The last days of Summer (and how to spend them)

Summer holidays are just about to end and the same goes for the Summer weather. Here at least. If it's raining it may be an idea to spend the last days of Summer in a museum. There are a few with Mini derivatives on display. I made a selection below, you just click on the museum's names to get to their websites. Let me know if you know of other cars in other museums or public collections.

Jeff Lane of the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee has a Peel Viking Minisport

Picture courtesy Lane Motor Museum

And you will also find a Midas Bronze in the same collection, focussing on small cars

Picture courtesy Lane Motor Museum

The British Motor Heritage Centre in Gaydon have had the 'Michelotti Mini' for ages

Picture Jeroen Booij

It's back to back to the 'Pininfarina Mini', also on permanent display in Gaydon

Picture Jeroen Booij

Australia cherishes the Nota Fang in the Science & Design Museum in Sydney

Picture courtesy powerhousemuseum.com

While the Southward Car Museum in Paraparaumu, New Zealand has an Elswick Envoy

Picture courtesy flickr.com 

This Ogle SX1000 can be found in the Bentley Motor & Wildfowl museum in Kent, UK

Picture Jeroen Booij

The car is on loan and is modified in a typical 1970s fashion

Picture Jeroen Booij

Terry Bennett's acquired taste in cars

I'd never heard of Terry Bennett before, but when I came across the lot list of cars he will have auctioned this September I must admit he had an eclectic taste in acquiring cars. The lot list ranges from American one-offs to Japanese boy racers and there's some quircky British stuff, too. As a matter of fact there are two Mini derivatives worth a mention here. First is a Foers Nomad, including its British (1972) registration. A car you don't see very often, let alone in the US. It's said to be equiped with a 998cc engine and looks okay to me. Second Mini based vehicle is even rarer and served as a Mystery Mini derivative here one day (click here). The auctioneer lists it as a Mini Moke which of course it isn't. It's a Roamer, built by a man named George Davies of Birmingham but I do not know much more than just that. Bennett's example is registered as a 1976 Morris. Both will be sold off on 22 September in rural New Hampshire, and I really wonder what sort of price they will make there. I wouldn't be surprised if someone walked away with a bargain or paid lots of money for them.

From Yorkshire to Hampshire. I bet this is the only A Foers Nomad in America

Picture courtesy Auctions of America 

Bennett's Nomad wears 1972 registration but Foers didn't make them before '77 

Picture courtesy Auctions of America

The Roamer remains a bit of a mystery (see also here). More information is welcome

Picture courtesy Auctions of America

This one appears complete, even with a roof. Registration is from 1976

Picture courtesy Auctions of America

French mystery getting more mysterious

About half a year ago I showed you a French Mystery Mini derivative (this one here) and thanks to regular Peter Camping it seems that some more information about the car in question has been lying around all the time. Peter writes: "Hi Jeroen, let me react on your article of 27 March. On the same website's forum that you mention another story was posted on March 16 about the hill climb (course de côte) of Turckheim Trois Epis in the Alcasse region on 25 june 1972. This is the link. Further below on the page you will find information about a 'barquette' that was having trouble in a curve during this event. I believe this to be the same car as your Mystery Mini derivative 20. Take a look at the wheels... Only the colour of the car  and its driver appear to be different. Or does he wear a new helmet? I have added the pictures from the forum and also one of José Xiberras with his SIB racer (Sopar, Isnard, Beaulieu) during the hill climb of Saint Antonin in 1972. The SIB's body clearly has similarities, although that was pretty common in France in those days. The SIB was Renault based with its successor Simca based (the Simkit) and built by mister J. de Beaulieu (as the SIB). After that car he built another named Mambo together with Gerald Mancip who bought a Mini Cooper in 1969 in the UK and used it for hill climbing up untill 1972. The Cooper's successor was a Renault 8 Gordini. I have also added pictures of the Simkit and Mambo (with Mancip Tuning sticker on it...) . They all look pretty much alike. What's remarkable is that Saint Antonin is in France's south while Turckheim is in the North East. So could there have been two different cars? All the best, Peter."

UPDATE 4 September 2012: We have a name. Eguerrand Lecesne wrote: "Hello Jeroen. I found the name of the driver/owner of the french SIB lookalike. It is M. Zetter. (Marc? Maurice? Michel? Marcel?). The car is entered as "Austin Mini Proto" and finished 25th and last of his group at Turckheim-Les trois épis." Thanks for that!

This surely looks to be the same barquette, now shot on the Turckheim hill climb

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com 

Oh yes, it's rear wheel driven. And those wheels are unmistakably Dunlop 10" 

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

Ouch! Colour is different but roll bar, screen, mirrors, wheels and body look the same 

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

Now let's get out of here to see what the damage is. Those bl**dy doors!

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

Well, it seems to be not so bad. Only the air duct appears to have come off

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

Now take that helmet off, please. Thank you. Anyone who knows this chap? Update: it's 'M. Zetter'.

