Update by Tim Suddard to the
Austin Mini Cooper S project car
Jun 3, 2013
Heritage Garage is a Mini enthusiast’s dream come true. They service and restore a whole bunch of Minis, including the very original 1275 S on the lift in the background.
We studied and photographed this 1275cc Cooper S very carefully to see how our car should turn out. Ours should look very much like this when it is done.
The shop's owner, Graham Reid, showed us his newest project Cooper.
On one of our recent trips to Southern California, we made it a point to stop at Heritage Garage in Costa Mesa. Graham Reid, the owner, has built one heck of a business restoring and servicing Minis as well as selling new and used Mini parts. Heritage Garage has been operating for many, many years.
We got to look over and photograph a couple of real Cooper S cars on our tour. That taught us a lot. As we mentioned a previous update, we sourced a used driver’s door from Heritage Garage. We also picked up the throttle support and air cleaner mounting plate for a 1275 Cooper S.
Another cool item that Heritage Garage makes is the correct speedometer gear for when you convert your final drive from the original 3.44:1 to our more highway-friendly 3.10:1 final drive.
All in all it was a very enjoyable visit. We got some of the parts we needed and learned a lot more about early Minis.
| It was an itsy bitsy, teeny-weeny rally-winning project Mini. Subscribe to Classic Motorsports and get them in your mailbox. |
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