ads, news, technical articles, a Club Directory and Reader Classified Ads. I was amazed to see David Walkerõs address and telephone in Des Moines listed as I still needed it to follow up on a given lead. I thought the Centreõs prices were very reasonable, the selection excellent and found many reasons for future contacts. I guess the world of Miniõs is quite small as the Centreõs Catalog listed both Mini Mania and Fortech GT-5 fiber panels for sale.

There are a lot of bookstores in the London Metro Area, but one, Motor Books, boasts of having over 9,000 titles in stock. Their main store is located in central London on St. Martinõs Court. In their automobile section I was pleased to find nearly 30 Mini selections. I purchased several books from this grouping and their sale offerings. In the basement they had a very impressive number of workshop manuals and parts catalogues. If you have a need in this area, I am almost sure they will have it. They have road test collections, transport source books, and also specialize in railway, military, aviation, and maritime books. Discount and closeout bookstores were scattered throughout London. At one of these I purchased one Mini

book, several books on MGs, and some rather unique cut-out-to-shape Mini Cooper post cards.

Located not far from Motor Books was the model store, St Martinõs Accessories Ltd. If die cast models are your bag then this is the place to go. They had several thousand models displayed ranging in price from a few dollars to the $1360 for the large 1:8 scale Jaguars (XK-120s). I was most impressed by the number of race car offerings. Not too far from St. Martinõs is what must be the Nebraska Furniture Mart of toy stores, Hamleys Ltd. They have five or six floors of selections. But most important was the second floor where I found more than 30 different Mini Cooper models (two of which are now located in Iowa). One grouping (package) of three entitled the Italian Job Minis particularly caught my attention. I had not been aware that a major (?) movie of the late 1960õs staring Michael Caine included a multitude of high speed Mini chases. I didnõt buy the set of cars but, as you may have guessed, I now have the movie. On the significant others insistence we went to the Portobello street market. This set of flea market type stalls and dealers extends for nearly a mile. To my delight

there were many dealers in English car related items. Included were Dinky model toys, car badges, scale models, posters, and magazines. I brought a nice ceramic MG (8x8 hexagonal) plaque, a Mini puzzle in a canister, and several tin reproduction posters (MGA, MGB, Morgan +4, and Mini Cooper Rally). At Harrods (the massive, upscale, and pretentious department store where they charge you almost $2 to use the toilet) they had a 1/2 scale Ferrari in their toy department for a mere $75,000. They had many other scale models, but from my first encounter with the prices even this English auto crazed person was faint. The most exciting aspect of my visit to London (beyond visiting Dave) was a chance to see all the new foreign cars that no longer frequent American highways. The exotics, Alfa roadsters, Porsches, Morgans, TVRs, Lotus, and especially Rover Group cars. Dave decided to join me on one early A.M. venture to Keens Rover (to see the new MGF). I had not anticipated finding two new 1998 Mini Coopers in the center of their showroom floor. Wow! We touched! We took pictures. We sat in them. We crawled under them. We popped the bonnet. We