ML in the penitentiary with orange jump suit.   now that would be fabulous  and well  deserved.  

Out on parole soon ??

well coming up on Five years since Michael Lewis aka Mini Guy went MIA.. Did he and Spank run off together ??

Drama in every hobby! But in general in the Mini World, if you don't go looking for it, you won't even notice it. I find my life is much less stressful taking that approach :)

1. wow, that's crazy. never would've guessed there was so much drama in the mini world.

Tiny, if your friend bought a Mini from Michael Lewis aka MiniGuy, then whatever he paid for it was more than the real seller wanted. ML didn't sell Minis that he owned because legally he couldn't! The CA authorities slapped him on the wrist and banned him from selling cars in their state. He tried getting around that by calling himself a "broker" and advertised cars that other folks owned and would only give you the sellers information for a fee. Well evidently that wasn't quite legal either because all of a sudden his website went down and he seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Maybe he's in jail, or maybe he's done a runner with someone's money. Who knows? His good friend Mike Spangler aka Spank hasn't been heard from either. WTF? Yes as Alex said, there's more to the story!

is inspector morales the name of the bellend on this site that works in the dmv that tells people to bring their mini to him and he will "help them" if the have a vin question or date of build question?

 

MiniGuy YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheOfficialMiniGuy

All new MINI how to videos, latest 1 year old.

 

Update from Bill: 

mini guy was CLOSED by California DMV enforcement on 9 Aug 2020 by inspector Morales. I have letter from him.. was charged with selling cars with NO dealer lic for the past 14 years.. later b c

As with many things clouded in mystery, the abrupt departure/disappearance of MiniGuy from the scene almost certainly has more to the story than is public knowledge.

 

Gotcha.  I just met a Mini owner who said he got an amazing deal using him, way cheaper than almost anything I'm seeing posted online and the car is in beautiful condition.  He bought his 1995 JDM Rover Mini for around $12K a couple of years ago.  I'm not seeing anything less than $16K, condition mostly good but unconfirmed in person.  His services seemed ideal, although I never would have considered him a dealer, more like a locator.  Basically the human version of the same For Sale postings on these forums...I hate to jump on the "CA sucks" bandwagon, but in terms of car things...they really do...

Doesn't seem to be. AFAIK no one has heard from him since the website was taken down.

bummer!  is he still around and helping locate cars?

Apparently back in 2020 or so he was found to not have a proper California dealer licence and had to take down his website.

Apologies if this has been asked and answered, I can't find a search bar for the forums:

what happened to the Mini Guy, Michael Lewis?  He always had a great listing of cars and was very helpful with information.  anyone know where he went?