E-bay strikes again: '63 Mini Cooper (Pooh)

So as the story goes, in his quest to pick up his newly purchased Mini Cooper Clubman, Joe found a relatively inexpensive parts car with a lot of great, highly desirable parts on it.  With the help of his friend, Joe drove to Canada to pick up his new Clubman pride and joy and on the way back, a planned quick stop in Oregon to pick up his new parts car.  Well when they woke up in the morning they found something a little unexpected, but very helpful.  Luckily for Joe and friend, it had been a cold and wet night (January in Oregon go figure) the night before and the trailer had a very thin layer of ice on it.  So when they went to put the little parts car on the trailer and still have room for the the Clubman, the little parts car could easily be spun around and put in the position you see below.
According to the previous owner of the little parts car (Darren), the car got into a small accident on the track, and was parked in '78 until resurrected a few years ago.  This was done by the owner previous to Darren.  Joe bought the little parts car, for the Cooper S 7.5 inch disk brakes, the 2 1275cc engines, and the slew of other desirable parts, but when it came down to it, he just couldn't do it.  He couldn't part it.  While it was rusty, had a broken headlight, and needed some fiberglass attention, it was all there.  So he decided to let it go. 

We found the car on Ebay, while messing around and it was sitting at a really good price although early in the auction. (On the left and right are the pics from the auction.) It came with two engines, two tranny's and few other spare parts, but wasn't currently running. As the week went on, my girlfriend (Shelly) got more and more excited about the vehicle and the seller (Joe) kept adding more and more to the description as he learned it from people emailing him. One of the more desirable aspects of this particular car was its location. It was located in my home town which is where we were going that weekend to pick up yet another Single Wheel. On Thursday night, I noticed the seller had added a buy it now feature to the auction. Shelly was sick as a dog and sleeping when I first saw it.  I didn't want to wake her but we were going to buy this one together and so when she did wake up, in pounced on my chance.  "Honey, He put a buy it now on it for X dollars?"  "Well buy it." she said.   And there it was, even though she may not remember the next morning, it didn't matter, I had the go ahead.  As I went to type the email, to take advantage of the buy it now feature, our internet connection crashed.  AGHHHHH....NOOOO.  My face became all flushed, my blood pressure went up, and all I could imagine was that I had the go ahead and somebody else was emailing to buy the car.  This was bad.  After about half an hour of fiddling with the wireless router, the cable modem and both PCs, I had a connection.  I sent the email, asking the seller to call me any time day or night as we were leaving early the next morning to go get my new Single Wheel.  While I waited, I borrowed my neighbors 10ft by 5ft trailer to take up there and hall the little car home if the deal did close. I went to bed that night with a couple of worries.  Would the guy call?  and if he did, how coherent was Shelly at that point of her immortal words..."Well buy it"...?  Finally the next morning at around 5:30, my cell phone rang. "Hi this is Joe selling the Mini Cooper." and the deal was closed. We drove up to my parents place, picked up my new single wheel on Saturday, which barely fit into the bed of my truck, (It's a little larger than the photo's really showed) and on Sunday afternoon went to pick up our new Mini Cooper. No longer just a parts car, this little guy is going to be saved and put back on the road. When we pulled up to Joe's house, one of my major worries began to take shape. Although a tiny little car, he is sitting on 215 / 65-13's. Those are Huge. I handed Shelly the camera as I grabbed the tape measure. She snapped off a couple of pics and grabbed the other end of the tape. We measured the width of the car from tire edge to tire edge... 61 inches...Maybe we did that wrong... "Get it right on the edge of the tire" ...61 inches...OH Crap...1 inch. The trailer was 5 ft wide (60 inches). After the raw fear passed, the denial set in and we tried it anyway. Maybe we could wedge the car in between the rails and the tires would give a little here and a little there. Needless to say that wasn't working at all. Lucky for us, Joe is a good car guy who keeps some things laying around for that one "Just in case" kind of time like now. Joe recently replaced the original wheels on his clubman with new wheels, but he kept his old ones "Just in case". Well Joe was a really nice guy and let us borrow two of the wheels, and even helped us mount them and get the car on the trailer. After an excruciatingly long drive home, including 25 MPH up the grape vine, we made it home safe and sound. I slept really well that night. On the way home, the long - way -- home, we discussed our new Mini cooper and what we wanted to do with him. He is going to be restored to his former glory. His former racecar glory that is. The flared fenders, the padded dash, gauges, and switches. More than likely he won't see the track again, but rather tool around town and just be a good little car. At some point he will be equipped with some type of mounting for a single wheel trailer, but that goes with out saying doesn't it? On the way home, he also got it named. Because of his mean stance, and the extra wide fenders and tires, I thought it should be named something like "TAZ" (as in the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character), Shelly on the other hand, went a different way. Due to his coloration, and his current appearance, she dubbed him "Pooh". He's mostly yellow like "Winney the Pooh" and he currently really looks like crap or ...., or like pooh. The double meaning. Alright, Pooh it is. You can argue with the double meaning, but why bother, you can't win when it is that fitting. Thanks to Joe for all the help loading our Pooh onto the trailer and Thanks to Matt for letting Shelly and I borrow your trailer to hall our little Pooh home. Maybe "Pooh" isn't such a bad name after all.....

This is us loading it up on the trailer. The trailer was borrowed from my neighbor Matt Matthews of East County Cruisers, Thanks again Matt.

Towed it back to my parents for the night, woke up the next morning and started prepping for the Long drive home with our new toys. Shelly took this picture as we were doing about 35 up the Grape Vine at this point and she was BORED. Made it home safe and sound. Here's Pooh in his waiting until we can restore him.  These show more of the shape he is in.  Pretty rough, but we believe we can save him and get him back to what he once was if not better.