Sean Brennan spotted the Banshee at a Mini event in South Africa earlier this month, and sent his pictures over to me, too. As you may know the Banshee (Maximum Mini 3) was built over a long period of time by Tertius van Zyl, who became inspired after having seen a magazine article on the Unipower in 1969. It's not unlike the stillborn Unipower GT Roadster of which I copy an image below.
The Banshee remains unique. It was built by Tertius van Zyl, who still owns it
Picture courtesy Sean Brennan
Clearly Unipower GT inspired, but then all home-made with no example whatsoever…
Picture courtesy Sean Brennan
Work started with Tertius' Mini 850, which became the base for a project he worked on for 15 years
Picture courtesy Sean Brennan
Tertius still uses the car for rallies and tours in his native South Africa. It's great!
Picture courtesy Sean Brennan
The Unipower GT gave him the inspiration, but I don't think Tertius ever knew about
this stillborn Unipower Roadster version…
Picture Jeroen Booij archive
Tertius started to build the Banshee in 1976 well before the Unipower Roadster was built so he could not have been inspired by it.
ReplyDeleteWell… the Roadster concept dates back to late 1965, early 1966...
ReplyDelete