New Zealand MiniSprint: Crashed, rebuilt and... disappeared

Graeme Farr's messages always bring a smile on my face, and the one he sent recently did so, too. He wrote: "Did I ever send you this cool period photo of Tony Gilbertson's car after he crashed it in '67? It was rebuilt as good as new. Still hunting for the car... It's the genuine Trickett built car Tony imported to New Zealand in 1966. Best, Graeme"

As always with Graeme he had more to show, adding later: "The two photos of it in blue but without the racing livery is the rebuilt car."

That is indeed an amazing photo and it looks like the smash was one easily forgotten also and I was amazed to hear that Gilbertson walked out with only minor injuries. Who knows what happened to the rebuilt car..?

Original 1966 MiniSprint imported from the UK was crashed heavily in NZ in 1967

Picture via Graeme Farr

Crumpled up seriously - amazingly driver Gilbertson suffered minor injuries

Picture via Graeme Farr

This must have been before the race - the 1967 NZ Grand Prix at Pukekohe circuit

Picture via Graeme Farr

And another period colour photograph. Venue unknown

Picture via Graeme Farr

And again at a NZ racing venue. The car was rebuilt after the crash but where is it now? 

Picture via Graeme Farr

More from Graeme's scrapbooks. Top two pics show the car as he last saw it

Picture via Graeme Farr

The cars of Douglas Glover (2)

Douglas Glover of Dublin, Ireland, made just a few cars under the DGS banner and this is the second to take a more detailed look at.

After a first DGS Special, a buck / prototype for the DGS Firecrest and the first production car registered 'LZD 775' (full story here), the second DGS Firecrest became 'RZD 407'. It had a number of differences from the earlier car, for example the air intake on the bonnet and the lack of door handles. The car was used to shoot a number of publicity pictures and was seen in a few magazine articles.

What exactly happened in the first couple of years of the car's life remains unknown, but RZD 407 showed up in the hands of rally driver and hill climber PJ Wilhare in the late 1960s. By that time it used an extra air-intake and alloys, was bumper-less and was seen with a hardtop, too. Things went wrong when Wilhare entered the car at Knockalla hillclimb in Donegal in 1970. A fast left bend proved to be too much for the Firecrest and rolled at high speed. Somebody described it as follows: 'In a scene resembling an air crash Wilhare ended up sitting on the remains of the floorpan with the debris scattered far and wide.' What was left of the car was scrapped, but the crash made history as the fast left bend is christened 'Wilhare's Corner' ever since that day in 1970. Some more information on the Knockalla circuit and Wilhare's Corner can be found here.

DGS Firecrest production car number 2, seen here in a nice publicity shot

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Original caption: "Motoring in Ireland on holiday can be leisurely enough to enjoy a 

friendly chat. On the road near Kilkieran, County Galway"

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Even the donkeys are friendly in Ireland! Note standard wheel covers, an 850 base..?

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Headlight covers made the Firecrest's nose even more aerodynamic. Standard Mini looks like a brick!

Picture courtesy Richard Heseltine

PJ Wilhare competed the car in a number of races with hardtop. Here at Kirkistown in 1969

Picture via Graemme Farr / Jeroen Booij archive

And here at Knockalla hill climb a year later. It was going to be the car's last outing

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Seen here with PJ Wilhare behind the wheel in the fast left bend. Things were okay here...

Picture via 'Pictures from the Past'

... But then it went wrong. This shot is taken just after it crashed - the Firecrest is surrounded with spectators and is not visible, though. Competitors were making their way back down the hill. All that was left of the DGS was the floor!

Picture Eddie Fitzgerald / O'Kane cars

All about the Hamlin Special - once the Fastest Mini in the World

An overwhelming amount of information has come to me about the Mini Special of Frank Hamlin (not Hamblin), which I wrote about last week (click here). I understand that Hamlin passed away in 2016 but he was involved in racing Minis for most of his life, still being New Zealand's Mini racing champion at the age of 74. Also: the car survives and is currently being restored.

Ken Douglas sent a great number of photographs of the car being raced, crashed and even being built back in 1965-'66. The tuning company that was also on the car's front wings was named Hamlin Charles Ltd. after Hamlin's team-up with Murray Charles in 1965. Ken also knew the car's current owner is Neil Whiting who is working on its restoration.

