Thinking of importing mini's

I'm an English Guy living in Ontario near toronto (Canada). Basically I know mini's fairly well and so to does my dad. He's owned a few and worked on more. We have been toying with the idea of importing mini's and part from england, This would obviously be fairly easy for us having family and friends there. We want to import them filled with parts and then sell the cars and the parts. I know that mini spares and other specialist like them in England ship to the states and Canada but am just testing the water. Would there be enough interest for us to do this and not go Bankrupt! I have a few friends in England that will only drive mini's and used to help them with their cars! (they're not that small in England!) We know minis well so would have lot of tech knowledge to back us up!

First Time I drove a mini was my friends 1979 1275GT Clubman. In met blue with a sweet purple pearl! Had twin SU's LCB and centre exit exhst (which I made fall off doing drift circles!!) was over bored, had the head planed and was lightened with a rear roll-cage Sitting on team Dynamics 5.5X13s while I sat in a Cabra Bucket secured by a 3pt willans! I fell in love and tried to buy it off him! He wrote it off a little while later!!!!

I went around a r/about at about 75mph and although they gave a jarring ride loved the idea of the cone suspension.

So if you think I should go ahead with this it would be good to hear from some people!

Thanks!

Keep in mind that Canada has its laws about what is road legal, and what may need to be done to them to make them road legal. Take a look at a few minis that are already there in Canada. Notice anything different/ weird. Like the bumper is higher up around the grill, and the front indicators are higher up themselves. I think if anything, selling parts, new and used would be the way to go. There used to be a company called "Craigs Auto" that sold mini parts. They/He decided to stop selling parts retail, and to just rebuild engines. Just trying to save you a possible hassle with having to fabricate law abiding parts just to make your newly imported minis road legal.

John

Keep in mind that Canada has its laws about what is road legal, and what may need to be done to them to make them road legal. Take a look at a few minis that are already there in Canada. Notice anything different/ weird. Like the bumper is higher up around the grill, and the front indicators are higher up themselves. I think if anything, selling parts, new and used would be the way to go. There used to be a company called "Craigs Auto" that sold mini parts. They/He decided to stop selling parts retail, and to just rebuild engines. Just trying to save you a possible hassle with having to fabricate law abiding parts just to make your newly imported minis road legal.

John

I've seen a lot of mini's but very few modifications to them for Canadian Certification. We were talking to a guy that had an Innocenti here and he told us what he had to do, well more my dad I was too busy looking at the car! I didn't see too bad! But We were planning to fill the cars ( would only be a couple a year) with parts and then supplying parts to people over here so that they don't have to go to places like mini spares in England and pay all the fees for having them shipped to the states and Canada. We were also intending to buy them and keep them stored in England for a year as that way theire is no import duty as to them we are just importing our own car! But whether or not this happens is aways off yet. Might not be possilbe for many reasons. Thanks for the input!