I want to bid on this mid engined Mini:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-rear-engined-16v-toyota-4age-ex-hillclimb_W0QQitemZ280218929478QQcmdZViewItem

For this one, it would be extremely important that it's paperwork is all perfect, as I plan to use it on the road all the time both in the UK and Spain, which means I'd get stopped by the police for checks from time to time just because these things are so unusual in Spain. I'd need to prove them that these mods are all road legal.

What I need to know is how does it work in the UK to get mods like this one approved. What kind of "mod approval" do they need, what kind of certificates do you get in order to prove that these mods are road legal. So I can then ask the seller to make sure he didn't just carry out the conversion and leave the documents as original.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

Cheers,

Alex

I would have thought that this car would need an SVA as the "chassis" has been modified. There is no way this car would have passed SVA because of the chequer plate dash, for a start. The owner of this car must have simply told the DVLA about the change in engine size but perhaps didn't know about SVA.

I like the way the chequerboard dash has a nice sharp edge on it so if your harness fails you'll crack the top of your skull off

Very nice!!! Almost as good as the old yank tanks where the glove compartment was made from sheet metal and it would flip open in an impact decapitating passengers not wearing their seatbelts..... And lets not talk about the easily ruptered tanks right under the rear bumpers

Nice Mini though!!! Wonder how much work it would take to get it through SVA

OK, takes a deep breath....
As i see it the chassis and body have not been substatialy altered althought the engine has been moved to the rear and some fabrication to accomodate the mods has been done.
A bit like the Zcars mini's but not as drastic.
The dash is a worry and not to my taste but not illigal IMHO.

So how does it work for mods in the UK? Can I just take a road legal car, do some major stuff on it, and do nothing with the reg? Just tell my insurer or something? In Spain you need to go through approval for any mod, structural or not (turbo conversion for example requires it).

Hi alez,

it wont make any difference to the Spanish ITV if the car with mods is a EU homlogated one or not.

When i and my mum imported our Corsa 1.2 giveing them the certificate of conformity (wich you will need to source from mini)

they even measured the height and with of the car!!!! Also the car had a trailer hook we needed to find a garage wich signed us a declaration of installation of it... but the true is that it was installed in NL...

so approved or not you will need to reaprove in spain.

regards,

Tks