THE MILE MUNCHER

摘要

How deep is your Mini commitment? It's a difficult thing to quantify. When did you get your first Mini? How many Minis have you owned? Simon Whyatt bought his first Mini in 1993, a brown 998cc City, when he was 16 and too young to drive in the UK. "I maintained it, rebuilt it and repainted it after I had rolled it and then changed its engine from a 1000 to a 1300. I owned it for about five years and then sold it to buy another Mini." Not a bad start and it left him well-educated in Mini science. Since then he's had around 30 Minis, including a Clubman Estate with a 2-litre Vauxhall twin-cam engine. In his life outside Minis he became a hotel maintenance engineer, got married to Carrie and has two children. That certainly explains why his wife has a Vauxhall Zafira and we know just how delighted she was when he went in search of yet another Mini in September 2009. "On good days, she loves it. When it needs a lot of money she cries a lot."