Mini miracle: Nan would have 'loved' fuss over old car

Daniel Fox said his son Remy, seven, was "besotted" with the rediscovered car

A man who restored his late grandmother's Mini after rediscovering it has said she would have loved the "fuss" made about her old car.

Daniel Fox, 37, came across the Mini in 2019 - 25 years after he last saw it - while seeking a second-hand car.

The find attracted national media coverage.

Mr Fox, from Great Gransden in Cambridgeshire, worked with a friend for 10 weeks to get it to a condition where it successfully passed its MOT.

Mr Fox said his driveway was "littered with old cars" - and his collection includes this Ford Sierra

A year after buying the car, Mr Fox told the BBC: "It's done 1,000 miles and it passed the MoT on 3 May and next day we did an Ipswich to Felixstowe car rally. Since then it has been all over."

Mr Fox said the car, which had done about 59,000 miles (95,000km) when he bought it, had "survived really well" and he had spent about £600 on repairs.

"At first it would not run - the clutch had seized up but was fixed by hammering on it and the same with the starter," he said.

"It needed new brakes and I changed all the tyres."

A young Dan Fox with his grandmother Joan

Mr Fox's late grandmother Joan died in 1990, when the car was passed on to his sister.

He said he thought his nan "would have loved the fuss and fame", and he was surprised by how his chance discovery had "caught the public imagination".

The car is also loved by his four children - Corey, 15, Fraser, 11, Remy, seven, and Albie, four. He described his wife Catherine as "very understanding".

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He said he hoped to keep the car in the condition his grandmother kept it.

"I feel a sense of responsibility towards it," he said. "After a year it still doesn't feel any more real to have found it."