I THINK I’m going to like my new commute  —  156 miles on a quarter of a tank is going to save us some money, and with 359 mortgage payments left we sure […]

“HEY,” I thought as I sat in traffic on the 710/10 slip road (transition to you Yanks), “that doesn’t look good”. And indeed it wasn’t. For some reason my Mini was overheating to the point of recreating the Chernobyl explosion and I was on the verge of running out of petrol. Double bugger! So I did what any red-blooded male would do: I pulled off the road and called Ev, who told me to ring my mechanic, who told me to get the Mini towed. One call to Triple-A later I was sitting on the side of the road for over […]

SO THAT’S 402 miles on one tank, and there’s probably enough left to get up to 420. […]

AND not a minute too soon, as the current one (also a Mini hat) is in a state best described as “manky”. Anyway, this one commemorates Paddy Hopkirk’s win at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in the No37 Mini (33 EJB to us anoraks fans).

In case you’re wondering what it would be like to drive a 10ft long, 100hp car at high speed over a twisting course, here’s Paddy Hopkirk taking a slightly more modern Mini for a spin in the 1994 rally as featured on Top Gear:

SO THAT’S 265 miles on just over half a tank. Another reason why […]