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

This is the Renault based SIB which has similarities and a link to the mystery car

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

And that's its successor, the Simkit, in full technicolour and now Simca powered

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com  

And last but not least the Mambo. All of them seem to have ties to the Mini based car

Picture courtesy www.forum-auto.com

Biota's claim to fame (1)

You may have thought the Biota was a comical looking funster, meant to impress your friends in the 1970s beer garden, but it wasn't all that. Biota instigator John Houghton actually was a keen motor sports enthusiast who raced his buggy-like creation hard. A works prepared car (a Mk1/Mk2 hybrid) did in fact surprisingly well in hill climbing. The car used a lightweight space frame chassis with go-kart sourced disc brakes all round and a 100bhp A-series engine. It is said to weigh just over 300kgs. The car was run in the 1972 Castrol/BARC Hill Climb Championship and was mostly entered twice with not only Houghton himself at the wheel, but also racer Chris Seaman. At Harewood the latter made a run in 45.06 secs and won his class. Houghton made 46.55 coming home second. They were in fact so quick that they (Seaman) won that year's Championship and came third too (Houghton)!

Now, almost 50 years later Maximum Mini fan and Biota collector (yes, really) John Rayner found it time for a commemoration run. He wrote: "It is the 50th anniversary of Harewood hill climb and the 40th anniversary of the Biota winning the British Hill Climb Championship and on the 23rd of September this year at least three Biotas will be present along with John Houghton (the former owner of the Biota motor co & second driver finishing 3rd in the Championship) and Chris Seaman who won in 1972. It is thought this is the first time so many running Biotas have been together since the factory closed. Although I have 4 of these ***ing things!" I hope to be there, too. If not I'm sure John will send over some pictures for a follow-up. For now I have taken a deep dive into the archives to see what I had on the hill climb car. Enjoy it!

The Biota lightweight hill climb car with Houghton's work men on a test run in Dinington

Picture courtesy Rob Mellaart

Here the car is being raced at Harewood hill climb as part of the '72 championship

Picture courtesy Rob Mellaart

This is John Houghton driving it. Note head rest and road registration number

Picture courtesy Tim Dyke

Ad from a 1972 magazine showing the lightweight car

Picture archives Jeroen Booij

This ad was made right after the Biota won the Championship in '72

Picture archives Jeroen Booij

The winning car next to the numbers 2 and 3 on the cover of Yorks club mag

Picture archives Jeroen Booij

Rare 6-wheeler Cub emerges in Spain

I have no idea how many six-wheeler Cubs (a.k.a. 'Cub 6' or 'Sundancer') Charles Andersen built, but there cannot have been many of them. So that one has come up for sale now is pretty remarkable. It's in Bilbao, Spain and according to the ad it is of 1996 vintage and has 90,000 kms on the clock, which seems an awful lot. It looks like fun, but with an asking price of 24,500 Euros I think it may be worth asking mister Andersen nicely if he'd want to build you a brand new one...

Orange Cub 6-wheeler is for sale in Bilbao, northern Spain

Picture courtesy marktplaats.nl, hat tip to Bart Vanreusel

Come on, somebody, finish this of!

Status 365s are like London buses, or so it seems. You wait for ages to find one and then the one after the other appears to arrive. This late model one (1972 registration) has been offered for sale a short while ago but somehow nobody seems to be able to finish it of properly, while most of the parts are there. Now in Caerphilly, the current seller claims it was MOTd in 1998 without doors (!) but at least it comes with proper paper work. See the ad here. Now, come on guys, I'm sure someone out here will be able to do it justice!

This is a late model Status 365. Somebody should really get it on the road

Picture courtesy eBay

Mystery Mini derivative (24)

Another oddity, this time with probably the weirdest name of them all, was sent in by avid Mini fan and regular here Roald Rakers. The Grot Box. Bloody hell, I've seen some Mini based vehicles with strange model designations, but this one just has to beat them all. But it really is how a company by the name of AVS marketed a buggy sort of car with Mini power. Was it meant for auto crossers or auto testers? The sketch by a man named 'Lätter' definitely points towards a front mounted engine. It may also suggest that none were ever built, but 'Grot lovers' may prove me wrong... For previous Mystery Mini derivatives click here.

The Grot Box was offered by a company named AVS but that, too, doesn't ring a bell

Ad sent in by Roald Rakers

Two updates on yesterday's story

Oops! Let's say there must have been a bit of a language barrier when Mike Gensemeyer told me about yesterday's Deep Sanderson stating the car used no coil springs in the rear suspension. It is, of course all part of the Lawrence link suspension system. The car may use coil springs at the rear when it's finished, as it will continue to use the Mini's rubber balls, too. I found a sketch of the system that explains it a little more. Originally the system did not use any coil springs at all but all the cars that I have seen came with the later modification of coil springs around the dampers.
Former 301 owner Guy Loveridge wrote: "I suspect someone, who did not understand/could not make the Lawrence Link work properly tried to replace the rear suspension with coil springs - that's the problem really, I only know/knew 2 people who could make that system work - witness Goodwood 2009 - Chris set my car up, and Richard went his own way - result: - My car runs in the top 10 and comes home in 11th, Richard's is destroyed at the chicane as he could not catch the back end as it came around!" See the drawing below how it's meant to be.

