Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

I made the mistake of thinking that if I got a "refurbed" 1993 Mini, it would be totally reliable. Make no mistake, it's still a near enough 60 year old design. Shit will happen when you least expect it, the only way it won't is if you buy a completely restored car. They start at £20k+ because they really are like new cars.

Simple things like driving in the rain become cumbersome, frustrating activities due to classic ignition not liking the damp, and archaic windscreen wipers that require gravity to return to the "down" position.

Windscreens that freeze on the inside.

Heaters that provide heat everywhere you don't want, and nowhere that you do want.

Your carbs will need tuning every 6 months just to keep the engine running smoothly, not to mention the almost random fuel consumption, and the requirement for leaded additive unless the engine has been updated.

THINGS WILL BREAK. The parts are old, they're weak. You could do a 500 mile journey and nothing breaks, you could do a 2 mile journey and snap a wheel stud. Bushes, bearings, suspension components, everything.

It's easy to think your love for the car will overcome anything, but when it's 22:00, you're on your way back from Wales after a long weekend of mountain biking, you're tired, it's pissing it down with rain, and it conks out on the side of the M4, 100 miles from London, it's really easy to start rueing the day you ever bought a Mini.

I'll just butt in with the buying an old mini, remember it will have had lots of owners and those owners would have little clue of what they are doing. New cills welled over rusty sills, subframes welded to the body. Mini's rust, the days of blowing up your mini engine and going to a scrappy on a saturday and buying another cheap engine to replace it are long gone. They are fun little cars and I liked mine as they were cheap and kept me from walking. Was at the point I could replace a pair of cills an repair the inner cill and floor over a weekend. A respray from poo brown to red upped the value and the sellability.

Still prefered fiat 500, 600, 850 and 126's cos they had the engine in the back and were cheaper than the mini as MOT failures.