Maggi - 1988 White & Pink 998cc Auto Mini Shorty

[Holly]

"The History of Maggi"

The story of "Maggi" starts of many years ago at my very 1st mini show which was stanford hall 1998. That was the very 1st time that I had ever seen a mini shorty, which actually was this one ...



I couldn't get over how adorably cute the mini shorty was and from that moment on I wanted to have one of my own. 8 years later in August of 2006 and I still wanted my very own shorty but hadn't quite found one that suite me well enough to spur me on to buy one. Things were about to change however largely thanks to the the Pink Mini Register and "Minki" my pink pjoject mini. I was just browsing around ebay as you do looking for pink mini related stuff that may be of interest for the club or for my project when I came accross a listing for a pink and white shorty ...



I fell in love with her at fist sight, however I never believed that I would actually be allowed to buy her myself so instead I posted info about her in the for sale section on the pink mini regsiter to see if any of the people on there would be interested, but at the same time making it very clear that I really wanted her and had always wanted my very own shorty. This is where my good friend Gem steps in and decided to photoshop a quick piccy of me inside the shorty and emails it back to me, this is what it looked like ....




after seeing that piccy that was it I just had to have her . A few emails to the seller later a deal was struck the listing removed from ebay and Michael and I were arranging to go and collect her the following monday . I should probably point out at this point that I had already decided to call her "Maggi" even before the deal had been finalised ;D .


It took us around 5 hours to drive down to Weston-Super-Mare to collect "Maggi" and after getting stuck in over an hour of traffic coming through bath with 4 people crammed in a mini for that long we were just plesaed to all get out and stretch our legs when we stopped :lol: . We knew when we were getting close to the address we was looking for as woutside stood little "Maggi" waiting for us. After a quick look around and Michael took a test drive (the only time I have let him drive her by the way ;D ), the papers were all signed money handed over and Maggi was all mine ...







We were very lucky that the rain held off for the journey home, which look even longer than the journey down due to the fact we took back roads as we didn't want to take an unfamiliar car on a motorway for that length of time. But amazingly she made the 170 mile journey home without an problems .

Finally I had my very own shorty ;D

[Holly]

"Maggi Upgrades 2006"

The following is a list of all the improvements and modifications that I made to Maggi within the 1st couple of months of owning her ...

Getting the roof to fit again, plus sewing in new rear window ...


Recovering the seats and doorcards ...




Colour coding and interior detailing ...




Pink numberplate surrounds, aerial, and wiper detailing etc ...



New windscreen fillet strip ...


Sorting rust around headlights ...



Making new fabric windows ...


New alloy wheels & pink joining strip between arches ...


Pink toolkit, cushions, & Pink emergency kit (including map, brolly, gloves, torch, sunglasses, rainmack & icescraper) ...

[Holly]

"Maggi's 2007 Upgrades"

30th January 2007

"Maggi's Pink Sat Nav"

Check out Maggi's new Pink Sat Nav system , it did a great job of getting us to stafford and back and I can't wait to try it out again



(I hope Maggi will be willing to shave it with Minki when she finally gets finished and on the road :lol: )






5th February 2007

At the stafford mini show a week ago I bought a litte prezzie for Maggi which is a new set of crystal real lenses

Here is what her rear lights looked like before ....


and here is the after piccy, nice huh ....


I like them sooooo much that I'm thinking of buying a set for Min too ;D






18th February 2007

Bought a new exhaust trim for Maggi the other week and finally got it fitted today .

Heres the before piccys ...




and here's the after piccys (it was getting kind of dark by the time we finished so will be able to get some better piccys at another point ) ...








3rd March 2007

Maggi front end mods ...

Been doing a few mods to Maggi's front end today, 1st things 1st and we remove the grill ....




Next thing was to remove the grill strip from the bonnet ...




Then out comes the angle grinder ...





Oooh thats looking much better ....




Now onto the bodywork ...




