Do premium money late Coopers actually sell?

[highway]

As the title. Dad found mum a 1997 Cooper with 19k in great shape. She had one in her youth (40 years ago) turns out, she prefers here 5 series!

I see some of these cars with LOW miles advertised sometimes at 5 figures. Does anyone actually get that sort of money for them? Seems a waste for this car to sit under a sheet in the garage, it's red with a white roof with FSH on time and all old MoTS. He paid a LOT for it but what, realistically is it worth?

[GruFFnuTT]

I guess they are worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I've just scanned AutoTrader and can't see that your Mums one would be less than a five figure number. It all depends on condition and mileage I guess like any other car, but it's a buyers market at the moment, so you might be a long while trying to achieve that figure...
Mini's are a classic icon (no longer produced) and there is always someone that will want one. Just look at VW camper vans for example. They seem to go up and up in value.
If you can keep hold of it, it will be worth more and more. I've kept mine. It was my first car at 18 yrs old, I'm now nearly 34 yrs and I've managed to keep hold of it. It's not a shining example, but I'm sure it's going to be worth more than the £2k I paid for it...

[cpas]

The really high value ones seem to be those with really low mileage, like a few hundred miles. But these would have to be garaged and never used for rear of doubling the mileage and halving the value!!