Maximum Mini: Brian Raubenheimer passes away at 80

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Brian Raubenheimer passes away at 80

I heard about the death of South-African racing driver and Mini Marcos manufacturer Brian Raubenheimer yesterday, who passed away at the age of 80. Brian started racing at 22 in an Opel Kadett but also drove a Lotus Elan and a Lotus Type 20 formula junior in South-African racing.

The Mini Marcos crossed his path when he met Chris Lawrence during a visit to the UK in 1967, who was working on the Le Mans car for that year. Raubenheimer, 27 years at the time, was attracted by the design and decided this was the car he wanted to built as a manufacturer himself. He managed to make a deal with Marcos Cars' Jem Marsh and completed a course at the Marcos factory in Bradford-on-Avon that same summer, learning all about moulding in fibreglass in preparation for his own manufacturing plant in South-Africa. To do so he moulded and built a car for himself and had that shipped over to South-Africa. A motoring magazine report: "It arrived by mailship in late July (1967-JB) and it immediately caused a stir in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It is painted bright yellow. This particular car started life as a 1961 Mini Van which Brian purchased for R100 at Earls Court. It had 80,000 miles on the clock before he toured the continent with it and then stripped it to build the Marcos."

Apart from his own yellow car the shipment included a brand new set of moulds plus six more Mini Marcos shells also. In his hometown of Pietermaritzburg Brian set up Raubenheimer Manufacturing Company (Pty) Ltd although fabrication of the shells was outsourced to Ashley Smith's Plasba (Pty) Ltd in Estcourt, some 60 miles further up north and Brian regularly went there in his Piper aeroplane. The South-African built Mini Marcos Mk3 was officially launched on January 3rd 1968 at the Estcourt factory. At the time the six UK-built shells were built up as cars, too, and there were another 13 locally made shells to be seen. In November 1967 the '67 Le Mans Mini Marcos came over to Africa and was arced at Kyalami by Jem Marsh and Raubenheimer. The car never got back to the UK and was continued to be campaigned in Africa. It is still there today (extensive history here).

Sadly, a disagreement with Marcos Cars in the UK soon spelt the end of South-African production. Initially even the moulds were ordered to be destroyed, but Raubenheimer managed to prevent this. But by December 1968 the South-African dream had fallen apart, all the manufactured cars were sold and the factory had closed. According to one source a total of 63 cars are said to have been made, 47 of which with shells made in Estcourt, but I wonder if this is true. The South-African Mini Marcos moulds turned up in 2017 here. Raubenheimer himself remained active in the car scene up until recently.