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Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Mystery Mini derivative (7)

At first I thought the car below was a Siva buggy, but when I looked better I noticed it was completely different. With a more straightforwards chassis and much different body. A DIY project? I don't think so.
Not a Siva, but surely a Mini based beach buggy too

Then I came across another picture of a similar car and knew for sure: this was another Mini based beach buggy that was sold in some sort of numbers. But who did it? And where? And what was it called? I noticed the registrations are very close, but I'm not sure what that could imply. Were they based on brand new Minis? That seems incredible. I found that the top car was featured in Mini magazine back in 1997 but unfortunately do not have the issue that it was feautured in. Naturally I have asked the guys there to look it up. But meanwhile you may be able to tell more...
And there's another! Note the close registrations

UPDATE 16 february 2011: see here
op

5 comments:

  1. Mosquito and Triad Register8 February 2011 at 23:40

    They're both registered with the V5 of the donor car. The first one is from 1972 and the 2nd one from the 60's. It doesn't give a clue about the name of this nice looking bug. :(

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  2. Anonymous16 November 2012 at 06:20

    hi they are both the same car there were 2 built but only 1 is left this car was the second 1 the first along with the moulds and jigs was lost in a fire in combemartin devon if you want more info boiler-tec@hotmail.co.uk

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  3. Anonymous29 June 2013 at 05:03

    In 2013 I purchased BDV 393B after having a complete re-build. A historic vehicle, it'll be 50 years old in January 2014, so I'm taking it to some Devon rallies. susan.kray@hotmail.co.uk

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    Replies
    1. Maximum Mini4 July 2013 at 08:27

      Thanks for your message. We met last May when I come over with John Bartholomew!
      Best, Jeroen

      Delete
  4. Anonymous23 August 2013 at 05:50

    I was told by the owner of the Mini Buggy before John Bartholomew, that BDV 80B and BDV 393B are in fact the same car, but with different registration numbers. The first registration number was a personal plate and the '80B' part was intended to read BOB, a shortening of Robert, the owner's name. Before selling it to John a new registration number, BDV 393B was obtained from the DVLA and the plate BDV 80B was put on another vehicle. I originally thought that there were two Mini Buggy's with different registration numbers, but now I know there was only one, and the one featured in the 1997 Mini Magazine is my one, but on its previous registration number and before John re-built it and made certain changes to it, both cosmetically and mechanically.

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