Classics student.

“Jack had two owners before me,” she says. “Betty is an adopted child; we don't know anything about her... she's been abandoned. Betty is my favorite, but Jacques is not allowed to know about it. If you can't tell, Yongsiri is obsessed with her Minis. Betty is a purple 1977 Leyland Clubman LS that she bought about two years ago for $5000.

A friend took it upon herself to name Yongsiri's pride and joy when she couldn't come up with the right name for her newborn.

And with that very close connection to her car, you can understand her anguish as she walked back to her car after work to find that Betty had tipped over.

“I saw it on the security camera – five guys were rolling it around,” she says. “I was in tears, devastated. I thought my life was over."

The unfortunate event happened last November, resulting in Betty being written off entirely, although Yongsiri says she is now in a repair shop and she will restore her.

Yongsiri couldn't bear the thought of living without a Mini, so he invested in Jac the Turtle, another 1977 Leyland Clubman S version, this time in green and priced at $4500.

“Jac was named because the license plates are original, JAC278, which is how it came from the factory. And the Turtle, because it was green and slow,” she laughs.

An industrial design student thinks her obsession with classic 1960s and 70s cars has been with her since birth.

But the first evidence of her interest was about eight years old. “When I saw them when I was younger, I said I would buy one when I could drive, and I did,” she says.

"There used to be Minis parked near my house and I've always admired them."

And she discovers that there are still young people who like the car of her dreams. “A lot of people look at me,” she says.

“Primary kids love it, jump up and down, point and smile.”

Yongsiri says it also draws the attention of the older generation.

"They stop to chat and say, 'I had a Mini when I was your age,'" she says.

When Yongsiri first bought her Mini, she decided to fully immerse herself in her passion and joined the Mini Car Club of New South Wales.

And while she received a warm welcome at first, a Mini fan from Parramatta says some people questioned her commitment.

“There are very few girls,” she says. “When I joined the Mini community, everyone was very happy to help. Then some guys said, "That's a girl, she won't last long."

“I thought the Mini wasn't right for me, but I wanted to prove them wrong and settled on it. Now it looks like a passion."

Yongsiri can now change oil, air filters, spark plugs, and her boyfriend will soon teach her how to change wheel bearings.

She can do what she calls "basic stuff", which is enough to impress many other male and female car owners.

“Any old Mini doesn't have power steering,” she says. "You can install the air conditioner yourself, but it costs a little, and the university budget doesn't allow for this kind of thing."

She even got her mom interested in Minis and is currently trying to convert her sister who thinks "they just break".

And, having already achieved her sister's training to drive a manual Mini car, she is not far from her goal.

When it comes to her friends, they have learned to respect her undeniable passion.

“My girlfriends just laugh and say that I am always a different, special child. I can't imagine driving anything other than a Mini. There is nothing else I could be proud of behind the wheel."