Maximum Mini: Trifid prototype to be resurrected

You know I like strange old cars not too many people care about. The thing is that meeting up with the owners can be downright disappointing - a car is standing next to the dustbin in a drizzle with jammed brakes and the chap who just bought it for the registration has no time. Luckily this is compensated for by the other half: the true enthusiast.

Phil Wells happened to be one and when I came over to his place last May I was warmly welcomed. We chatted all afternoon about the many Mini derivatives he'd had, his wife cooked a nice diner and Phil arranged a B&B close by. Better still was the fact that he had not one but two of the cars that I came for: the Brookwell Trifid - an unlikely three-wheeled creature he'd been responsible for in the late eighties. They were both in superb condition, too, and he took me for a drive in one. That was quite an experience, with Phil pushing his Trifid to its limits (he'd been using one for years as a daily driver over the country roads in his native Norfolk). We screamed along the roads and drifted over unpaved paths.

And so the Trifid will make a nice chapter in my next book. When I came home Phil sent me a message that he'd been sparkled to start rebuilding the prototype Trifid - the only one with a steel body. He wrote: "I pulled the front subframe out of storage to rebuild our own ‘barn find’ Trifid… Last on the road over 12 years ago it seems..." That's the spirit. It may be a footnote in motoring history, but there are people caring about them. Thanks again Phil!