The grill actually started out a a rusty old chrome jobby that was from an old woody that we have had kicking around the garage for years, was in a bit of a state when we started but I didn't get any piccys of that . But anyway with a bit of effort etc we manage to smooth it off and get it all pinked up ...




We didn't let a torrential downpour part way through stop us either ...




Ooooooooh now that looks the business ...




Heres a quick reminder of what her front end was like before ....





And heres what its like after .....








10th March 2007

What do you get if you mix red, white, and blue ? ....


Maggi Pink of course ;D ....




I was mixing up a hammerite corlour for a few bits that need to be done on Maggi, luckily I had the old grill handy to match the colour too ...




There was just enough time to get one coat on her new minifin drums that I got for xmas before it got dark (below is the half and half test ;D ), hopefully we will get them finished painted tomorrow and then I'll be one step closer to being ready for her brakes overhaul ...








16th March 2007

wooo had a package arrive earlier in the week with some plastic inner front wheel arch liners in for Maggi ....




yay that will help protect the front end of Maggi from the rust bug , just gotta find the time to fit them now

I also bought a set for Minki aswell which will protect all the new panels I put on her front end last year ;D






9th April 2007

New Mirrors & Numberplates

I decided a few weeks ago that I hated the standard square plastic type door mirrors that Maggi had, so I pinched the ones that I had lined up for Minki (my still unfinished project mini) :lol: . We got them sprayed up pink the other week and on friday we finally found the time to put the new ones on, this is what they look like ...




At the stoneleigh mini show yesterday I also bought a new set of numberplates for Maggi ...




As you can see I even managed to get the exact lipstick design down the side of then that are on Maggi's sides and bootlid ....




Here are a few more piccys of her with her new bits ....





Maggi Sunset Photos

We went out for a nice hour and a half drive in Maggi this evening , there was excellent sunlight that made Maggi look all golden ...




Followed by a superb sunset ...








11th April 2007

Maggi's New Boot Boards

One of my purchases from stoneleigh on sunday was a boot board kit for Maggi. This is what her boot used to look like ....


And here are all the bits of the new kit, was dead impressed to find one at the show in pink ;D ....


Things never seem to work out quite as easy as you hope however and it did take a bit of modifying etc to get it to fit ...



All the effort was worth it in the end though as I think it came out looking excellent ...


There was still lots of room inside for all Maggi's pink bits n pieces too ...







14th April 2007

Maggi's new foglights

Believe it or not these rusty lights that look like they'd belong on the titanic used to belong to min, at one time when I bought them they were actually chrome however this has since all flaked off . I did think of a good use for them mind ....


After a bit of rubbing down and tidying up they were in a perfect condition for spraying, so out came the Maggi pink ...


I'm afraid I forgot to get a close up piccy off them on the car as I was soooo keen to get out and drive her in the lovely weather that was much like the middle of summer that we had today. But anyway heres what they look like on the front (they still need to be wired up yet though ) ...


And here is the one on the back (this one has been wired up ;D ) ...







21st April 2007

Maggi Brakes Upgrade

You may remember a while ago that we painted up Maggi's minifin drum brakes, we we finally got round to actually fitting them today.

Here is what they looked like before ...


Here are the new pink minifins fitted ...


And heres what they look like through the wheels ...




Next on the agenda was the front discs, here is what they looked like to start with ...


Luckily the passenger side one was easy however the drives side caliper had seized virtually solid so we found one of minki's old ones in the garage and used that to replace it ...


We now swapped over the old rusty discs for some nice new drilled and grooved ones and painted up the calipers in maggi hammerite ...


Now all thats left to do is fit the new Greenstuff pads ...


And heres what the discs and calipers look like through the wheels ...




Whilst we were at it we also decided to fit the plastic inner front wheel arch protectors too ...


So now her front panels will be a bit more protected and so hopefully won't rust through quite so quickly or easily






22nd April 2007

Maggi's New Steering Wheel

On Friday Maggi's new steering wheel arrived and today we finally had the time to put it in . Its a Momo Corse Fuschia Pink Leather one ...



