Maximum Mini: January 2015

Friday, 30 January 2015

Mystery Mini derivative (41)

This is not a Land Rover. Oh yes, it looks like one, that's for sure. But in fact it is quite a lot smaller and what's more: it is believed to be based on a Mini. The 10" Cosmic wheels do indeed point to that direction. Know more about it? Let me know!

Land Rover or Mini - or a bit of both perhaps?

Picture source unknown

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

More Broadspeed GTS pictures emerge

You may know by now that the Broadspeed GTS spent most of its life in The Netherlands, where it was raced between 1967 and 1971, mostly on Zandvoort, before it languished in Amsterdam for another few decades.

We've seen a picture of the car in action before (here), taken by Hans Hugenholz. But Hans has more of them! Some of these below, taken at the Zandvoort track - designed by Hans' father - in 1969. During that year then-owner Tonio Hildebrand raced it at least three times under number 7 - and finished three times first in class. I think it had a golden bronze colour at the time. Great shots, love them!

The Broadspeed GTS in Zandvoort's Hugenholtz corner, named after the track's designer

Picture courtesy Hans Hugenholtz

Note it doesn't have the ram pipes poking through the bonnet like earlier at Zandvoort (here)

Picture courtesy Hans Hugenholtz

Capacity was 1293 or 1296cc back in 1969 and it was fast enough to beat all other Minis

Picture courtesy Hans Hugenholtz

Monday, 19 January 2015

Mystery Mini derivative (40)

This mysterious Mini based six-wheeler hails from France and was spotted in an ad by reader Vera Domnick. She wrote: "I just ran across this advertisment in France. Did you ever see this car before? Labelled as a Moke, it's really quite ugly..." The car is said to be of 1964-vintage and is offered for sale in Villedieu-les-Poêles, which is situated quite convenient for interested parties from the UK... see the ad here.

I think it may be based on a Scamp Mk2 or MDV six-wheeler, but I'm not totally sure. What do you think?

There are clearly hints of a Scamp Mk2 or an MDV in there. Or am I seeing things?

Picture courtesy leboncoin.fr

Six snow gyres and a big flat bed for carrying another Mini derivative?

Picture courtesy leboncoin.fr

An interior doesn't get much simpler. Again: that fits the suggested donors

Picture courtesy leboncoin.fr

Is that a Mini or Metro engine? One thing is clear: that is an awful lot of wiring!

Picture courtesy leboncoin.fr

Friday, 16 January 2015

Stimson's stories (1)

Okay. How about a new series? Regular readers out here know I've been doing more of them - on Le Mans cars (Minis at Le Mans), on my Camber and Maya GT researches (The Camber / Maya files), on mysterious cases of disappeared derivatives (Urban Legends) and of course that all-time favorite of the Mystery Mini derivative. Anyway: time for new online series now, and this time it's all about what I believe to be the most prolific designer of Mini based cars: Barry Stimson.

From the late 1960s-on Barry designed, built, drove and marketed a great number of wild vehicles, and many of these were Mini powered. Not all of them were a hit, but it's a fact that there are some great tales attached to them. What's more: Barry likes to chat about them with me, and thanks to his free-of-charge telephone account it's not too difficult (or costly) either. Great. But where to start? Barry had a laugh about his first car, when I asked him about it. A Ford 93E of, he thought, 1937. It may not be a surprise that it didn't last very long in its original shape. "Any pictures of it?" I asked him, and to my great surprise I found them in my mailbox only minutes later. That was the one to start with.

Barry was 17 at the time and told me that his mum and dad thought he'd gone mad cutting up this still very usable car. Barry: "But it sort of started there... with a hammer… a saw... a spanner… and a vision. Mum hated the thing and banned me from parking it outside their house in Portsmouth! …Can’t think why? Oh, and yes, they are dustbin lids on the wheels!"

So there you go. Not a Mini derivative for this time, but there's much more to follow as this man was responsible from anything Mini based from three-wheelers to six-wheelers. Welcome aboard Barry!

Barry Stimson at the age of 17, here on his way to adventures in Africa…

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

The first Stimson: a much modified Ford 93E, much to the horror of The Stimsons!

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

It was the start of a long list of cars, tricycles and amphibians to come. Note dustbin lids...

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

A disgrace to that neat and tidy street in southern England in the late 1950s!

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

Ever the optimist: Barry Stimson's balcony overlooks a marina, here some years ago

Picture Jeroen Booij

Monday, 12 January 2015

Car and Car Conversions display is fabulous!

Now that's what a display should look like! Pete Flanagan sent in some images from last weekend's Autosport show at the NEC in Birmingham, where a Cars and Car Conversions magazine display was recreated on the stand of the Mini Cooper Register. Just as well as some racing Minis the show stoppers were the Cox GTM and Unipower GT, both as campaigned by the magazine in its heyday.

Pete adds: "It was great, really good feeback from not only Mini derivative lovers and owners but from some of the people who remember these cars from when they were new and rarely seen. I suggested your website to many of them to read up on them. We also had an opportunity recreate that photo from the '67 Racing Car Show, one I couldn't miss out on. Thanks go to the lovely young lady sat on the wing of my car who very sportingly agreed to play the part of Monika!" Well done boys and girls!

Two stunning cars flying the flag for what was one of the UK's greatest magazines

Picture courtesy Neil Burgess

We'll never get enough of this little stunner, won't we? The fabulous ex-CCC Cox GTM

Picture courtesy Pete Flanagan

Why not recreate that infamous and cheeky shot from 1967 while on the show? Well done!

