Mini 850

One summer, between 1st and 2nd year at uni I had a job at Granada Motorway Services which was a motorway restaurant situated where the M62 and A1 intersected. They were long days and those sorts of jobs made me realise I didn't want to work in catering. With the money I saved that summer I bought my first car which was a Mini 850. It didn't go very fast up hills and it was very yellow. My friend at university called it the Turbo Lemon. It had the speedometer in the middle of a shelf, and unlike the Mini 1000 had no air vents, temperature gauge or oil pressure gauge. I really loved it though. It was my car.

It had a sad ending when, me knowing nothing about cars back then, broke down and asked a friend to tow me. Minis had no towing point so I just tied it around the bit between the lights. When my friend began to pull most of the car stayed where it was, all except the front which was pulled off. Stupid me. I could have had it repaired if I had the money but instead it rusted for a few months and then got taken away by the scrap man. He gave me a fiver for it.

Anyway, Spike Milligan also had a yellow Mini 850 (yes an 850!) and Corgi made this model of it. I've had my eye on one and when I saw it at half price I just had to buy it. The question now is do I take it out of the box and where do I put it?