We also finally wired up the front fogs, altough technically I'm not using them as fogs as we have wired them so they will come on with main beam which will be cool for when i flash other minis . We also finished installing and wiring up a power point for my satnav. And finally took her out for a nice long drive to help bed in the new brakes ...






2nd May 2007

Maggi's New Pink Carpet set

Maggi used to have a black carpet set and this is what it looked like in her interior ....


I decided that the old carpet was letting the interior down quite a bit and so when the new set finally arrived it was time to strip out the carpet and seats ....



then fit the nice thick underlay ...



Before finally fitting the new Maggi pink luxury velour carpet set that I had specially made for her ...


Everything goes back together again, and wow what a difference ;D ....





23rd May 2007

London to Brighton Preparations

Firstly we had to respray Maggi's side panels where the paint was so thin in places it looked grey where you could see the primer through it ...


Next was the job of fitting the new seats, so we needed to make some custom subframes to get them to fit over the rear bench section. It took a couple of goes but we got it right in the end and they look really nice ....









2nd August 2007

Repairing the wing

We had to sort out the cracked sunken bit of filler on Maggi's drivers side wing, where a dent had been filled, but it was starting to go really manky.




At the same time we replaced the pink coachlines down both her sides with a slightly fatter one. She looked great on my birthday when I took her out for a bit of a spin ...





6th August 2007

More Pink detailing

More pink detailing done round front indicators and rear lights ....



Shorty Sized Picnic Basket

Maggi now has her very own Shorty sized pink and white picnic basket ....





18th September 2007

More rear badges

Maggi gets a custom painted pink and white Mini badge for her bootlid, plus a pink roadster badge too ...

[Holly]

"Starting to tidy Maggi's engine" 2009

One area of Maggi that I really haven't touched since I have had her has been her engine bay, so I thought it was about time to make a start ...


So I bought a set of pink hose coverings off ebay, plus we painted up this manky old MG Metro rocker cover white ...


Granted it still need a LOT of work, plus I'll have to paint that ugly bulkhead proper maggi white, plus the Maggi pink hammerite will come in handy for the head and block later on, but at least its a start ...


Plus I have also got a new stereo for her interior and it even has pink button surrounds ;D ....


Finally got round to fitting it a few months later, so a little more pinkness added to her interior ....

[Holly]

"Maggi" - Flower Powered Makeover 2008

After looking at Maggi long and hard I decided that it was time for some changes. I realised that what she really needed was a mini makeover that toned down the exterior of the car but that would still maintain her funky cuteness. So I came up with a plan of what I wanted to do and heres what happened

First things first, the lips were gonna have to go, they just weren't me in any way and to be honest they did give an almost tarty look to her which is not at all what this makeover was about ..... so off they all came ...


Next we removed the white vinyl covered parcel shelf board, it had really gotten quite grubby where all the exhaust fumes come up the back so I decided it was best to recover it in pink as that wouldn't show the dirt up half as badly ...


I decided I wanted a slightly more classic, classy retro look to her so I took off the pink zeemax style mirrors and bought some nice new chrome bullet mirrors (plus they actually have better vision from them than the previous ones which has to be a good thing) ...


I also added more support bars to the collapsable roof which holds the vinyl much squarer and flatter and should hopefully help to stop it flapping and hitting me on the head when driving along. I haven't tested this yet but with all the bad weather we had over the last few weeks i thought it might be handy for stanford but luckily I didn't need it ....



