The name The Stainless Steel Rat came from a series of books by Harry Harrison, and being Silver, Rat like it all seemed to fit at the time, but, more importantly the Mini was bought so I could join a number of friends with minis at a little party. This party was at Silverstone in August 1989.
A small number of Mini's, reputedly 10,000, were to attend the 30th birthday celebration of the Mini, and I was one of them.
During it's time with me, the mini was upgraded with a Stage 1 kit from Minisport, but also suffered both serious oil pressure problems, and a broken gearbox. The I rebuilt the engine myself after having the crank reground, and new bearings and pump fitted. The gearbox I relied on a specialist to recondition. This involved driving the Mini from Norwich to Romford, and for the princely sum of £150 a nice gentleman removed what was left of the gearbox, and this remains the one and only time I've seen a gearbox removed with the engine in situe. Failure turned out to be the total collapes of the double roller bearing.
Due to the need for a larger vehicle, I eventually had to trade in the mini. This was a sad day, but I never lost my desire to be a mini owner. I do believe that it's still out there somewhere, and did see it a number of years ago with a Testarosa style body kit on, so if you own what was a Mini Ritz C678 AVF, I'd love to know how it's getting on now.