Another unbelievably detailed source of information was - once again - Graeme Farr, who even owned the Mini Special at one stage and sent over a first-hand story, mostly from talking to Frank himself about the car. Graeme wrote: "Frank called the car a Lowline Mini and it was built for an allcomers saloon class in 1966. But publisher Robin Curtis who bought the car off him and converted it to a road car called it a Minisprint and had a badge made that is still with the car."

He continues in great detail: "It was built out of a blue 1959 lightweight Mini but had parts from a wrecked Cooper 'S' which Frank bought. A panelshop chap called Jack Paterson (who was my neighbour in the '80s) did the alloy bonnet and doors and his employee Neil Hawker and polytech tutor John Oldfield did the roof lowering and John did the front guards with Neil finishing them."

"The car had the Cooper 'S' engine with a initially a AEG163 head ground by a chap called Bob Austin but I think to Frank's design. A new head was fitted later and also ground by Bob but this head was down 7-8hp than the original but Frank got this back when he further modified the head. The car had 105hp at the wheels on the rolling road dyno that Hamlin and Charles had. It had a 45DCOE Weber with a cold air box behind the alloy sheet dashboard which fed from the passengers side headlamp cowl. The cam was an Australian John Harvey cam which was a back to front BMC Sprint cam - with a exhaust duration longer than the inlet - which is like a modern race cam. Franks made his own big bore exhaust much like a BMC Competitions one."

"The car had a 16 row oil cooler and a crossflow radiator out of a Standard Vanguard 6. It had a straight cut box with a Jack Knight pawl LSD and was high geared to match the slippery shape. It ran a 3.7 at all tracks except the faster Pukekohe in Auckland where it ran a 3.4 ratio. It was timed at an amazing 132 mph in a flying 1/4 mile sprint with 8400-8500 on a 3.4 diff at the Main Drain Road sprint near Palmerston North. It was reported in a UK magazine as the 'Fastest Mini in the World'."

"The car had 5.5" Minilite wheels and a rear anti-roll bar and no seat belts and no roll-over bar. It had front negative camber by re-drilling the inner mounts on the bottom arms. Frank used a standard Mini seat and steering wheel. The car was painted a General Motors grey colour by the local GM agents Manthel Motors in exchange for work on a Holden used for the Benson and Hedges sponsored annual long distance production race which Frank drove with local racer David Slater."

"Frank raced it with considerable success in the 1966 season. The big crash at the Wigram airfield races was caused by an outer CV breaking on a high speed left-hander before the main straight. The car oversteered and hit a barrier and flew 30 feet into the air before coming down upside down and spinning 360 degrees on the roof - hence the damage. One report had Jim Clark pulling Frank out of the back window and telling him off for not wearing a seatbelt. Frank said petrol was dripping when he was upside down."

"The car was repaired but the regulations changed after 1966 when Group 2 was introduced which required a standard body. Frank sold the car to Robert Stewart in Christchurch who raced it briefly before converting it to a standard shell which became famous as the PDL Mini. Robert kept the EU7304 number plate, possibly because it was off the original Cooper 'S' that Frank has used."

"Robert put an 1100cc engine into the Lowline car and used the number plates off the standard donor body. He sold the car to well known journalist and publisher Robin Curtis who used it as a road car and daily driver for a number of years. Robin later painted it purple and fitted a 1275 engine and brakes off a Morris 1100. The car had a quilted headlining when Robin gave me a ride in it in the late 1970s. It was well used inside and out and still grey and silver at that stage."

"Robin sold the car to local Mini racer and mechanic Peter Zivcovic mainly for the modified 1275 it had which Peter used in his race Mini. The shell then ended up with Neil Whiting who sold it to me around 1985 - and then bought it back in the mid-1990s. Neil still has the car and is restoring it at present."

"An interesting aside is when the Wellington makers of iconic Mini movie Goodbye Pork Pie asked Robin Curtis who might be a good Mini driver to do the stunts for the film - he said he didn't know but had just sold his Minisprint to a local Mini racer and passed on Peter's details. They employed Peter who did a superb job on the film and has continued in the movie industry ever since. So the little Minisprint had a role in the success of the Pork Pie movie as well!"

