One more car off my bucket list!

I have had a classic mini on my car bucket list for a long time.  After selling the 1952 MGTD in January I decided it was time to pursue the mini.  It took me about four months of searching on Craigslist, EBay, and several other forums with classic minis for sale.  I eventually found "the mini guy", aka Michael Lewis, who is a consignment seller of classic minis in California who had a yellow mini listed in Fort Smith AR.  It took two months then for Michael and I to work out the details with this difficult seller on the yellow mini, at one point in time we had walked away from the car.  But finally the deal was struck, and on April 9th I drove to Fort Smith with an enclosed trailer and bought the car.  Here's a shot of the car in the trailer on the way home:

I've had the car for a week, and I am having a blast with it.  The last four British cars I bought did not run for 6 to 12 months after purchase, so it's kind of nice to have one that runs when I get it!  It's a 1979 produced Canadian mini that spent it's life since new in California until 2012 when it went to Arkansas.  No rust, basic mechanicals are very solid.  I've done some minor things so far (flushed yucky looking coolant, re-aligned steering wheel, plugged holes in body from prior Canadian bumpers).  It's got original paint and interior except for seats (seats are from a newer car).  Some nice modifications had been done several years ago (phase 1 performance package, oil cooler, front disc brakes, alloy wheels, motolita steering wheel).  The banana yellow color sure gets noticed, and I love the cloth sunroof.

Here's some pictures of the car with my two granddaughters.  Today I added rear seat belts so I can install their car seats, they sure loved the short ride we took.  My four year old granddaughter Sophie has come up with the name that I suspect will stick - Papaw's Clown Car!

One project will be to get the interior color right, the panels are brown while the seats are dark gray/black.  But for now I'm just going to drive it, enjoy it, and fix things as they break!