The Lawrence Link explained. It uses the rubber ball springs with its own arms

Source: Small Car magazine

Furthermore, I understand now that the car made it to the Zandvoort track after the 1983 outing that I mentioned yesterday. According to Ben Alberts it could be seen at a historic race festival there, probably in 1988. And he sent over a few pictures that he made of it at that particular event, too. Another picture of the car, made by Andre Reuvenkamp, was clearly taken at the same day. All three of them below. Do let me know if the story needs any other amendments!

This picture of the German Deep Sanderson 301 was to be found on the web for a while 

Picture: Andre Reuvenkamp

But thanks to Ben Alberts we now know it was taken at Zandvoort, probably in 1988

Picture: Ben Alberts 

The exhaust pipe usually runs through the rear body work, but not on this car 

Picture: Ben Alberts

Deep Sanderson and more in Germany

If you know me or if you have been following my posts for a while you must know I have a soft spot for Deep Sandersons. So when I first heard of a DS 301 survivor in Germany many years ago, I was desperate to find it. Not easy. In fact, it took me to last Spring to find out where exactly it was. Mysteriously, when I contacted the chap who'd owned it for some 30-odd years, he informed me that he'd just sold it... Bugger! I decided to go and have a look at it anyway, as the new owner brought it over to Mike Gensemeyer's workshop in Germany. Mike has been preparing race Minis for years and the car is definitely in good hands with him. It turned out to be chassis number 6 that had been in the UK up until the early 1980s (September 1980 advertisement here). Not much of it's early history is known but I found some reports of the car when owned by a man named Richard Graham who restored it in 1979. One particularly strange feature on this car is that it uses the Mini's rubber ball springs only and no coil springs in the rear suspension. It's the only one with this feature that I know of. (UPDATE HERE)

Anyway: the new (Swiss) owner is planning to take the car back to the racing track (it's last appearance was in 1983 - see update too). He has the car now restored to take part in next year's Le Mans Classic race, a job skillfully carried out by Gensemeyer at this very moment. I had a look around in his workshop (website in German here) and stumbled upon several intriguing cars there. Lots of racing Minis but also a few derivatives. Mike used to race a GTM Coupe himself but he sold his car recently after the car was ruled out of the German championship he took part in. He is now planning to restore the ex-Jeremy Delmar Morgan Mini Jem Mk2 works racer that he bought a while ago. A car with quite some history attached to it. But that's something for another story.

German Deep Sanderson 301 was never road registered, also not when in the UK

Picture Jeroen Booij

It wears chassis # 6 and last made it to a track in 1983. Original colour was dark blue

Picture Jeroen Booij 

 Its previous owner had it nearly 30 years only to sell it just before I tracked him down...

Picture Jeroen Booij

 Unusually, the chassis uses the Mini's rubber balls rather than coil springs at the back

Picture Jeroen Booij

Mike has been preparing many more Minis for the track. Here a Cooper 'S' plus Lotus 23

Picture Jeroen Booij 

Tucked away in a corner I stumbled upon a GTM Coupe. It will be restored one day

Picture Jeroen Booij 

Mike Gensemeyer used to race his own GTM Coupe in German championships

Picture Jeroen Booij

Here is Mini Mare No.5!

I've been away for a while. It was getting too hot behind my desk and became about time for a cool breeze. I was not on my own. Nazzica from Rome went to Portofino to do a great discovery there: the 5th Innocenti Mini Mare - an Italian sibling of the Mini Beach Car. And he was kind enough to share it. But let's start at the beginning. At first, from Italian information, I believed only three Mini Mares were built. But then, not long after I wrote an article about them here (click), a message came in from the USA by John Stanmeyer who told me he owned such a car, too (see here). That was number 4! Furthermore John said he thought he'd seen another in Portofino 'back in about 1985'. Well, well. Some 27 years later that car, too, has now resurfaced and so number 5 can be validated. It is still out and about in Portofino where it is still in use, or so it seems. This one may not wear a mysterious marine decal on its bonnet but there is no doubt that this is another Mini Mare. Love it! 

But now, will there ever appear a 6th? John Stanmeyer adds: "Regarding a potential 6th... as mentioned before, I recall my father saying there were two Mini Mares on the island of Nassau, Bahamas, where my family had purchased outs back around 1974/75. Would be surprised if this second Mini ever returned to Italy where all the other Mini Mares appear to be located. There's a very vague recollection of my father saying this second car on Nassau was in poor condition, acting more as a parts mini, but do not hold me to that memory... I was only about 11 years old. If there are any readers of your blog in Nassau, it couldn't hurt to ask them if between say 1977 till today, has anyone ever seen one of these rare Minis out and about. It's a mighty small island (7-22 miles in size) making it very possible someone else might have seen it..."

In Portofino, Innocenti Mini Mare No.5 is even properly badged as such

Picture courtesy Nazzica

Not all the cars have wicker seats with frame surrounds. This one does

Picture courtesy Nazzica

Wood used throughout the car is said to be of Libanese cedar trees

Picture courtesy Nazzica

Wicker bumper, bamboo grille and Inno logo. Is that a Milan plate?

Picture courtesy Nazzica