Thanks very much to everyone who sent information about this very special New Zealand Mini Special, especially Ken and Graeme. Keep it coming!

Hamlin's 'Lowline Mini' under construction. It used steel guards with an alloy 

bonnet and alloy panels on the steel door frames

Picture Jack Patterson 

The crash at the Wigram airfield races was caused by an outer CV breaking on a high speed left-hander before the main straight. The car oversteered and hit a barrier and flew 30 feet into the air before coming down upside down and spinning 360 degrees on the roof

Picture through Ken Douglas

More pictures after the crash. It was reported that Jim Clark pulled Frank out of the back window and telling him off for not wearing a seatbelt. Frank said petrol was dripping when he was upside down

Picture through Ken Douglas

The car was repaired after the crash and raced once again succesfully

Picture through Ken Douglas

'78' Clearly was Frank Hamlin's racing number. This was World's Fastest Mini at the time

Picture through Ken Douglas

Frank Hamlin's second 'Mini Sprint' built many years later and now owned by Marvin Turton

Picture through Ken Douglas

Graeme Farr: "I owned it for a while. It sat inside a bedroom in my house which amused passers by. Photo here of us lifting it in through the sliding doors"

Picture Graeme Farr

Painted purple at one stage and fitted with an 1100 engine it was not quite the Fastest Mini in the World it had been before

Picture Graeme Farr

Neil Whiting currently owns the car and has nearly finished the restoration by this time

Picture Graeme Farr

The late Frank Hamlin seen here with another of his racing Minis - still champion at 74 years

Picture through Ken Douglas

How a Deep Sanderson racer was turned into a Triumph Special

It's been some time since I wrote about Deep Sandersons, so it was good when Christopher Tamblyn contacted me about one such car. One his stepfather once owned. He wrote:

"Dear Jeroen. My stepfather bought this car around 1964/1965 from a well-known garage owner and wheel manufacturer JA Pearce of Staines Middlesex, who used to make the Magna magnesium wheels. I remember the car had a scrutineer label on the door pull but that was for a hill climb, it did have a hot Mini Cooper engine in the back with a Weber carb and it was road legal. I remember coming home from school and sitting in the car and pretending to drive it, oh what days they were.
I also remember that the rear suspension kept braking at one of the rose joints eventually putting the car and my step father through someones front hedge of their house just outside of Winchester!"

The Deep Sanderson 301 as owned by Chris Tamblyn's stepfather in the mid-1960s

Picture courtesy Christopher Tamblyn

The Deep Sanderson joined by the Jaguar XK140 of the Tamblyn family

Picture courtesy Christopher Tamblyn

From the pictures that Chris sent I recognized the car as 'AJB 150B' and had several pictures of it, too, being raced and crashed at the Nurburgring in May 1964.

Seen here in May 1964 at the Nurburgring, competing (?) a Ferrari 250 GTO

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Unfortunately, it was crashed on that day and ended in the bushes

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Chris continued: "This is just amazing, I recognize that Weber on that big inlet manifold, and the small number plates, as you say this is the car and we didn't know about this bit of history. We kept the car but he dismantled it and put the body on a Triumph Spitfire chassis with some small modification! Just stopping for a cry! This car and all of its ancillary equipment were then sold to a really nice guy called Chris Gow who was someone big in the Mini club after my father had passed away who also owned a Deep Sanderson. Around about a year later Chris had either sold his car and I had also found the chassis number of our Deep Sanderson and I think I sold that to this person so that he could have a 'proper' Deep Sanderson. I hope you have been able to follow this story and I am sorry I can't be any more specific about our car, but please keep in touch as its always nice to talk to interesting people about classic cars. Stay safe and kind regards, Chris"

The Deep Sanderson's body was eventually used on a Triumph Spitfire chassis

Picture courtesy Christopher Tamblyn

Longer and taller, re-registered and repainted in red, but still recognizable as a Deep Sanderson!

Picture courtesy Christopher Tamblyn

Deep Sanderson for sale at Rétromobile

Due to snow it was not easy to reach Paris yesterday, but when I finally made it to the Rétromobile show, I was happy to be reunited with an old flame: the Deep Sanderson 301 that was restored by David Ramsbotham almost a decade ago. When David had just started work, back in 2007, I had a look at it. Meanwhile, he had the car advertised here and sold it, but it ended up in auction with Coys some time later. And here it was again. And once more it is offered for sale! This time in an impressive sale by French auctioneer Artcurial during the Rétromobile show.

