Mini Cluman is almost ready!

With all the news about the latest version of the BMW MINI Cooper about to become available, I thought it an absolute must to return my original Mini Clubman GT back to the road. This little black beauty has been sitting in the garage, neglected for the last 10 year at least.

The first and thus real ‘Mini Clubman’ was built in 1969 as a facelift for the original 1959 Mini. The restyled version has a squarer frontal look, using the same indicator/sidelight assembly as the Austin Maxi. The Mini Clubman was intended to replace the upmarket Riley and Wolseley versions. A new model, dubbed the 1275GT, was slated as the replacement for the 998 cc Mini Cooper (the 1275 cc Mini Cooper S continued alongside the 1275GT for two years until 1971). The Clubman Estate took over where the Countryman and Traveller left off.

My poor little Mini Clubman had been taken apart in preparation for a total rebuild. It never happened! A couple months ago I rolled the car from the storage shop to the work shop. The first task was to see if the motor would run after all the years. It had been set into the car but not run. It was reported to be a late model 1275cc engine that was running when removed from it’s original home. As the wiring in the Mini Clubman was a little suspect it was necessary to simply hot-wire everything to at least run the engine. After the wiring, the fuel system was tackled. The engine is equipped with a mechanical fuel pump and thus cranking from a dry system is not good for the battery. So I also hot wired an electric fuel pump. Then the single 1 3/4″ HIF carb had to be rebuilt just to be sure it. It is just one thing after another, but finally it is running! Next steps will be all the electrical, cables, interior, etc. etc.