[BC1000stars]

Hi Dave, congrats on your purchase!
I have one. Ford only imported 166 of these into the country in 2000 and the number still on the road now would be only half that at most, I’d say.
The seat stitching is a common failure on these cars but a relatively easy fix.
The main thing to sort out on your car will be the IMRC. It’s a little unit that sits on top of the block under the small engine cover. What it does is opens a second set of inlet valves on the intake when the car hits 3,500 rpm, in essence, doubling the air flow going into the engine. Without this working, and I can almost guarantee yours won’t be, because of Ford's “genius” placement of it, you’re missing out on 50% of the engine's power when you really need it.
The procedure to fix is readily available online. The fault is in a transistor that fails due to heat soak. You can buy one cheaply - the transistor that is. (TIP121)
In reality, you can drive the car with no issues at all, lots of owners of these cars are blissfully unaware their IMRC isn’t working, it’s just that if you really give it the beans over 3,500rpm, it will feel a bit sluggish still.
Most cars had their IMRC fail at about 60 - 70,000 kms.
Anyway, have a Google on what it’s all about. If you get it working, you’ll be rewarded so much about just how capable these little cars are, they also have one of the best balanced chassis around, loads of fun.
There are many specialists in the UK for parts too where, as you say, they’re even becoming scarce there.