Picture courtesy Pete Flanagan

That's the original picture with the same car and model Monika Dietrich on its nose

Picture archive Jeroen Booij

And with even less clothing on... Not sure if Pete tried to recreate this one too

Picture Richard Heseltine archive

Another ex-Deep Sanderson owner calls in

I am a sucker for Deep Sanderson stories, and so I was eager to track down a man named Richard Graham, who'd owned the Deep Sanderson 301 with chassis number 6 (more here and here) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the time, Richard wrote an elaborative article about the car's restoration for Alternative Cars magazine under the title 'Deep Devotion' but he wasn't easy to get hold of. Eventually he emailed me last weekend from Italy, where he lives now.

He wrote: "This was a long time ago, so my memory may not be all that accurate. I bought the car in 1978 as a pile of parts from a bloke in Essex. There was a body/chassis unit in original dark blue paint, doors, bonnet and engine cover, huge alloy petrol tank, radiator, front suspension and steering, JAP Pearce wheels and tyres, Mini rubber suspension and a lot of rear suspension parts, some of which looked like prototype parts. The interior was trimmed, and seats (more recent) came with the parts.
The heap of stuff looked like something left in the factory after closure!"

"What I didn’t have was an engine and gearbox, a gearchange, and information. Nearly all of the car went together easily. The huge petrol tank was obviously made for the car. The interior was simple.
But the rear suspension was a problem. I think, 35 years on, it was a matter of drive shaft lengths. Using one set of trailing arms the rear track was abnormally wide and the drive shafts too short, and with the “normal” looking trailing arms, the shafts were too long. Many weeks were wasted in trying this and that without much success. After all this time I’m not sure how, but I got around it somehow without having special parts made. Geometrically as well as dimensionally it seemed to work as it should, and is more or less like the drawing in the blog."

"I bought a racing spec Cooper 'S' engine and box from a bloke near Leeds and fitted it, made the exhaust system, and the gearchange – not as hard as I thought it would be. The car then ran, but I ran out of enthusiasm due to lack of time and facilities. I sold it to a fellow from Lancashire. I presume that is the same car now in Germany, rather shockingly painted red. It looks exactly the same in the engine department. I note that the fuel filler is now on show like the Le Mans cars (it wasn’t originally) and the rear wheel arches are different. Best regards, Richard Graham BA (Hons.) Dipl. Architect."

Thanks very much Richard, it's really great to hear of you. Meanwhile I have seen the car not too long ago and it is still in the same state as it was when I photographed it in 2012 (click here).

The car as it was after Richard restored it, still blue and with JAP Pearce wheels

Picture courtesy Richard Graham

Beautiful ghost view drawing that never made it to the Alternative Cars article

Image courtesy Richard Graham

And this is how it featured in the 1980 article in Alternative Cars magazine

Picture courtesy Richard Graham

And again, here how it looked just prior to the next restoration job in Germany

Picture courtesy Frans Josef Berg

The car as it is now. The current restoration is on hold due to other jobs

Picture Jeroen Booij

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Cars & Car Conversions resurrects in NEC

Good news for fans of that great late magazine Cars & Car Conversions (I am a fan). The Mini Cooper Register has announced to celebrate the magazine's 50th anniversary with a stand at this year's Autosport Show at the Birmingham NEC. Several competition cars that were made famous through the British motoring magazine will be on display, together with former 'CCC' editor Richard Hudson-Evans, too. His Mk1 Cooper S rally car '3000 KV' is there as well as the 1959 Mk1 racer, built over a series of articles in the magazine in the early 70's.

But the stars of the show are the Mini derivatives: the famous Cox GTM raced by Hudson-Evans at the Nurburgring (freshly repaired) as well as the ex-Janspeed Unipower GT which was campaigned by CCC's advertisement manager Brian Harvey and has now been restored by Pete Flanagan. All of them will be on display this weekend (Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 January) in Hall 9. I won't be there, unfortunately, but you should go. Make my day and find a batch of the early issues for me..!

Richard Hudson-Evans with the famous Cars & Car Conversions Cox GTM

Picture courtesy Stuart Poole

And the same car and man (on right) almost 45 years ago...

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The now-finished ex-Cars & Car Conversions Unipower GT will also be exhibited

Picture courtesy Pete Flanagan

Monday, 5 January 2015

Early coachbuilt Cooper resurfaces in Spain

Rare derivatives and coachbuilt Minis continue to be found in 2015 and this year's first find goes to my Spanish colleague Francisco Carrión, who recently stumbled upon a collection with quite a few interesting cars that hadn't seen the light of day for a long time. Francisco was kind enough to share his story and photographs here as the car that is of interest to me is a coachbuilt Mini. Despite its looks it is not converted by Hooper or by Radford. Francisco: "It's an early Austin Mini Cooper with many special features. And although it doesn't have a film history like the Peter Sellers Minis that it looks very much alike, it is no less interesting!"

"The car was imported to Spain as an original Cooper, in red, and was shown at the official stand of the Spanish Austin importer at the 1964 Barcelona Motor Show. After that, a wealthy nobleman, fan of the Peter Sellers films, bought the car and sent it to Paris, where Roger Taka-Hira added the wicker sides on his request. At its return to Spain, the car was also re-upholstered in ivory leather and it received a nice wooden dashboard. The result was so convincing that the best friend of the owner - another wealthy man - ordered an exact copy. Of these two cars only this one is known to survive. It is in original unrestored condition, with only 50,000kms on its odometer."

To find out more about the car Francisco contacted Gerardo Peña, who is the son of the official importer of Austin to Spain in the 1960s, named SACAI. Peña himself worked some years in UK in the Austin factory also tuning some special Minis under the direction of Alec Issigonis. Francisco: "For example he told us many details about the Mini built for John Lennon using a engine block from Australia to get 1500cc… He has lots of interesting histories about special Minis and owns a special Moke with factory experimental roof and doors himself." Francisco will keep me posted on any special Minis in Spain, so there may be more to follow...