day of production build date, going by the VIN, assuming the details for 125 are correct...


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[ianking]

That's not from realoem, realoem is a parts catalogue. I agree with you though, your car should have a first day of production build date, going by the VIN, assuming the details for 125 are correct...


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Real OEM also will give you a build year/month after you enter a chassis number

[MiniSnaps]

Bimmer.work gives the actual build date, although as I said, it shows 90 as having a later build date than 125, which seems very odd, the only assumption can be that it's a mistake...


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