08/10/2026
Chinese shell is now rolling. Before I go on, time to clear a few things up .
First off we keep getting asked about price , as far as we are aware after talking to the manufacturers individual shells are around the £7500 mark imported to the UK and taxes ect paid . Dennis at Classic minis chorley is looking into the possibility of buying bulk and distributing them in the UK himself but nothing is certain on that as yet .
Next we have not bought this shell we are working with the manufacturer in China to see how genuine mini parts fit to the shell as a test and to feed back to them anything we come across that needs addressing. We are not being paid for this its a totally impartial test as we would normally use heritage stuff . We are doing it for our own interest and that of the people in the UK market .
Last of all we have seen and been told about other firms doing a similar thing..... we can categorically say they DO NOT have the Chinese shells . There is 2 manufacturers of mini shells in China, 1 has not brought any into the UK as yet and we have spoken to them . The second is the firm we are working with and they have only brought 3 into the UK , 1 is this shell that was also at Stamford Hall , the second is a bare metal shell for indoor events and the third is a fully painted red shell . Neither company offer the shells in black primer so the other ones about will more than likely heritage shells.
We are not building a full car , just test fitting so please no more comments about who builds a car up then paints it ....its not being painted this is a test.
Oh one other thing , the steel is galvanised and all the panels we have unbolted have been weighed against heritage ones and they are all within a few grams of each other
Hopefully that clears a few things up .
Right back to the shell , as you can see we now have it rolling as requested by the manufacturers, using only bl rover parts and im happy to say everything fitted perfectly. We will be fully building one door up to check fitment of parts and fitting a fuel tank to check it lines up . After that the shell will stay in that state for the NEC show in November so the public can see that everything fits .
