1999 Mini Cooper 1275cc | Projects

1999 Mini Cooper 1275cc

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The Project

This 1999 Mini Cooper 1275cc arrived into our workshop in May 2022. Initially this was for a new right-hand door and sills to be replaced due to corrosion, along with a respray to the repaired areas.

Updates

31^st May 2022 – Front wings were found to have corrosion after further inspection of the bodywork, so both are going to be replaced/resprayed as they cannot be repaired.

21^st June 2022 – Sills and front wings replaced and prepared for paintwork.

28^th July 2022 – Sills and doors all replaced/repaired, fully resprayed and ready to go back to owner.

> More updates to follow.

History

Under the bonnet sits a 62bhp 1275cc inline-four, coupled with four-speed manual transmission.

This LE model is one of 301 cars produced to commemorate both 40 years of Mini and the 40th anniversary of the 1959 Brabham/Cooper Formula One World Championship win.

No matter the age of your Mini, as even the newest Minis are now in their 20s and the oldest models now in to their 60s, the chances are that you will have encountered rust at some point in your ownership.

Reddish/brown in colour, rust is an iron oxide that is caused when iron reacts with water & oxygen. Leading to corrosion, rust can eat away at your Mini – leaving you with flaky, or in extreme cases holey, metal!

Generally when dealing with a Classic Mini, there are three types of rust to aware of – surface rust, scale rust & penetrating rust.

Surface rust, works its way from the outside of your Mini inwards. Caused by the combination of paintwork wearing/chipping away, teamed with the environmental conditions that your Mini is in daily. For example, if you live somewhere particularly wet/humid, or in Winter with grit on the roads, & the bare metal is exposed to the moisture.

Surface rust is in no way a death sentence for your Mini, however – the sooner you deal with it, the less of an issue it will be. If you ignore this issue… It will develop into a much larger problem as rust spreads! Sanding off this rust, using an anti-rust treatment & repainting the area can prevent further rust.

Scale rust can occur when the surface rust has been left for too long, this can cause corrosion of the metal on your body panels. Salt on the roads is also a big factor in speeding up the development of this rust & can also affect the integrity of your Mini’s body work.

Sand blasting this rust, using an anti-rust treatment & repainting the area can prevent further rust.

Penetrating rust can occur when surface & scale rust has been left without treatment. Penetration rust also works its way outwards, from the inside of your panels. The key telltale of this rust, is any blistering, bubbling or loose flakes in the paintwork of your Mini.

Unfortunately, penetrating rust is the greater of the three evils & it’s also much more common. Often requiring the affected area cutting out & replacing with a new panel (or partial panel as it may be).

Friendly, helpful, extremely knowledgeable, patient enough to explain the processes and reasons for doing things and highlighted even more how approachable the team are. They tried to accommodate our needs and requests to get our beloved old riley back on the road as soon as possible despite the ups and downs that were thrown our way and into the teams path! We could not have wished to deal with a more personable company after encountering some other teams that really made a botch of stuff, seemed uncommitted and were not professional at all. Carrosserie as a team were totally the opposite . . would we recommend them ? ABSOLUTELY !!! We would not go anywhere else now, THANK YOU TO Steve, Neil, Graham and Nicola . . Oh and Karen who spilled the beans about the the birthday surprised to my partner (whose car it is ) . but made the experience all the more special when a bottle of wine was presented as well as a treat to Simon for his birthday AND made it all the more worth dealing with the team ! THANK YOU AGAIN !!!

My car was the subject of some body and paint repairs here in Spring 2024, to address corrosion plus some substandard paintwork. An annual service was also carried out. There was good responsive communications, advice, and attention to detail throughout, to ensure a high quality, durable result, with the final paintwork being indistinguishable from factory finish, and easily better than any franchised dealership repairs. If you are invested in your classic car, want to make it last, with an exemplary finish to be proud of, then you need look no further.

I can't recommend Carrosserie highly enough, the service was exemplary from start to finish and the workmanship is second to none. I highly recommend giving the team a call for any work you need doing to your classic car, no matter what it is, you will not be disappointed!