So my old r53 decided to burn a valve. And the body was wrecked. It has 255k miles on it. I decided it was time to start looking for a low miles r53 in a color combo I liked with no sunroof. Turned out that is a unicorn. Well I found it. A 2005 mini Cooper S JCW 210 with 77k miles. Body is good. Yes it has hit a dear and was fixed and sometime it the past was rear ended. Paint is good to very good. Front panels need a little adjustment as the body shop was lazy. It has a crono pack but does not have cruise control. I'm going to try to retrofit that in. I have a lot of work to do to move my stereo, leather R56 interior, jcw steering wheel, Koni struts, sway bar, harmonic balancer, etc. Probably a few weekends worth of work.

 

From the picture, looks like you found a good one. I feel that I found a Unicorn when I found mine too (R53 with Chrono and hard top). I also have no cruise control and no bluetooth - I will fix the bluetooth by getting a new stereo. Not really worried about the cruise control at the moment. Hope you get it on the road with all your goodies soon.