1963 Austin Mini Cooper S. 1275 cc bored to 13...

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And we aren’t talking about Texas.

Austin was a fairly obscure little car builder in Great Britain, until one very little thing happened… you might even call it a Mini Revolution.  It was a revolution, and it was the Mini… you know, the one that was brought back by BMW when they bought the name.  The original name was the Austin Mini… then the Austin Mini Cooper.

After Austin, the name was owned by Rover Group.

But, back to our Austin for the week…

It is a classic Austin Mini.  It is even Right Hand Drive… and from New Zealand.  It has a fuel injected 1.3L engine and a manual gearbox.  Minis of this vintage weigh almost nothing, handle like the tires are made from Velcro and stop quickly enough to pop out your eyeballs, especially compared to their contemporaries.  They were even able to compete quite successfully with larger and more powerful cars in both road and rally racing.

It would be fun to pick up one like this, build it out as a late 1960s Rally car, and enjoy the exceptional fuel mileage… and performance.

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