1981 Austin Maxi 2 HL 'the sh1tbox'

gotta love bl turd brown............

Well I was thinking of keeping it standard, but having just seen this:

I am having very bad thoughts.

i very nearly bought one of these a few years back..

the missus at the time refused point blank tho

quite fancied one ever since

I very much aprove!
If its been sat for that long check EVERYWHERE before you put it on the road, including the front subframe. They are very good at hiding suprises, like rot in the towers where the bottom arm mounts. If the towers fail, like one did with me once, its a fun ride to say the least!
All the best of luck with it, if you need advice with it ill be happy to help.

My dad had 2 Maxi's probably MK1's a Harvest Gold and a brown one like this. The first one ended up as an AUTSIN, the tailgate was repainted at the BL dealer and they out the letter on wrong...

Mark

Got it home today and after a quick wash and a T-cut its not looking so bad. The interior is pretty evil, we pulled 2 binbags worth of junk out of it, including a bag of old tights, a small model of a dog, a bottle of linseed oil and the boot was full of rat poison.

And here is said boot, no rot back here...

The interior: quite luxurious, but really dirty still after a substantial hoovering session. I don't think it had been cleaned for 21 years as I was pulling out scraps of newspaper from 1990, although everything is in good condition and standard original.

But there is right in the middle of the drivers front wing.

And the drivers rear arch looks pretty knackered aswell. All the doors except the drivers door are ruined at the bottoms unfortunatly. Think this will have to be a bodge unless I can find some new doors going cheap.


The passenger arch is much better with just rust on the lip, its the same on the front wing.

The passnger wing mirror seems to have no paint on it at all., maybe from stone chips as despite showing 44,222 miles I found the service history up to 132,000.

And the engine bay, a new one was fitted at 80,000 miles but it currently has no oil and no spark, a job for my next day off.

I see potential

Today: new points, condenser, plugs and leads, a couple of new fuel lines and it started and ran like a dream on the first turn of the key. I am chuffed, especially as it is running on 9 year old petrol. Just need to attack the interior with some upholstry cleaner and some oust and sort out the rear arch and door bottoms and she's good to go.

Doesnt look too bad at all, all the rust is completly normal and typical for a Maxi.

Ive just made a start on the blue one in this picture, after selling the sandglow one yesterday after 22 years of ferrying me all over the country. Part of me feels a little bit broken, but I love Maxis, and I still have one. A special one.