I realised that I was going to need a whole new bonnet as the one that was on her was sooo rusty at the front end part of it were only being held together by the paint . Whilst we had the bonnet off we decide to have a quick go at a couple of bit in the engine bay. We painted up the bulkheads white (they were still in the original blue colour of the car), plus also painted a couple of the plastic parts in the engine bay with pink plasticote paint. I added some flower stickers to the rocker cover and gave the hea d quick coat of pink hammerite and finally added the pink HT leads that I had got for xmas a few years ago. Theres still lots more work to be done on it but it is gradually coming along and certainly looks loads better than when I originally got her ...





having decided that I was going to go with a flower theme for Maggi I found that I couldn't always find the exactly right items to go with her, so I custom painted the new bonnet badge and tax disc holder ...


Anyway back to the bonnet, we had a dig around in the garage roof and found out Minki's old one, now although it looks a bit of a mess in the piccy it was just dirt, the bonnet is actually very solid. So we got to work grinding off the front lip to make it a mk1 style and mashed up and painted both the inside and outside (the old bonnet was only painted on the outside, the inside was still the original blue of the car). In case you are wondering what the triangle shaped bits are on the inside of the bonnet, they are sound proofing. I also got some new arches that are nice and smooth, they look wood and picket style but are actually and old set of stainless arches that we rubbed down and painted white. Anyway, with a bit of work the bonnet was painted and polished and some new two tone pink flower stickers were added ...




Next was the wheels, I realised that minilights are actually quite flower shaped so I decided to paint them up in two tone pink to match the stickers etc. So the spokes were painted pale pink to look like petals using the pale pink hammerite that I mixed for one of my other minis and then the centres of the wheels were painted hot pink ...



It was now time to add the rest of the flower sticker all over the car including the Flower Powered sticker that I had specially made up for the boot ...


And finally we have the grill, with the new look the plain pink grill just wasn't going to work so we rubbed it down sprayed it white and spent many hours hand painting a flower design all over it the matches the stickers on the car. Its quite subtle but seems to work really well ...


here is what she looks like now ;D ...

[Holly]

"Not Much Changes in 2009"

I bought a new badge for Maggi at the IMM/Mini 50 show earlier this year from one of the foreign autojumblers, its a MiniMatic badge as used on the Italian Innocenti automatic Minis. I was originally gonna put it on the bootlid but decided that it looked rather cool and a bit different on the bonnet, plus I am proud of the fact that my ickle Maggi is an Auto ;D ...

[Holly]

Radio Controlled 1/10th scale "Maggi" Junior

I purchased this radio controlled mini shorty from ebay ...


It does actually work, but when it arrived it was looking a little scruffy from having been raced. Anyway obviously I decided that I wanted it to look like my ickle maggi however at the time I was too busy with other things to get round to doing it, so i only managed to get as far as removing the outer stickers ...


With Maggi's new look coming together so well I decided it was time to get on and do it so the night before stanford hall i was up until all hours getting it painted up as best I can. Anyway she's not totally perfect but you get the idea and looks great with the real car too ;D ...

[Holly]

"Maggi" - First Trophy 2009

I was dead impressed when Maggi came 2nd in the Custom & Modified Class in the Norfolk Show 'N' Shine earlier this year ;D (Minki, one of my other Minis, was in the same class and came 3rd hehehe )

[Holly]

you can find more up to date info on Maggi (and my other Minis) on my Facebook page here ...

www.facebook.com/pages/Hollys-Minis/72224951728?ref=nf

[Admin/Founder 2]

Maggi is Fabb and soo adorable
I have to admit though i like pink i like to hide my pink under a bushel

I tell you what i really like though all the fur
When i was little it was the done thing to brighten your cars interior with Fur ;D

I remember cusomised cars being like the inside of Santas Grotto,soo warm n Cozey and lots of Fun ;D

Id love to do a 70,s themed Mini bight funky lime green or orange,rhostyle wheels,silly huge antenna,mudflaps and mirrors galore

Only thing is i get static shocks from fur
It would be just like driving around in a Gaint car sized Opperation Game Bzzzzzzzzzzz

LOL ;D

Huggz
Jodie

[Holly]

hehehe dont worry its not really fur, almost a stringy type fabric so no getting static shocks off it hehehe

[projectminichris]

wow! im impressed, even being male (pink isnt my favourite colour) i am really outstanded by the quality of her
fabulous car!

