Ivor newish car!!!

Well then, some of you might know me from my thread about my obsession with Fords and Focuseseses in particular, https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
A lot of you will either, a) not know me at all, b) not care in the slightest, or 3) be just a teensy weensy bit interested in my newish car.

So then, after owning mostly Fords for the past 30 years, I had a mildly modified Ford Focus estate, see other thread, which I'd had a lot of fun with, but had arrived at a point where I either continued spending money on it, or, tried something different.......

Well I did try something different, very, very different, a 5.0L n/a Jaguar XF Premium Luxury, which went like a scalded cat, sounded absolutely epic and was indeed a very luxurious place to be, what it didn't do was inspire confidence in its handling, which it appears is quite important to me!!!

I looked at Fiat Abarth 595's, yet more Focuseseses in the form of ST estates, very expensive, and even a Skoda Octavia VRS estate, again expensive unless you accept high mileage, then I went left field, really left field.........

And this happened yesterday lunchtime......


*Adopts best announcers voice, In the blue corner we have Rio the Rioja blue racing slug.......in the white corner we have, Ivor the Mini Cooper S Clubman....no scratching, no gouging, no punching below the wheel line, I want a good clean fight......

And so for your delectation/ridicule/adoration/pity I give you my newish car......IVOR, the ivory white Mini Cooper S Clubman, he is a 14 plate, had just 57k when I picked him up yesterday lunchtime, full service history, one owner, huge spec including, sat nav/media centre/Bluetooth/DAB stereo, twin electric pano sunroofs, heated screen, cruise, reverse parking sensors, JCW bodykit/wheels/steering wheel, half leather with heated seats, auto headlights/bi-xenon, black pack interior, and I believe the sports handling pack!!!

I've never owned a Mini, in fact I swore I'd never own a BMW, but here we are, I am absolutely smitten with the little car!!!
Some pics from the listing.





So what do you do when you pick up your newish car???
That's right, you fill it full of luggage and drive it from Southampton to Lostwithiel for your holiday the day after you get it!!!
Journey down was actually quite pleasant, yes it is stiffly sprung, but it's actually pretty comfortable on a journey, cruise is a god send, and the sat nav works well and is quite funky looking in the middle of the Speedo!!!

So what are my plans?
Well if you've read the other thread then you already know I have form for playing with my car's..... and this one is going to be no different!!!

First things first, he is really nice, but , he's not perfect, so I will be putting him into a specialist Mini place and having a bumper to bumper check done, if that doesn't throw up any issues, it will, it's a Mini, and I already think the clutch/DMF isn't great, then I will be putting him into a body shop to have a few bits rectified, then, the fun may begin.........

As a serial car fixer, I bow to your superior knowledge!!

Cheers Eyersey, everything still good with your Focus?

Yeah it's fine thanks, simply been nothing to report hence no update recently

Looking good! Always preferred these to the normal hatch back variant, and yours looks great in that spec. Enjoy

Ivor looks great.

Mrs Tidy bought a Mini One in 2003 and replaced it with an R56 Cooper in 2006 that she still has.

I used to love borrowing them as they handled brilliantly!

Yes, BMW Minis are amazingly good to drive!

Like it! Done quite a few miles in Mini's and they are very fun.. I'd have a Clubman like that too!

Ivory White?

Nice little car.