Hooper Moke seen in public for the first time

Not too many Mini Mokes were coachbuilt, but a very special example has now been seen in the public for the first time since it was built in 1967. We've seen the Wood & Pickett 'Beach Buggy', which was later turned into the famous Prisoner Moke, and there were the Pavesi Mokes coachbuilt in Italy as well as a few cars made for movies. But I never knew that Hooper & Co made one too. Paul Brown is the man to know as he just became the lucky owner of the 1967 car seen below.

From what Paul has been told the car was built for Sir Gerald Glover, a solicitor, property developer and racehorse breeder who only used the car sparsely and on his own land in Northamptonshire. The car's odometer has just crossed the 7,150 miles mark in almost 55 years! 

 

The Hooper link comes from Sir Gerald's property development business since he supposedly owned the land in London upon which the factory for Hooper & Co was built. This association led to him asking Hooper to add the additional coachwork, special paint job in his racing stable's colours and sign writing on the Moke. After Glover's death in 1986 the car went to his wife and moved to another family member upon her death in 1995. Still in family ownership it was fully restored in 2011.

Paul has become the first non-Glover family member to own this very special Moke and he told me he had to buy it in a rush due to the fact of its rarity. He also added: "It’s not been out in the public eye since it was built. I have asked for the last owner to write down anything she knows about the car so it may take a while." Well, congratulations Paul. What a way to start the year!

'TRP 185F' is a 1967 Moke that was coachbuilt by Hooper & Co. Surely unique?

Picture Castle Classic Cars

Hooper added substantially more bodywork to the car including tiny doors

Picture Castle Classic Cars

The car comes with three tiny doors, only the left rear side doesn't have one

Note Cosmic Mk1 wheels front and Mk2s at the back

Picture Castle Classic Cars 

Added dashboard still comes with just one meter, but now two glove boxes!

Picture Castle Classic Cars

Engine was the only part that was not rebuilt during restoration of 2011

Picture Castle Classic Cars

You'll find quite a few Hooper badges on this car

Picture Castle Classic Cars

These must have been the comfiest seats available that could fit the Moke cabin

Picture Castle Classic Cars

I am assuming this was the flag used by Sir Gerald Glover for his racing stable

Picture Castle Classic Cars

Ringo Starr's hatchback Mini restored

Right before the world got acquainted with Covid early last year, I was in the UK to speak to Steve Burkinshaw, the master restorer of coachbuilt Minis. Steve showed me around his workshop where one of the cars under restoration was the famous Hooper hatchback of Ringo Starr.

He usually doesn't restore cars for others, but when a Mini with a strong connection to The Beatles comes around he'll make an exception, so the Ringo Starr hatchback ticked all the boxes. As a real Beatles-fan it is a car he has loved for decades, but one he could never afford. But when the famous Mini was sold a few years ago, it was nothing more than logical that it ended up here after all. It was urgently in need of a restoration and Burkinshaw turned out to be the only one with the expertise. 

Steve told me: "It was bought by Geri Halliwell, you know, from The Spice Girls, and together with her husband Christian Horner they sometimes come here in one of those very special Aston Martins, to see how things are going. The whole street comes out to have a look then!” Previously, the couple also bought Paul McCartney's Radford Mini, which was restored in this workshop also. Steve: "Ringo only had his Mini from 1966 to 1968 and after him there were several owners who gave it a number of modifications of their own. I first saw it when it was owned by an antiques dealer, but by that time someone had already given it a makeover somewhere in the early seventies, all in the fashion of the day. They had removed the rain gutters; the original wheel arches and put it on polished Wolfrace wheels. The sidelights in the b-pillars were also removed with the holes filled, while the original Regal Red, a Rolls-Royce colour, was changed to blue with silver and later to red with silver. It was in a very bad state. A 1992 magazine article mentions how they carried out an earlier restoration and it's interesting to read how they got it wrong then”. 

That's all been put back now, and last week he dropped me another line: "I’ve now finished the work on the Ringo Hooper, which is being collected this Friday, I thought I’d never finish it!" It looks marvelous in pictures and I can't wait to see the real thing when traveling is allowed once more. Thanks Steve!

LLO 836D - Ringo Starr's Mini is fully restored to its original condition again

Picture courtesy Steve Burkinshaw

The hatchback conversion was famously made so that Starr could carry his drumming gear

Picture courtesy Steve Burkinshaw

The car has had a number of colour changes in the past and was restored at least once before

Picture courtesy Steve Burkinshaw

1275 Cooper 'S' power, naturally. Steve's attention to detail is fantastic

Picture courtesy Steve Burkinshaw

The car's interior is luxurious but not over the top, typical for a Hooper  

Picture courtesy Steve Burkinshaw

'Mister Margrave' Steve Burkinshaw in his workshop last year. Ringo's Mini at the back

Picture Jeroen Booij

"It was in a very bad state and it's interesting to read how they got it wrong earlier"

Picture Jeroen Booij

Peter Sellers' Minis star in 'Mini 60 Years'

With the Mini having its 60th anniversary this year, there will be lots of things Mini to see and do as there will undoubtedly be new books out also. First in line that I know of is Giles Chapman's 'Mini 60 Years'. Giles was kind enough to send me a copy, so let's have a little look at it here.

Firstly this is a book on the Mini rather than on its unofficial offspring, so expect the car's full history from the very start-on, with the obligatory chapters on it's birth including the Suez Crisis and microcars, but also on Issigonis, Cooper and rallying. Also the New MINI gets full descriptions in no less than three chapters. Unfortunately the chapter named 'A World of Different Minis' only just squeezes in the variants and derivatives, mentioning only the well known ones.

But the coachbuilt cars come off better here, especially the ones commissioned for Peter Sellers, who is generally claimed to be the inventor of the coachbuilt Mini genre. This is a particularly nice read and Chapman writes that Sellers had three Minis coachbuilt for him, the first of them by Hooper, the second two by Radford, of which the last one came with a hatchback and was for his then-bride Britt Ekland. He must be right there. Funnily, I just received a picture of one of the Sellers' cars with its current owner and think it must the car featured in the book.
Anyway: buy this book if you want to know more about the Mini in general.

Mini 60 Years by Giles Chapman focuses on the Mini's history in general

Picture Jeroen Booij 

But a few derivatives managed to squeeze into the 176-page book also

Picture Jeroen Booij 

I found the chapter on the Minis owned by Peter Sellers most interesting

Picture Jeroen Booij 

Sellers' Mini as seen in Chapman's new book with its current owner in the Far East. 

Note lavish Mercedes and Rolls-Royce models parked behind it

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Happy 2018!

May I wish you all of the best for the New Year? Some exciting projects are on their way, so who knows what we may see back on the roads or tracks in 2018? Meanwhile, Dame Margot Fonteyn's coachbuilt Mini was chosen by you as the Best Find of 2017 (only just with one more vote than the number two Brickette single seat racer from Australia), so congratulations to the new owner who purchased the car in an auction last October (and who I do not know!). This year's Christmas Puzzle saw just two players (come on guys!), with Neil Kilbane once again triumphing. Neil, let me know if you'd like another book or if I can do something else to you. By the way: do you know the answer to the tie break question..?

Maximum Mini Find of 2017: Dame Margot Fonteyn in her coachbuilt Mini. Although not sure, it is believed that Hooper carried out the conversion to the car. Who owns it now? 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

UPDATE: Car now fully recommissioned and cleaned and bound to make it to the NEC restoration show in March this year. Owner now also known (but wishes to remain anonymous)

Picture via Bill Bell

Who coachbuilt Dame Margot's Mini?

There was some consternation lately about the sale of a Mini that was coachbuilt for the late ballet dancer Dame Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991) earlier this month. The car is an 850 Morris Mini Minor that was built in October 1961 and sold to Fonteyn and her Husband Roberto Arias, who was the Panamanian ambassador in London. '300 BXM' still retains its diplomatic CD plate under the rear number plate. In late '61 the car was sent to a London coachbuilder for paint and wicker work to be added and a change of colour is recorded in January '62 on the log book to black and yellow. Question now is who carried out the conversion? It's not unlike the mystery surrounded by Enzo Ferrari's Mini Cooper...

Bill Bell owns the unique VandenPlas Mini, which was built in April 1960 and which is believed to be the very first Mini to have been coachbuilt. He has been investigating the Margot Mini further and writes to me: "She kept it until 1972 when she moved to Panama to nurse her husband (he’s been shot and paralysed in the failed coup in Panama). The car was next given to their friend Keith Money, who was a painter, photographer and author. He owned it for the next 20 years but hardly used it. Still with a documented 25,000 miles on the clock it’s just been sold from long term storage having been used very little in the last 40 years. We have been trying to establish if Hooper (Motor services) Ltd. did the work over a year before the Sellers car. It can also have been been FLM Panelcraft who built some very special cars including a FX4 black cab with wicker work for a close friend of Margot and Roberto's: Nubar Gulbenkian."

"Either way the Sellers Hooper is a copy of this cars colour scheme and exterior look but taken to a whole different level. Any help would be very much appreciated in tracking down some early history of the car and the Hooper or Panelcraft records from the early 1960’s. It was obviously coachbuilt a good while after the VandenPlas Mini and after the Zagato Mini Gatto, but a good 12 months before the Sellers Hooper. Did Peter Sellers see Dame Margot driving her car around London and wanted the same look?"

"Len Chandler was in touch with Geoff Francis in the early 1990’s over his own wicker clad Mini. Geoff was the third generation of his family to carry out the art of coach lining and painting monograms etc and told him that the first Mini he ever applied the wicker to was the Margot Fonteyn Mini. Geoff worked from the coach houses at Buckingham Palace as a freelance. So he did all the wicker for all the major players like Panelcraft, Hooper and later Radford and W&P? Hooper where the official Royal approved coach builder for a long time before when we’re talking about, so it’s just an educated guess that Hooper where given the job and got Geoff in to do the job. But I can’t prove it yet. Geoff had a big black book of all the cars he ever did (some form of accounting book I guess) with each registration number and what he did and the cost. 300 BXM was in that book... Len and his wife sat and read that book for themselves and saw the Margot Fonteyn car in there. He can’t remember dates from over 20 years ago but he says it was in there 100%. Where that book is now is any ones guess..."

