In loving memory of David Barford and the Barford Special

I received a message from Natalie Barford yesterday: "Hi Jeroen, a quick note to say dad passed away last week, I don't know if you did a follow up article after he'd sent you all the papers? He was 72 and it was very unexpected. I just found all the papers he'd sent you, thanks for returning them."

That was sad news. Natalie's dad David was the man who built the Mini powered Barford Special in 1968/1969. I'd been looking for more information about this car for some time (see here), when Natalie all of a sudden approached me. She got me in touch with her father and Dave was ever so nice to send me a very, very detailed report with lots of pictures and info on how he built the car (a bit more here). Did I ever write a follow up on the earlier story here? I didn't, and I am ashamed about that since Dave was so kind to send me all his stuff. Perhaps I didn't get to do it because it so much that it isn't going to be easy to distill it into an article suitable for here. I will give it a try never the less, perhaps in a little series of articles. In loving memory of your dad, Natalie. Here are some pictures to start with.

The Barford Special in 1969, built by David John Barford when he was 22 years old

Picture David Barford

A picture of the car's interior shows the steering wheel Dave even made himself

Picture David Barford

And here is the passage of him describing how he did just that

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

There are many more drawings in the detailed information he sent me 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And a newspaper clipping from the local paper with Dave at 22, dated January 1969

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

David Barford last year. He passed away at the age of 72 

Picture via David Barford

Dave and the Barford 'S' Mini Special

This is what I do it for. Three and a half years ago I wrote for the first time about a 1968/1969 Special, built by one DJ Barford of Peterborough (here), a car which had made it to Hot Car magazine in 1969. I concluded with: "So, DJ, if you ever happen to find these pages do let us know what happened to yourself and your groovy special!"

Now, some months ago Dave Barford did just that after his daughter had found the article. He promised me to send over some of the details if he was able to recollect them, too. Today I received a big manilla enveloppe with a tremendous amount of information. Dave, 22 at the time he built the car, wrote up the whole story in a beautiful hand written letter of 12 pages, illustrated with design drawings from his memory and over 35 separate old photographs with it. He writes: "Trying to find all the pictures from 50 years ago was very difficult, I even had to reprint some from old negatives that I found - the originals have disappeared over the years. I have tried to write a first-hand account of how I built the Special, but please feel free to adjust, modify, rewrite or alter as you feel fit!" Dave, you made my day. I will read your accounts this coming Christmas holidays. Thank you so much.

More to follow.

Left to right, Dave's first wife, his mum and DJ himself in 1969. The gull winged Barford Mini Special in the background

Picture courtesy Dave Barford

Home-grown Specials (1)

We've seen lots of mystery cars come by in the past here. But when looking for a next 'Mystery Mini derivative' it struck me that I have quite a few pictures of cars that are pretty well described in the magazines or advertisement that I found, but that are clearly home-grown. So there was an idea to turn these into a little series too. Why not? Well, here's number one: the Barford Special, also known as the Barford 850 Special. It was built by the young man proudly standing next to it: DJ Barford from Peterborough, back in those golden days of speciual building: the late 1960s. According to Hot Car magazine (where the pictures came from) it took DJ nine months to build the car, starting from a wrecked Mini 850. The shell was scrapped and a brand new chassis was made out of 50 feet of box section steel. The basic body frame was wood with aluminium sheeting made up the surface. The height was kept right down and gull wing doors were accomodated in the design. Hot Car wrote: "The whole project shows real ingenuity and even the steering wheel was home-made for 6s 8d." Now that's the spirit! So, DJ, if you ever happen to find these pages do let us know what happened to yourself and your groovy special!

UPDATE 15 December 2017: David John Barford is found! More here.

UPDATE 27 March 2019: DJ Barford passes away at 72. More here.

DJ Barford of Peterborough and the Mini based special he built in just 9 months time

Picture courtesy Hot Car magazine

Razorsharp fastback lines and gull wing doors: as good as a Mini Special gets

Picture courtesy Hot Car magazine