- We're in LA.
So I figured stop by my friend Tim Considine's house.
Tim spent much of his life as an actor
in the Mickey Mouse Club.
He was Spin on Spin and Marty.
He was Mike on My Three Sons
and one of his last movie scenes was
in the movie Patton about general George Patton.
And he was a soldier that Patton smashed across the face.
Slapped him.
(yelling)
Tim's a car guy.
He writes books and does magazine stories about cars
and automotive history.
And he's got an interesting car sitting next
to his house we're going to go check out.
(upbeat music)
(laughing)
- [Tom] How you be pal?
- How are you?
- I'm good.
I'm old and decrepit but I'm good.
I told them that already.
All right here's how far and here's how close Tim and I are.
- Oh, this is a good story.
(laughing)
- I took a group of journalists
to the 24 hours of Le Mans once for Mercedes Benz
and maybe there was eight or 10 journalists
and two PR people, myself and somebody else.
Steve Potter.
When you go to Le Mans, you have to stay in people's homes.
There's not enough hotel rooms for the 24 hour weekend.
So you rent bedrooms in that house and bedrooms
in that house and bedrooms in that house.
So Tim and I were in two bedrooms in somebody's house
- Right.
- And we landed in Paris and we landed in Le Mans
or take the train Le Mans.
Well, his baggage never arrived.
- Never, they told me every day.
Oh tomorrow Monsieur, oh tomorrow.
Never did get it.
- So we're there at Le Mans.
One day, two days, three days, on the fourth morning
(knocking sounds)
early in the morning, he comes to my door,
"Tom, could I borrow a pair of underwear"?
I loan him a pair of underwear.
- I had nothing.
I had nothing.
- Five days, six days.
(knocking sounds)
His luggage still hadn't arrived.
"Tom, could I borrow another pair of underwear"?
(laughing)
- And I used to call him after that.
And I'd say, "Tom, I'm feeling very close to you today".
Cause I was wearing a pair of the underwear that he gave me.
(laughing)
- [Tom] Tell me why you chose a Mini Cooper
when you've had all these other cars.
- Well, this is one I thought I could drive
on the street and not cause too much attention.
I was wrong, actually.
This caused a lot of attention.
- [Tom] No kidding.
What'd you pay for it new?
- Under $3,000.
Probably 2,700.
- Yeah, isn't that nice, wow.
And what?
60?
- 60.
Well, it's a 68 but you couldn't have a 68.
So they backdated it and said it was a 67
but it's a 1275 Mini Cooper S
and I'm told it's the oldest singly owned 1275 mini S
in the country.
- Oh, is that right?
- I'm told that, yeah.
And I've now had it for 50 years.
- All right, so I remember this was once a barn find.
Tell me the story about you putting this in for service
and forgetting about.
- Oh, well I lost it for five years.
I was going into Beverly Hills
and very slowly behind a Porsche.
It was the years that Porsche's had those big bumpers.
The rubber things that came out-
- Mid 70's.
- because of regulations.
You had to have collision thing.
And that's the way they did it.
It's stuck these big rubber things out.
And we were both coming to a stop at Santa Monica Boulevard.
I'm right behind him.
And I thought, Oh, there's a parking place right there.
And then I felt a little, like that.
And I had not quite stopped.
I thought I had stopped.
- Oh.
- And so I just bumped a little bit.
Well, bumping a little bit
with this grill is like aluminum foil, you know?
So they go that went in and I cracked the distributor cap
and a friend of mine had to come
with a new distributor cap and put that together.
Put it back in my house and thought, dang.
And I happened to be leaving town
a few days later leaving the country, actually.
A couple of days later I came down and drove it.
And the gauge went like that.
Oil pressure gauge.
- [Tom] Oh!
- Oh my gosh, what?
Well the oil radiators in the front too.
And I punctured that and I didn't know that.
And so I had to go through the engine.
Well I couldn't do it before I left.
And my godson actually said, "listen, I'll get it to it.
I'll get it there".
And I said, "Well, I don't have any way to get there.
I don't have a trailer or anything".
He said, "Don't worry about it.
I'll take it to this guy I know.
He's very good.
And he'll wait until you get back".
I came back, talked to the guy several times
never went to see the car but the insurance was hassling me.
And so it was a while and I really didn't have the money
to do it straight out.
So I said, please wait and so on.
And then I lost his phone number
and he apparently lost my phone number.
So I called my godson's family
and they said, "he's not here".
Well where is he?
And he said, "well, he's gone off.
And I don't know when he's coming back".
What do you mean?
In fact, the poor guy was an addict
and he had been busted and he went to jail.
And so this car sat in his garage at the back of his garage.
He had a junkyard dog that protected his place.
So he took the door off and the junkyard dog lived
in the back seat.
It didn't hurt it.
So five years later, my godson called me up
and said, "I'm out and so on and so forth.
I'm so sorry, but don't you want your car"?
I said, "Yes. I want my car, where is it?
And so we got it back
- Now, do you drive this now?
- [Tim] Oh yeah.
- [Tom] Like right-
- [Tim] I'm going to drive it this afternoon.
- [Tom] Are you?
- [Tim] Sure.
- All right, so just to prove
that this little car that's 10 feet long
has a passenger compartment
of eight feet can swallow up a six foot two guy.
- [Tim] You have to drive it like a go cart.
Knees splayed out.
(laughing)
- So, you're sure this thing fires up, huh?
- [Tim] Yup, here, pull the choke out, all the way out.
- Yep, yep.
- [Tim] Pump it a couple of times.
It will start either the first time or the second time.
If it doesn't start the second time.
There's something wrong.
- What are you kidding me.
- [Tim] 50 years old.
- What are you kidding me?
- [Tim] Now push the clutch in, I mean the clutch
the choke in, well, you pulled it out a little bit.
- Yeah.
- [Tim] Yeah.
- Wow, is that sweet.
- [Tim] It's always been that way.
If it took more than two pumps to get it, forget about it.
Something's wrong.
- Wow.
Yeah. I'd love to.
Can I take it for a ride ride a block?
- [Tim] Certainly.
- Oh, I'd love to.
(upbeat music)
- Can you believe how quickly that starts?
All right if we're not back at a week.
(laughing)
(engine revving)
What an amazing little car
If I was in it by myself.
And it was my car, not his car,
I would go rip it around this thing
with a big smile on my face.
Just so cool.
84,447 miles.
So, this is not really a barn find as you've seen
on all these episodes of Barn Find Hunter
but it's interesting car.
I went by a friend that I thought you would enjoy seeing.
And maybe now you see a Mini Cooper somewhere.
You'll pay more attention to it because they are a blast
to drive.