02-07-2011, 11:28 AM
In all actuality, Randy, I'm a Mini Cooper fan ... I've owned four of them ... the original "flyin' shoebox" with the ten inch wheels. But when I first got divorced and sold off the Taurus Wagon (in an effort to regain enough cash to begin to rebuild my life and save it from swirling in ever-decreasing circles in the white porcelain convenience,) I was looking for another Mini. But a '68 Mini Cooper "S" would have cost as much as the Taurus Wagon that I had just sold cost me when it was new! [Watch the original version of "The Italian Job" with Michael Caine ... it's hilarious! And a real "cliff-hanger" of a story!]
Still wanting a small FWD car, and being a Ford guy, I found a '94 Festiva (badged as a Ford) and after "throwing" it around a couple corners, decided it was about as close as I could afford to an original Mini, at about 1/4 the price. What I ended up doing to it mechanically over the ensuing years is part of my own hot rod history. (But I've been a Front Wheel Drive devotee since 1966!)
BTW ... By "throwing" a front wheel drive car through a corner, I offer as example this photo of a friend in his SCCA ITB (Improved Touring "B") VW Golf at Turn 13 at Sebring!
![[Image: Corneringonthree.jpg]](http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af349/wwmarsland/Miscellaneous%20Images/Corneringonthree.jpg)
Cornering on Three Wheels ... Turn 13, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, FL
And now ... I return the thread to deciding on which car to buy ...
... look at all the vehicles that have the potential to satisfy your needs and give passing hommage to your desires, including the possibility of keeping your your current vehicle, and then decide based on the detrimental effects on your wallet.
That's my considered advice as an old gearhead.
Still wanting a small FWD car, and being a Ford guy, I found a '94 Festiva (badged as a Ford) and after "throwing" it around a couple corners, decided it was about as close as I could afford to an original Mini, at about 1/4 the price. What I ended up doing to it mechanically over the ensuing years is part of my own hot rod history. (But I've been a Front Wheel Drive devotee since 1966!)
BTW ... By "throwing" a front wheel drive car through a corner, I offer as example this photo of a friend in his SCCA ITB (Improved Touring "B") VW Golf at Turn 13 at Sebring!
Cornering on Three Wheels ... Turn 13, Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, FL
And now ... I return the thread to deciding on which car to buy ...
... look at all the vehicles that have the potential to satisfy your needs and give passing hommage to your desires, including the possibility of keeping your your current vehicle, and then decide based on the detrimental effects on your wallet.
That's my considered advice as an old gearhead.
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln