More Mini Marcoses and Mini Jems bound for France

Quite a few Mini Marcoses and Mini Jems have found their way over to France in the last couple of years. Well, another truckload made it over to there! 

Roger Garland, the fantastic club secretary and treasurer of the Mini Marcos Owner's Club, wrote to me about a car transporter that had been spotted in Cumbria back in May of this year, but he added: "Photos not for publication please, here is a car transporter with an amazing collection of vehicles - including a Mini Bug - all on their way from the UK to France."

I've asked Roger again if I could publish the pictures now, which was okay. And what a stash it is. There are 10 cars / shells on the transporter and I believe they are:

4 x Mini Marcos Mk2 or Mk3

2 x Mini Jem Mk2

1 x Mini Jem Mk3 unused shell

1 x Stimson Mini Bug

1 x Falcon Mk2 shell

1 x Lotus Elan shell

I only recognized the red Mini Jem on top at the back and the black one in the middle, with the first being the car that famously stood in a Suffolk front garden for ages - more here and the black one a car that was advertised on Ebay in October last year. But the rest of them..? You may recognize others perhaps? And what's more: who took them on and what's the idea? Where did they end up..? 

Roger added: "It is perhaps no coincidence that with so many cars / shells leaving the UK (which they have done for years) when 'the world's largest kit car show' comes around we can muster just three vehicles on the club stand."

UPDATE 24 September: Mike Brown writes: "The Mk3 Mini Jem shell is one I had. He contacted me claiming he wanted one for racing (unfortunately this was before I found out who he was). I'm still annoyed I got conned and it's leaving the country. Don't get me wrong I've no problem with genuine buyers from the UK or elsewhere. It's just the ones that are profiteering out of it." Thanks for that! Picture of the car at Mike's place added below.

A car transporter on its way from the UK to France, loaded with Mini based sports cars

Picture courtesy Roger Garland

Stimson Mini Bug jammed in between Jems and Marcoses... and a Lotus

Picture courtesy Roger Garland

This is one of the three Mini Jems, a Mk2 that was seen for sale last year

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

It came with an 1100 engine and was 'amazingly sound' to quote the seller

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Another Mk2 Mini Jem was the car that spent decades in a Suffolk front garden

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Many rang the door asking if it was for sale. It wasn't. And then it made it to Ebay after all

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

UPDATE: The unused Mini Jem shell is a Mk3 that was owned by Mike Brown previously

Picture courtesy Mike Brown

French museum closes - Hustler 6 seeks new home

Méan Sonora-owner Louis Lempereur told me about the upcoming closure of the Musée Automobile de Provence in southern France. The museum will be closed and the premises destroyed to build houses. Many of the cars on display are said to come up for sale, with some real gems in between them. There are several pre-war Bugattis in the collection as well as a Cooper T61 and quite a number number of interesting French Specials and low-volume cars. A Hustler Huntsman 6 is perhaps not quite what you'd expect here, but it's there and it's looking good in bright orange. 

I contacted the museum's curator Pierre Delliere, who confirmed the car's for sale status: "Dear Sir, Indeed I made the decision to separate myself from the Hustler. It is a 1985 car and it was completely dismantled and rebuilt in two years time. There is a newly built engine, new seats, belts, hoses, exhaust, carpets, tyres, brakes, clutch, 6 hydrolastic hoses (600 €), radiator, tank, etc, etc... We also changed the headlights and rear lights and reviewed the entire wiring loom. There is still some work to fully finish it. It comes with English papers (V5), but I do have the French tax paper also as it was imported before Brexit. Greetings, Pierre Delliere."

If anyone here is interested, just drop me a line and I'd be happy to get you in touch with monsieur Delliere.

Hustler Huntsman 6 in the Musée Automobile de Provence in Orgon, southern France

Picture courtesy Louis Lempereur

The car was fully restored in the last two years and will now be sold as the museum closes

Picture Jordi Vilaro picture / All Andora

Still on British plates (wrong way 'round...) but it came to France pre-Brexit

Picture Jordi Vilaro picture / All Andora

Interior looks particularly good on this car with beautiful carpeting and trimmings

Picture Jordi Vilaro picture / All Andora

The Musée Automobile de Provence in Orgon will disappear to make place for houses

Picture courtesy Louis Lempereur

Visiting a reader in the UK

Reader Stephen Bulling got in touch just a year or two ago, and with such interesting messages that I was eager to catch up when in the UK next time. Despite the current rules making a visit to the country not particularly easy I did manage to do so last week and did meet up with Stephen in Essex. His hearth is full with Mini based cars and he owns a lovely little collection of them. Below is a selection of photographs of some of Stephen's cars, an Ogle SX1000, a Mini powered Davrian Mk7 and a Mini recently converted by Neville Trickett into a MiniSprint. Thanks for having me Stephen and taking the time to show me around.

