Uganda, May 2 -- In the mid-1990s, Geoffrey Kabali set out to buy a vintage car. He was sure he needed a Mini Cooper of any model or year of manufacture. His love for Mini Coopers is something that stretches from as far back as the 1960s when his father owned and often drove him and his siblings to different places in the car.

Later as an adult, when he could afford it, Kabali embarked on a manhunt for a Mini Cooper to buy. When he could not find one on the road to buy in 1995, 1996 and 1997, he cast his nets wide to far flung places such as Gulu and Arua districts in northern Uganda and West Nile in search of an abandoned Mini Cooper he could buy and restore. It was until 1998 that he chanced on one in Kayabwe on Masaka Road that he bou...