Know Your Club Member - Richard Appleby

I’m fairly new to the Mini scene. I’m 27, have had my ’68 Deluxe for almost 3 years and been a Hotbricks member for 1 and a half years. Prior to my mini I had a 1990 Nissan 300ZX, but I’d always wanted a Mini. The Nissan was depreciating faster than I was paying it off, so I decided to sell it and get a cheap car which I could take out to the track and have some fun in. A mini seemed the obvious choice. I had heard there was a 998 Mini racing series around and so I sold the Nissan and began looking for a 998 engined Mini. I wanted a Morris as I’m not a huge fan of the square front on the Leyland models so that made my search a little more difficult. I eventually found one in the trading post advertised for $2000 out at Woodside. I went to have a look and had a chat with the owner. He claimed it had been sitting in a shed for 10 years and he’d bought it with the intention of fixing it up so that his kids could drive it, but they weren’t interested anymore. I took it for a test drive. It started OK, I pulled out into an 80 zone and was on my way, except that I wasn’t entirely sure how fast 80 was in miles an hour, and everything seemed quite a bit quicker in the mini as opposed to the Peugeot 206 I’d driven to look at it in. I decided the 80 zone wasn’t the best option for a test drive and looked for a side street to turn into. I spotted one and put on the indicator… nothing. I began to slow down for the turn and as I turned the corner I got the fright of my life as a truck used its horn to full effect. Turns out it didn’t have brake lights either. Not a good start

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In the end it turned out to be a loose fuse and I ended up buying the car after some negotiations on price. It overheated on the way home of course. After I’d flushed the radiator several times, I replaced it and then took it to Adrian at Morris Mania where he discovered the water pump was leaking under pressure. He sold me a new water pump and I haven’t had any overheating problems since. I’ve had other problems, but that’s all par for the course when you drive a Mini regularly.

The 998 engine has left me wanting some more power and so my journey along the Mini path has now forked. I found a 1980’s MG Metro engine and purchased that to put in my car. I thought while the engine was out it might be a good time to get a respray. Thinking it would take a month or two to get done, I decided I didn’t want to be without a car for that long, so I bought another ’68 Deluxe and decided to put the new engine in that. Good thing too. I sent the shell off for some body work and paint in May last year, and it isn’t finished yet. Once it’s done, the new engine will go in with a supercharger courtesy of Ben Afford and rubber suspension to replace the hydrolastic. I’m looking forward to getting the car back; it’s been a long time in the making.

When I’m not Mini’ing, I can usually be found with a camera in hand. In fact, even when I am Mini’ing, I’ve still got a camera in my hand. A lot of the photos which appeared in last year’s magazines were taken by me. I maintain a web site at motorkhana-sa.com to support the motorkhana scene in South Australia and I also have a site at rtaphoto.com to display my photos. Recently I was at the Classic Adelaide taking photos of the Minis for the new Australian Mini magazine, “The Mini Experience”. You should be able to see the results in the next issue!

Richard Appleby - Feb 2006