Stephen was not the only person I visited in the country. Later this week I'll post some more pictures that were taken during another fabulous meeting. Stay tuned.

Stephen Bulling bought this Ogle SX1000 in 2007. It's now been fully restored

Picture Jeroen Booij

It is equipped with a 1275 with multipoint injection and airconditioning. He uses it!

Picture Jeroen Booij

An avid Maximum Mini reader, Stephen knows his Mini derivatives and owns several

Picture Jeroen Booij

Among them also this Davrian Mk7 racer. It will be turned into a road car soon 

Picture Jeroen Booij

Most of the Davrians came with Imp power - this is a rare mid-Mini-engined example

Picture Jeroen Booij

And how about this? A proper MiniSprint by master coachbuilder Neville Trickett

Picture Jeroen Booij

The car needs finishing touches but the mechanicals are ready, again it's Mpi powered

Picture Jeroen Booij

Scamp six-wheeler survivors

It's not very often that you come across a barn find Scamp six-wheeler, but two of them turned up in about a week's time. First there was the Mk2 rescued from one very rural barn by arch-Maximum Mini fan Tony Bucknall. Tony went there for another car and took the Scamp as a bonus. However, the barn was so full of stuff, he could only see the front of it. He wrote: "The Scamp I really didn’t want! And until it was dragged out I didn’t know it was a 6 wheeler! It has Cooper 'S' brakes, carbs and braided hoses. I think it was destined to be a nice build, but has been sat well over a decade."

The other car re-appearing is another Mk2 that has been seen lying in the woods for ages but is now rescued by Darren West and Mickey Bates. It's got some unusual features such as a curved windscreen and sliding doors and it looks very much deteriorated, but Darren sees a challenge in that. He wrote on Facebook: "We hope to get it back up and running". It would be fantastic to see these cars being brought back to life! 

UPDATE 16:00: John Keith Halliday writes: "Hi Jeroen. Just read your article on the six-wheelers. The second one looks like a Mk1. You can see rear subframes and the sides look lower than a Mk2 (although difficult to see sides with the sliding door open). Thank you for all your articles. Keep up the good work. All the best." Thank you John, I think you are right!

Tony found another Scamp: "But until it was dragged out I didn’t know it was a 6-wheeler!"

Picture Tony Bucknall

Hooked up behind his van and ready to be transported for the first time in ages

Picture Tony Bucknall

The Scamp six-wheeler will join Tony's collection of Mini based cars. He has quite a few!

Picture Tony Bucknall

"It has Cooper 'S' brakes, carbs and braided hoses. I think it was destined to be a nice build"

Picture Tony Bucknall

Another Scamp six-wheeler spent much of its life deep in the woods

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

But the car has now been rescued also, this time by Darren West and Mickey Bates

Picture Darren West

Another challenging restoration but Darren wrote: "We hope to get it back up and running"

Picture Darren West

Quasar Unipower film car survives in France

The Quasar Unipower seen in the French movie 'Elle boit pas, elle fume pas, elle drague pas, mais... elle cause!' driven by the late Mireille Darc (film footage here), appears to survive in great shape in Toulouse, France. 

A number of pictures of the car were posted recently by French garage 'Old Cars City' which did some maintenance work on it, adding: "The owner has had it for a long time, it's part of a collection of over 30 unlikely cars." Apart from the French cult movie, the car with plates '610-VA 75' was seen in a few publications in the period as well.

Quasar Unipower film star survives in Toulouse, France in long-term ownership

Picture Old Cars City

The car is said to be part of a 30-car strong collection. That's a Bond three-wheeler next to it

Picture Old Cars City

Chrome passenger bar is missing, number plates have changed but this is said to be it

Picture Old Cars City

1100 engine with automatic transmission was standard equipment for Quasars

Picture Old Cars City

Same car seen here with Mireille Darc driving it in the 1970 French cult film named...

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

...'Elle boit pas, elle fume pas, elle drague pas, mais... elle cause!' in which Darc plays a TV host

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

'610 VA 75' is seen here with its creators Emanuelle and Quasar Khanh plus children in Paris 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And again in a saucy cover shot for French Adam magazine

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And yet another GTM in Belgium

Once a ball starts rolling... I had heard rumours about a Cox GTM in Belgium for years but it was only months ago that I actually found it (this one). Then I heard there was supposedly another and found that, too only this week. It's not a Cox GTM but a Heerey GTM though, and joins the sole and still unregistered Euro GTM Coupe (this one) in the hands of Benjamin Massy. 

Benjamin purchased the Heerey as a project car some 20 years ago but never came round to do it. It's complete but is unregistered and has no identification either. Oddly, the nose section on this car has been modified with only the front of it hinging forward. Benjamin showed me around in his workshop - a real Aladin's cave for A-series performance stuff. He is not too eager to sell anything, but may be tempted to do so if the offer is right. Drop me a line if you want to do so.

I had another arrangement before going home again, and when things got late I decided to ring up my friend Joost van Diën, who's based on the Dutch-Belgian border and who'd messaged me days earlier to tell that his Mk1 Mini Marcos had finally been road-registered in The Netherlands. We raised our glasses to that! The orange baby is going to be a real stunner and I hope to do a full report on the major troubles Joost went through to get it registered soon. Have a great weekend for now!

A Heerey GTM found in a lock-up in Belgium. Note the unusual front end...

Picture Jeroen Booij

 ...with the end of it fibreglassed to the front scuttle and only the front hinging forward

Picture Jeroen Booij

The car is complete with engine and all the bits and pieces but is unregistered

Picture Jeroen Booij

Much of the parts, including glass, is parked in the Heerey's cabin 

Picture Jeroen Booij

Benjamin Massy used to race / rally / sprint and hillclimb Minis from the early 1970s up until 1995

Picture Jeroen Booij

Benjamin in his Mini racer during a sprint - the car weighed 436 kgs at this point

Picture courtesy Benjamin Massy

The racer was wrecked but he kept his collection of racing parts, much of it new old stock

Picture Jeroen Booij

Open a drawer and you'll find something interesting. A hot camshaft... 

Picture Jeroen Booij

...or NOS parts for a Salibury diff as he had it fitted to his own Mini

Picture Jeroen Booij

And how about these? Three Mini gearboxes adapted to take a BDA engine block

Picture Jeroen Booij

That's Benjamin's daily driver today! An old Chevy hearse that's a truck on paper

Picture Jeroen Booij

Over to Mini Marcos man Joost van Diën who now has his Mk1 on Dutch registration, too

Picture Jeroen Booij

It's going to be a gorgeous car in any respect, restored to a very high standard

Picture Jeroen Booij

Early morning, Joost is off to work in his Mk3 - I'm heading back home

Picture Jeroen Booij

Gordon Murray's IGM Minbug explained

Gordon Murray's car collection has been the subject of numerous articles in motoring magazine in recent times after the designer held an exhibition called 'One Formula' to celebrate being 50 years in business. You can still find the virtual 3D exhibition online here. 

The footage below was made by Top Gear magazine in which Murray tells a bit more about the IGM Minbug as well as his Midas parked next to it (from 45:45-on). Although he has the original Minbug, the one seen here actually is a replica made a few years ago. I'll write more about the discovery of the real car soon. Enjoy this one for now!

Video: Top Gear / Youtube

Status Minipowers do survive

It doesn't happen all too often that a message on here produces replies many years after being published, but it certainly goes for the little piece I wrote about Mike Wilsdon and his eclectic collection of cars, back in 2011. Among these not one but two Status Minipowers (or Status Symbols as they were named initially). See the original piece here. I later wrote: "Mike Wilsdon must be one of Britain's best kept secrets, as he manages to create a near Sir David Livingstone-like status of myth here."

That was in late 2011 and many more messages and leads would follow. I still never spoke to the man, though. But more recently Barnaby Holmes got in touch. He is a family friend of Wilsdon and recently visited his barn where many of his cars are stored now or were until recently. Barnaby was also kind enough to take some photographs of the two Statuses that Mike still owns. He wrote: "Hi Jeroen, we spoke some time ago and I'm a family friend of Mike. I've recently been to the barn where he has some of his collection. The vehicles are being moved and ultimately, put up for sale. I thought you might like a couple photos of his Brian Luff Status Symbols! Apologies for the poor quality. Regards, Barnaby."

That is, of course, much appreciated. It's good to see the cars are still about and I wonder what will happen to them in the near future. Earlier sleuthing work proved that the green one was previously owned by Arthur Bills, who got in touch about it in 2014 (click here), while the red one was at around the same time by Stuart Hards, who also contacted me back in 2012 about it (click here). To be continued.

Still owned by the illusive Mike Wilsdon and tucked away in a barn: a Status Minipower

Picture Barnaby Holmes

And another... This car was owned by Stuart Hards in the early 1980s and used an 1100 engine 

Picture Barnaby Holmes