Eight years ago I found out who was the mystery Marcos mechanic who'd made the infamous overnight roof conversion on the 1967 works Mini Marcos for Le Mans that year. His name was Mike Treutlein and he turned out still to be working on classic cars in rural Bedfordshire. With a little (ahem) delay I thought it was about time to post a bit more about the meeting I had with Mike all those years ago, which gives a small but also a unique insight in Mini Marcos history, straight from the horse's mouth. Over to Mike Treutlein:
"The idea was we were going to have a girl's team and a boy's team, so we built two similar cars, one green and one yellow. Jacqui Bond-Smith and her sister were to drive the yellow one. Her dad used to race a car called the Wavendon Wombat. There were the two sisters and there was another girl" (this was Joey Cook, and I think it was in fact her father Arthur Cook who raced the Wombat-JB).
"My friend Mike Garton went to work for Marcos. I was working in a garage in Peterborough, but we built the two cars together. At the end of 1967 he got me a job at John Woolfe Racing. Jem, a man of very few words, and I got on reasonably well and I did the racing cars for him. Mike took over as production manager for the whole thing and was got to make a six-months waiting list as Jem used to take cars out of the production line all the time."
"We went to Le Mans with only two of us I think. We came in a tow car, but I can't remember what that was. I never spoke to the French guys who'd raced the year before but the scrutineers clearly didn't like our car and excluded it as they found the windscreen was just too low. I thought the screen was measured raked from bottom to top but it was measured in a straight line. I think it really shocked them when we came back the next day. We'd modified it overnight, but they couldn't find anything wrong with it. We placed the screen more upright, pop riveted the thing back in place with aluminium and painted it quickly with an aerosol. I don't think they liked us but they had to let us go."
"Unfortunately our car only lasted about over an hour. In the race one of the bearings blew apart which let all of the rollers go. One of them went into the oil pump and that broke it. The engine was a works rally engine, we didn't have much trouble with it when we did the testing. We were then so knackered we went to bed and just fell asleep for a really long time. We took both cars to Germany 500 kms race after Le Mans, but they ran into a tree there. We rebuilt it when we were back home."
"Chris Lawrence was a friend of Jem's and I remember we spent a lot of time working on the car and making it ready. After the car packed up Jem said let's take the oil pump out and see what's wrong with it. The oil came out like silver paint. The needle roller was stuck and it took us about an hour getting the oil pump out."
Mike also gave me the contacts for his fellow works mechanic Mike Garton, who'd worked with him building both the Mini Marcos works cars. I understand Mike Garton passed away recently, but I was lucky to speak to him before that and will share his information here later this week. In the meantime I also found a little but lovely bit of film footage taken during the scrutineering of the 1967 Le Mans car just after the roof had been modified overnight by the two Mikes. Note the French scrutineer scratching his head, clearly not knowing how to tackle this!
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Marcos works mechanic Mike Treutlein: "I don't think they liked us but they had to let us go"
Picture Jeroen Booij
"After the car packed up Jem said let's take the oil pump out and see what's wrong with it.
The oil came out like silver paint."
Picture Jeroen Booij
French scrutineers are clearly puzzled after Mike Treutlein and Mike Garton modified the roof
Video Automobile Club de l'Ouest
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