Dame Margot Fonteyn with her Morris Mini. The conversion dates back to late 1961 / early '62

Picture courtesy Keith Money via Bill Bell

Margot in the passenger seat in February 1964. Note that the interior was hardly changed

Picture Dove/Getty 

The car as it is now. Still very original and with just 25,000 documented miles on the clock

Picture Bill Bell

It is a very early coachbuilt Mini and even outdates the Peter Sellers Minis by Hooper and Radford

Picture Bill Bell

Original paint colour is still visible everywhere in the interior. Dame Margot was a small lady!

Picture Bill Bell

This Austin FX4 taxi cab was coachbuilt by FLM Panelcraft for Nubar Gulbenkian, a friend of Dame Margot. Were they the ones who did her Mini, too? Or was it Hooper?

Picture Bonhams auctioneers

Pictures of Peter Sellers Hooper Mini emerge - but where is it?

A string of unseen (to me) pictures of Peter Sellers' very first coachbuilt Mini - built by Hooper (Motor Servives) Ltd. in late 1962/early '63 - have been posted on the Stilltime pictures website. They give a new insight at the car which cost Sellers £2600 (a standard Cooper came at £679 at the time) and which caused the Mini to become a new coachbuilt favourite for use as a city car for the rich and famous. Sellers supposedly asked dealership HR Owen for the conversion, but HR Owen commissioned Hooper for the job, building what became known as the Mini to start the coachbuilding hype. The later car used by Sellers in the Pink Panther film looked similar, but was in fact another and later car coachbuilt by Radford.

The original Hooper car, registration '6189 PK' came lavishly trimmed inside and out, with Royal Purple paint and a beige Conolly interior - the exact specs can be found in the Autocar article I have attached. Despite the fact that several pictures of the car have been around, even some film footage, I never noticed it had wheel spats and new rear light clusters, possibly cut-down Aston Martin DB4 units. Confusingly, the car is seen wearing another registration number (57 PJ) and a red rather than beige interior in another Autocar clipping, while the film footage shows it with its '6189 PK' number but with red leather, too. Was it the same car converted once more or did Hooper build two of them?

And then there's the question of where it is now. The Radford-built Pink Panther car was famously found back by John Adair in 1994, but what happened to the original Hooper car (or cars)? The last lead dates back to 1994, too, when a snippet in MiniWorld magazine appeared, quoting it survived with a classic car restoration firm in Newtonmore, Scotland. It was said to have been painted pink at one stage because of the supposed link with the Pink Panther movie... The company, as far as I managed to find out, was dissolved in 2002 with no clues to what happened to the car. '57 PJ' is unknown to the DVLA, but '6189 PK' is still in their database as a mauve Morris Mini Cooper with 1152cc engine, but is untaxed since 1979...

Well-known photograph of man and machine - Sellers and his (the) first coachbuilt Mini

Picture courtesy art.com

But this one is new to me. Note wheel spats and unusual rear light treatment

Picture courtesy stilltimecollection.co.uk

Lavish interior with beige Conolly leather seats with 'Reutter reclining system'

Picture courtesy stilltimecollection.co.uk

Yes, the windows were electric on it, as was the aerial and the screen washer

Picture courtesy stilltimecollection.co.uk

Headlights were supposedly Bentley-sourced. Canework by Geoff Francis

Picture courtesy stilltimecollection.co.uk

Note replaced gear lever as in later Minis and even leather on the steering column 

Picture courtesy stilltimecollection.co.uk

The Autocar liked it, too, calling it 'the ultimate in luxury Minis'

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Is this the same car? It wears a different registration and has a red leather interior

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Film footage of Sellers and the car, seen here in its Royal Purple with red leather interior

Picture courtesy youtube.com

Last trace of the car dates back to 1994, when it was in Scotland ...painted pink...

Picture courtesy MiniWorld

Lord Snowdon's coachbuilt Mini

You may have seen enough of the royal affairs recently, but it made me remember there was a member of the British royalty with a Mini one day. I even thought it was a coachbuilt car. And, yes, it appears to be so as Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret used to drive a modified Austin Mini Cooper 'S' in the swinging sixties. The car was said to be coachbuilt although you cannot see too much of that on the pictures that I found. I also have no idea who carried out the conversion. Could it be Harold Radford? I noticed that on one picture it came with added foglights in the grille plus 'Austin Cooper' boot script on the bonnet. The car is still registered but appears to have been sorn in 1977. Could it still be in royal hands?

UPDATE 6 November 2013: Conversion was carried out by Hooper of London.

Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret with their Mini. I reckon they could have taken that Rolls-Royce too

June 1965: Princess Margaret takes 3-year old Lord Linley home after an ear operation.

Note added foglights in the grille and different badging on the bonnet...

...a footman opens the door, but the 3-year old Lord prefers to go elsewhere...

...but off they go in the supposedly much modified coachbuilt Mini, chauffeur driven too...

...who needs a child's seat anyway? It's all smiles buzzing around in a Mini!

But where is the car now? And who carried out the conversion?