We all remember our first car, no matter what it was, good or bad it was our first love in cars and for a lot of us, our first car we got to tweak and make our own. Though our new photographer, Stephen Golden has a bit of an un finished story with his first car. Stephen, a 20 year old student photographer from Dublin, Ireland will be covering some shows and events for us down south this year. He sent us over these pictures and write up of his first car, give it a read.

Imported from England in November 2010, my 1977 Leyland Mini Clubman came to me fully built with a 1275 engine bored out to a 1380, a 286 camshaft, 45 DCOE Weber, straight cut box, front mounted radiator and Cooper S brakes. It had an aggressive look with a patchy matte black finish, reclining bucket seats, roll cage and a custom dash and door cards. Not quite your normal first car, but definitely a great one.

After a few months of having it I set out re spraying the roll cage from red to white. I also took off the front spots, sticker bombed the middle panel of the dash and took out the carpets and painted the floor in a glossy black finish.

Through the next year as my daily, it went through three head gaskets, a new head and a couple re attachments of the exhaust. After going through so many head gaskets I thought something was up, so Paul Hickey from Hickey Race Engineering (HRE), took a look at it and found a crack in the block. He took the engine out to replace the block, and while we where there we swapped out the 45 Weber for twin SU carbs, put a stage 2 manifold on and put a new camshaft in.

With the freshly built engine in, Paul and Gary ( his co-mechanic at HRE ) took it out for a test drive, and without warning the new engine went up in flames. Caused by the battery cable, the fire spread quickly throughout the front half of the car. Luckily, Paul and Gary got out unharmed.

But I wasn't giving up on the mini there, we decided to rebuild it. HRE started straight away by stripping it out and a week after, it had been sandblasted and a new engine rebuild had been started. The shell and engine weren't that bad off, so all that was needed was re-wiring and the interior to be cleaned up and fixed.

Not many people would take out the time to rebuild their first car, but we weren't gonna let this mini's life end here. So at this stage it's been sandblasted with some bodywork done. It's now awaiting a re-spray, rewiring and the re fit. Shouldn't be long now till its done and back on the road - and we'll get another update when it is.

A huge thanks to HRE for all their dedication and help through the last year!

What was your first car? Any interesting stories? Share in the comments.

Photos and Words by: Stephen Golden
Location: Dublin, Ireland

Sections: #projects #featuredcars

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