Spotting

I was out and about today (Fri 11/08/02) and spotted a classic mini, here in Ft. Smith, coming out of the regional airport. I am not good at the ages, but it was a dark blue with external hinges. (ooo that's got to be helpful) I wanted to see if the owner was on the forum or not. Wifey thought that it looked too much like I was flipping the guy off as I waved, so I wanted to make the point I wasn't. Plus it was really cool to look across the road and see it in between the headlights of a Ford Excursion.

MattP

Well spotted! The external hinges would date the car as a '69 or older. The car would also have had the sliding front windows. After this point the Mini had internal hinges and wind-up windows. Actually there are no other clues, external or internal, to the exact age without looking at the car's numbers. British munufacturers did not change details on their cars every year to differentiate them from previous years. In the UK, the licence plate is the only indication of the approximate year that the car was registered.

Try posting your question on the Mini Mania discussion board https://www.minimania.com/msgthreads.cfm There are people on there from all over. Even if the owner of the car isn't there, somebody else may know who's car it is.

Regarding the age: UK cars discontinued the external hinges in 69, but in Australia they continued much longer. The Australian cars had wind-up windows and external hinges. Because of the mild climate in parts of Australia and New Zealand, a lot of cars have remained very rust-free making them very desirable for import. The favorable exchange rate helps too. A lot of Australian and New Zealand cars have been coming into the states recently. There are a few other age clues that are less conspicuous (tail lights, grille and a few others) but it's not uncommon for people to retrofit older styles, or update to newer. A large part of the Mini culture is customization.

As far as the waving, I doubt the Mini driver took offense. You quickly get used to being waved at when driving a Mini. It happens several times every time you take the car for a drive.

[ 11-10-2002: Message edited by: zanzibar ]

[ 11-10-2002: Message edited by: zanzibar ]</p>