[Holly]

cheers mate ... I have put a lot of work into her over the past few years so its nice to know that the effort is recognised, even if Pink isn't to most peoples taste

[andysauto]

Blimey!!!!!

I love shorties but i am a blokes bloke and that is one outrageous shorty. And i kinda like it!!! Great set of images and well done for all the hard work.

[Holly]

thanks, its great to hear things like that especially from people who obviously find the car not their cup of tea but can still appreciate the work that we have put into her

[Holly]

Yay looks like Maggi was noticed at Mini In The Park last year, piccys from the ModifiedCars.com website ....

[Holly]

Maggi says "is it time to come out yet ?" ;D

[Holly]

Its almost time for Maggi to come out, but first off we need ed to give her a little service and checking over ...


It was about time she had an oil change, we couldn't get any of our usual oil but a friend of ours recommended this Classic stuff and as it has a mini on the tin too how could we not give it a go ;D ...


and a nice new auto oil filter ...


Mmmmm nice new oil ....


we had a little petrol problem with the carb float chamber but managed to get it sorted ...


next up a tweak of the suspension ...


she had been a little tail happy since we put the hi- lows on last year so we decided to lower them a little to see if that would help ...


finally fitted the new mudfapls we bought for her, now she is ready for her first run of the year ...

[Holly]

Maggi out and about this evening, on her 1st run out of 2010 ...

[Holly]

video clip of Maggi going off for a little drive ...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mrd9sjLICc

[Holly]

A Maggi's eye view of driving through the countryside ...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=04NVLQVY9mU

[Holly]

Maggi has had a little clean and is all ready for the H2H Run tomorrow ... fingers crossed for the weather ...

[Holly]

Maggi's H2H Run 2010 Adventure

Plaque all fixed on the grill first thing ...


Maggi helping me get ready to hand out all the run packs to the H2H entrants ...


Maggi & I get photographed for the Cambridge Evening News :hyper: ...


All ready to start the run ...


driving through the fenland countryside in Maggi ..


Yes it did rain a bit, but I didn't let that put me off ...After a bit over 2 hours or so of the fenland country roads and winding lanes Maggi finally arrives at Hunstatnton leading the H2H convoy onto the green by the seafront ...


Its not long before the sun comes out and Maggi is all set up with sign board and donation bucket, ready to help raise some Charity money ...


She gets a good bit of attention from the general pubilc throughout the day ...


After a long day at the seaside its time to pack up and go home. Maggi's donation bucket had £79.19 to go toward to H2H Charity fund in it when we counted it all out .... Well done Maggi !

[niceboy1275]

Holly, you should be so proud of this car! she is beautiful! I showed pictures to my partner of Maggi and suggested maybe we could make my lil egg like it, he didn't think so... *crushed* so damn cute! I don't think there is a car out there that would get as many smiles per mile

[Holly]

Awww thanks

[Holly]

Some mini parts recycling has been going on within my fleet as Maggi has now inherited Mins bumpers with overriders & corner bars ...

[notamini]

Never heard of Hi-los here. The picture looks as if they go on the hydrolastics. Is this right?

[asahartz]

No, Hi-los are fitted with rubber cones. They are an adjustable replacement for the fixed suspension trumpet. Not really needed with hydro as you can adjust the ride height on them anyway, though with hi-los you can also adjust the front-rear balance (Minis handle best with the rear lifted a touch above the front).

[Holly]

May 29, 2010 8:57:49 GMT asahartz said:

(Minis handle best with the rear lifted a touch above the front).

however Shortys handle better with the rear lower than the front

[notamini]

Interesting concept! Thanks.
Wonder which is best for 1300's?

I have a friend here who owns a shorty. It has leather interior. He made a trailer from a rear subby and quarter panels but then used a whisky barrel turned sideways as a box. Quite stunning actually!