Oh, it's not the first time it's in France. As I wrote before the car's history is somewhat shrouded in mystery and it may or may not have been intended to race at Le Mans in 1963, but fact is that it ended up in France until the 1980s during which time a J.M. Muratore competed it under the 'Equipe Bleue' banner. I'd still love to learn more about that. After this, the 301 was repatriated to Britain, where it sat neglected in a lock-up until rescued by David in 2002. With the help from the late Chris Lawrence a complete restoration was completed in 2009. David drove it at Goodwood in 2010 and Pau in 2011. It is still unregistered and is to be sold with no reserve tomorrow (Friday the 9th).

UPDATE 9 February 2018: just hammered down at 40,000 euros.
UPDATE 13 February 2018: Unsold, says catalogue now, which seems strange as it had 'no reserve'

This is what the body and chassis looked like back in 2007 in David Ramsbotham's garage

Note Aston Martin DB7 prototype behind...

Picture Jeroen Booij

And this is what it looks like now. The car will be auctioned in Paris tomorrow with no reserve

Picture courtesy Artcurial

Deep Sanderson 301 was a pioneer in having the Mini engine placed in the rear

Picture courtesy Artcurial

Interior is nothing more than functional. It would be a great car for Le Mans Classic

Picture courtesy Artcurial

It's always good to show the car's size in comparison to a human. I'm not a giant!

Picture Francois Tasiaux

Rear wheel suspension was Chris Lawrence's own LawrenceLink system

Picture courtesy Artcurial

Something is strange about this rear wheel, though. I'd say it's not placed right

Picture Jeroen Booij

Perhaps due to this off? This was at the Goodwood Revival in 2010. It was raced at Pau later

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Deep Sanderson is not only Chris Lawrence design offered for sale in Paris. There's this Monica, too

Picture Jeroen Booij

New images of ART Mini Marcos

Thanks to some of you, I can now share some more pictures of the Dutch Mk1 Mini Marcos that was raced by Hans Casteleyn of the ART ('Algemeen Racing Team') in the late 1960s and earliest of 1970s. This car was seen at Zandvoort and Welschap regularly and was damaged during a race in September 1968. Puzzling the pieces together I now understand it was repaired and repainted in its ART livery with green stripe. As you may remember the car survives to this day (in blue - see here). Two or three months ago I was contacted by the son of Hans Casteleyn, who told me he was eager to buy it back but I do not know if he succeeded. I'd love to hear from you again!

This is Hans Casteleyn's Mini Marcos at an early stage. No flared front arches yet and no ART stickers

Picture Rob Petersen/ Jeroen Booij archive

This is no doubt the same car, also seen here at Zandvoort circuit in August 1968

Picture Racehistorie.nl

Oops. Car number 14 is involved in an accident, just like the Henk Nieuwenhuis Mini Special (13)

Picture Autovisie / Jeroen Booij archive

But it's repaired and this is how we know it. Flared arches and broad green stripe over its body

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And we now have a colour photograph, too! Taken in the pit street of, again, Zandvoort in '69

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

It wore number 4 during a series of races at Zandvoort in 1969, while it used '44' for the next season

Picture Rob Petersen

Another great colour image. Car ran a 1293cc engine with eight-port Arden head

Picture Racehistorie.nl

In the paddock at Zandvoort, joined by another ART Mini plus an Opel Kadett coupe

Picture Racehistorie.nl

The ART team proudly showing their carriages. Opel and the Mini Marcos plus two Formula cars

Picture Racehistorie.nl

And again, seen here at the Racing Car Show in Amsterdam in May 1969 joined by others

Picture Racehistorie.nl

The car is road registered in 1972 and believed to have been used on a daily basis for some time

Picture courtesy Gert-Jan Westerveld / Jeroen Booij archive

I found this ad in an old issue of Hot Car magazine. Casteleyn's son even remembered the telephone number quoted (which I have blurred here)!

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

That pit street colour image seemed familiar to me. Then I suddenly knew. The resemblances of this picture of my own car, taken in April 1966 during Le Mans tests are pretty amazing!

Pictures Jeroen Booij archive