RAISING THE STANDARD

The Cooper Sport was great from the factory, but after restoring his, Paul Gershon couldn’t help but add a few extra special touches…

- Martyn Morgan-Jones

There is no doubting that the Classic Cooper Sport, with its raft of factory-fitted upgrades, was a very desirable variant when it left the production line. Desirable, although as with any Mini there was still plenty of scope for modifying and personalisation. The feature car, a late 1999 model, belonging to motor trader Paul Gershon who, with his son Troy, owns and runs Different Class Cars in South Woodford, is a perfect example of how to take the factory product and enhance it.

“I already owned a nice Mini which my son and I had used on one of the Italian Job runs, and which was used by the last owner on the 40th commemoration of the film in 2009,” reveals Paul. “It was in great condition and good to drive, but I started thinking about getting another Mini, one that I planned to have brought up to concours condition.”

“I started looking for a suitable car, and eventually found this Cooper Sport, which I purchased from its lady owner in 2015. It had been the dealer’s demonstrator. Although she’d owned it for approximately 16 years from new, it had only covered 29,000 miles which was a real bonus. The advert also stated that it was in excellent condition and that it had benefitted from a part restoration.

“It drove really well, but to be honest, although it certainly looked nice, on closer inspection the bodywork wasn’t quite as good as described. Nonetheless, I was very taken with this Cooper and ended up buying it. I then drove it all the way from Yorkshire to London. It didn’t miss a beat.”

FULL ON

Even though it didn’t miss a beat, Paul planned to upgrade the mechanicals a smidge, although the first thing on his to-do list was to have the Cooper stripped, repaired and rebuilt to better than new.