I cannot praise my body shell restorer enough. After all the troubles he went through in order to restore the car's floors to their original state, with balsa wood moulded in between two layers - one of which was cut out - he has now started reproducing the car's roll cage. There was not much left of the original cage as it had been cut out by someone at some stage for some reason. All that was left of it were the four feet of the cage moulded into the body shell. He cut these out and started from there, together with a series of photographs that I took last year from the similar roll cage in Gary Marlow's Mk1 Mini Marcos. And he did a superb job. The cage is exactly reproduced and ready to be moulded in soon now.
Look, no roll cage! Original cage was cut out of the Le Mans racer for some reason
Picture Jeroen Booij
All left of it were the four feet moulded into the body shell, this is a rear one
Picture Jeroen Booij
And another plus a front one, seen top right here
Picture Jeroen Booij
This is the similar cage in Gary Marlow's Mk1 Mini Marcos. I photographed every detail of it last year in order to replicate it. Note that it is also attached to the roof
Picture Jeroen Booij
And there we go. The newly made roll cage for the Le Mans car, exactly how it was, ready to go in
Picture Jeroen Booij
Cut out rear foot on the left, newly made one from pressed tube of the actual cage on the right
Picture Jeroen Booij
Original front feet were cut out of the body and re-used to weld the roll cage on. The whole of it is to be moulded in once again soon
Picture Jeroen Booij
Here is the cage put in front of the car. It's diameter is very thin. It won't pass FIA rules today but it is exactly what it was like in 1966
Picture Jeroen Booij
And here it is placed on its place into the car. The fit is excellent
Picture Jeroen Booij
Timber farme was made already to be able to put the car upside down soon
Picture Jeroen Booij
Awesome to see the attention to detail this project gets.
ReplyDeleteWill this cage allow the car to be raced at Le Mans classic? I have no knowledge of historic rules, and I'm torn between originality and use-ability. Would be a shame if after all this work it ends up in the car park and not the track.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure racing is not in your plans, but would be good to keep it an option.
Splendid progress by the way
Thanks Wil. It is not the kind of cage to pass modern FIA regulations and so I am not sure if it will be allowed to race Le Mans Classic. But then it is the roll cage the car had when it came 15th at Le Mans back in 1966 and for that reason the one it should have. But that is my opinion. All owners of Mini Marcoses are free to use all sorts of modern safety regulations in their own cars - for now this one is going to be restored back to how it was. It can always be updated later, but I would hate to do that now.
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