Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #53

 

Supercharged 997 Spenceley Special is rather special

Last events of the year in pictures

Broadspeed GTS raced in Adelaide Rally - plus replica in the making

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #18

Lost AF Grand Prix four-wheeler found

Swiss Stimson importer finally tracked down

And yet another Ogle SX1000 turns up in... New York

The cars of Alexander 'Sandy' Fraser: AF Grand Prix

Over to the next step in Alexander 'Sandy' Fraser's career as a motor manufacturer. After the AF Spider (click here) came the AF Grand Prix. That car was built in the same spirit but slightly differently designed and more cost-effectively made, making it also cheaper in price. Where the Spider had been offered for £850, the Grand Prix came at £650. 

Fraser: "I did not redesign the new car very much. It was just a matter of keeping the costs down by making a few subtle alterations. I was really trying to aim for a younger type of market than before. Previously it was really a rich man's fun car". The most notable changes were the round cycle wings, the rounded-off back, a different hood design and a bench seat rather than two separate bucket seats.

Sandy told me he made four Grand Prix three-wheelers plus one four-wheeler variant. The second three-wheeler was a customer-built car and he told: "It was the quickest car that I built, with 0-60 timed at just over 5 seconds. According to the owner 9000 rpm in top was achieved once just to see what it would do. This corresponds to 156 mph at which the airflow was said to be 'most uncomfortable'!" Now, let's have a look at the cars that I have found pictures of. I'd love to hear from you if you own any of these, or the one that I seem to have missed out on.

YTL 37L - AF Grand Prix - Green

NMR 179R  - AF Grand Prix - Blue

CMR 266V - AF Grand Prix - Red

CMR 267V - AF Grand Prix 4-wheeler - Maroon

Sandy Fraser with daughter and three of the five AF Grand Prix' he built, the 4-wheeler at the back. This lovely image reminds me very much of Roald Dahl's great story 'Danny the Champion of the World'

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

May 1972: the AF Grand Prix is launched and makes it to the local press

Picture Jeroen Booij archive 

Nine years later Sandy was still offering them, as this March 1980 clipping proves

Picture Jeroen Booij archive 

Motor test drove the AF Spider in July 1971 when Sandy told them about his plans for the AF Grand Prix. The magazine's artist Brian Hatton then made this drawing

Picture The Motor / Jeroen Booij archive

This is the AF Grand Prix brochure car, seen with garage plate '157 DD'

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

YTL 37L - AF Grand Prix. Is this also the brochure car / demonstrator?

Picture Peter Frost

NMR 179R - another AF Grand Prix, originally blue, later blue and black

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

CMR 166V - Cooper 'S' powered AF Grand Prix, beautifully finished in red

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

CMR 267V - the only AF Grand Prix with four wheels

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The cars of Alexander 'Sandy' Fraser: AF Spider

I noticed I haven't written much about the crazy contraptions built by Alexander 'Sandy' Fraser here, so why not catch up on that. These three-wheelers were very much built in the best tradition of cottage car manufacture by a truly lovely and slightly eccentric man. That ticks all the boxes for Maximum Mini, doesn't it? I thought I'd make an overview of what he built and I should start with his first model, the AF Spider and its predecessor called AB1, which was also the prototype for the Spider. This AB1 was built by Sandy in his kitchen and used privately. It came with a Shorrock supercharged MG 1300 engine and later received a race-tuned Cooper engine.

For the Spider's full story and the involvement of F1 team manager and extraordinary 'barn find hunter' avant la lettre Colin Crabbe you need to read Maximum Mini 2. But Crabbe was the man to encourage Fraser to market his cars. He was, of course, a well-known figure in motoring media circles also, so it was perhaps no surprise that the AF Spider made it to the mainstream motoring magazines such as Motor and Autocar. 

When I visited Sandy Fraser to photograph his own Spider and interview him about the cars he told me most of his records had disappeared but he was kind enough to make a list from memory, which he said wasn't very good. But he told me :"I am 99.9% certain that there were 12 three-wheelers and 1 four-wheeler" He thought that were seven AF Spiders including 'AB1', the last one made from left-overs slightly later. With Sandy's list and the pictures that I have I found the following six Spiders, so it looks there is one missing: 

RTL 61J - 'AB1' or AF Spider prototype - Wood

UCT 41K - AF Spider - Blank aluminium & wood

SFL 256K - AF Spider - Blank aluminium & wood

LMP 868K - AF Spider - Red

WMD 982M - AF Spider - Yellow

96845 H (Australian plate) - AF Spider - Green

UPDATE 12 January 2022: And here is part 2 about the AF Grand Prix.

RTL 61J - AB1 or AF Spider prototype with the Shorrock supercharger

Picture Peter Frost

UCT 41K - the AF Spider of Colin Crabbe, here with his father and a friend

Picture Colin Crabbe

SFL 256K - AF Spider. Different car or same as above with a different number?

Picture H&H Auctioneers

While this is the AF Spider brochure car. The same also?

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

LMP 868K - AF Spider

Picture Peter Frost

WMD 982M - AF Spider

Picture Jeroen Booij

96854 H - AF Spider in Australia. More about it here

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Rare DeJoux and AF Grand Prix for sale

Well well, after Friday's Mini Marcos conundrum (click here) I am receiving messages from far and wide to have more views on all this. That's very good and there will certainly be a follow-up soon but it needs a bit more investigation first.

Meanwhile, to keep you guys happy here, I found out about two more interesting cars that have made it to the market. First of them is a rare DeJoux Mini GT rolling shell in its home country of New Zealand. It's an unbuilt shell with no engine, no glass, no interior and no registration but it's also perhaps one very rare chance to buy a DeJoux - certainly one of the prettier Mini based sports cars with the engine in the front. It's in Auckland and you find the ad here.

Second is an even rarer AF (that's for Alexander Fraser) Grand Prix three-wheeler, fitted with a 1275 engine. The seller notes that four were built but I happen to know there were five! - one of these was a four-wheeler. It's a well-known car (archive pictures available here) which the last owner supposedly had for 36 years. It's in Crawley, West-Sussex, where I happened to have spent a night last March in one of the cheapest hotels I even spent a night in which was actually great. So let me know if you are picking it up and are in need of a bed. The ad is here.

No engine, no interior, no glass, no registration but still very desirable!

Picture Trademe.co.nz

Some 20 DeJoux GTs were made in New Zealand. This one was never on the road

Picture Trademe.co.nz

Three wheels, 400 kilgrams and 1275 cc - AF Grand Prix is bound to be fun

Picture Ebay.co.uk

Just 5 AF Grand Prix' were made. it's predecessor the AF Spider came in a number of 7

Picture Ebay.co.uk