June 9th, 2013
Tomorrow marks the day I saw the car on the local car-listing site. I wasn't even sure I liked it back then.
"Front wheel drive? Lame!" and
"It's kinda girly" were the first thoughts that went through my head, but I loved the wheels.
Seeing the wheels, I was taken back to the early 2000s, when one Friday evening, my dad brought home a lightly used Hyper Blue Cooper S, and took me & my sister to Blockbuster, because I wanted to rent a game (lol, PS2) for the weekend.
The Italian Job remake had released on DVD, and Blockbuster was promoting it in the usual way with cardboard signs and movie memorabilia. In the checkout line, I spied a little scale model of the blue R50 used in the movie. My dad agreed to buy it for me, and on the way back home, filled with excitement of a new game to play and a new car to look at, I remember my dad telling me how he liked the R53 the three of us were riding along in. I have since forgotten the game, but I always really liked the wheels on the little model Mini.
Remembering that, I decided that I liked the Mini in the ad, although the price was high. I went to look at it with my dad the following Saturday, and we ended up negotiating on a price. The brake rotors badly needed replacing, the car was out of alignment, and 3 of the 4 wheels were bent, all of them were curbed. We negotiated with the owner, and finally settled on the price of $11,250. It was a high price, but the interior was mint and the paint was mostly good, and I had fallen in love with it.
That evening I withdrew (almost all of) the money from my bank account, and I rode up to the guy's house in my Mom's Pilot with the rest of the family. We paid for the car and got the extra set of winter wheels and all of the MC40 extras that came with the car. We loaded the wheels into the back of the Pilot and the rest was history. (all written out in this thread, lol)
The next 3 months of summer were spent making the car perfect. The wheels were sorted out, new tires were mounted, and the plastic trim was taken back to its original luster.
Sorry about the long post, but it seemed fitting with the 1-year anniversary coming up. I still haven't addressed any of the cosmetic issues of the car-- the A-pillar trim on the driver's side still pops out where it meets the roof, paint chips still cover the top of the roof and the front of the car, the windshield is pitted to hell and the left foglight still isn't fastened securely. However, with all of the mechanical work put into the car, and my attention to cleanliness, I like to think that it's in better condition than when I bought it, albeit with 10,000 more miles.
