Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #119

Mini Jem from The Protectors survives

Le Mans Mini Marcos 60 Years ago today

Join the Kit Car Crowd!

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #115

Fletcher's crash in more detail

Investigating a Nimrod (2)

NEC Classic Car & Restoration Show 2026

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #114

Investigating a Nimrod

Early Heerey GTM found and for sale

Status RR-Mini - more pictures emerge

Nimrod in brochures

Just some groovy promotional material for the Nimrod from the Maximum Mini files for you to enjoy. Although the car was manufactured originally in 1972-1974 only by Nimrod Engineering, several revamped versions by a number of companies appeared between 1979 until as late as 1986. Not too many of these cars were manufactured! It did bring forth some lovely advertising and brochure stuff though. A fully facelifted version was planned and did make it to a prototype somewhere in the 1980s, but it never appeared. Unseen pictures of it did emerge here years ago (click here). Enjoy!

Nimrod on its way to recovery in Austria

A Nimrod that was seen for sale in Germany has now finally found a new owner in Austria: Jan Krieger, who contacted me about the project. He wrote: "I found it by scrolling through Ebay to find an engine for my Mini convertible. There was an old engine with this buggy and so I found it... and bought it. Than I started Googling what this thing actually is, and read more about it. I knew Mike Jupp's (the Nimrod's designer-JB) jigsaw puzzle designs but knew nothin about the car. But the more I read the more I got hooked. So after two days I knew enough to decide it is not just an engine donor - it was one more project! And after 3 days I wanted to build one which can swim/float, too! Now that it is here I must say it looks pretty horrible, with the condition being worse than expected, although it is repairable. I might try to mould some gull wing doors for winter use, we will see. But first I need to weld a new chassis frame, repair the body and engine and rebuild the interior. I think the engine is a 1300 Innocenti with the wrong carburetors but then with this car nothin is original."

"Meanwhile I started a little research too. This Nimrod is the black one that was shipped over to Germany. It is not one of the original 4 built, Mike Jupp believes, but it's a 1983 TACCO (Talbott Alternative Car Company) made Nimrod. I found the guy who built this car as he was a member of the Nimrod Owners Club and it's the black one on the left on the picture with the 4 cars in 1985. He said it's the second and last car Nigel Talbott laid himself. All kits after that were made by professional layers so this is supposedly not the best quality one."

"I also found that the mouldings still exist by Fiberglass Applications and they are refurbishable. Anyway... when I get the car fixed I want to drive it from Austria to Mike in the UK as he wants to do some graphic on it and I want to meet some other people and look for some spare parts. Perhaps I build a new chassis, buy an old Mini and build a new Nimrod, moulding a bottom plate and laminate it together to one piece. Greetings from Austria, Jan"

The Nimrod as it was seen for sale in Germany

Picture Autoscout.de / Jeroen Booij archive

Q24 NYA is believed to be the 2nd Nimrod built by Nigel Talbott

Picture Autoscout.de / Jeroen Booij archive

Jan thinks the engine is an Innocenti 1300 but he's not sure

Picture Autoscout.de / Jeroen Booij archive 

It is now in Austria with Jan: "I must say it looks pretty horrible!"

Picture Jan Krieger

Jan wants to restore it never the less and drive it over to the UK when finished

Picture Jan Krieger

Plywood floor is mostly gone. Chassis is very very rusty, too

Picture Jan Krieger

"First I need to weld a new chassis frame, repair the body and engine and rebuild the interior"

Picture Jan Krieger

Q24 NYA had been off the radar for ages - it was seen here at the 1985 Stoneleigh Kit Car show

Picture Mark Thursfield / Mini Marcos Owners Club

New Nimrod picture emerges

This lovely picture, with a man admiring the shapes of a Nimrod in Reading, Berkshire, turned up recently and was sent over to me by Jono Barber. The Nimrod seems to be a new one to me. The number plate is hardly visible, but from what I can see it doesn't look to be any of the others that I have in the files. The picture was made in about 1975 in Reading's London Street. The building in the backdrop is Huntley Boorne & Stevens Ltd, which manufactured biscuit tins.

The Nimrod registration numbers I have been able to find on photographs on file are:

75 RYD
KPN 438E
WPJ 596G
WPN 438G (I think)
ARR 132H
MBD 475K
GPG 649K
ORX 677K
APX 37L
Q24 NYA

Anyone who is eagle eyed enough to decipher this one?

UPDATE 11 February: Alan Brown knows of another car (MBD 475K) and sends over a photograph. Thank you Alan, it's added in the little list above now, too. Suggestions for the number plate seen below are: LAQ 72## ; LRC 729K ; LRG 729K and URG 729H. 

London Street, Reading 1975. That's a rare and red Nimrod being admired 

Picture Lyn Ford via Jono Barber

Zoom in and see if you can read the car's registration number...

Picture Lyn Ford via Jono Barber

Mike Jupp's Nimrod - still going strong

A great piece about Mike Jupp and his Nimrod appeared last week on the website of insurer Adrian Flux. Jupp, who designed the car, tells how the car came about in 1969, although it took until 1972 to see the first car finished - the one he still owns and uses regularly. I have cut out some nice quotes from Mike from the interview:

"It was a time when everything seemed possible, a great time with the excitement and dreams of what life could be. There must have been something in the air at that time, or whether it’s about being young and idealistic, and your imagination can stretch. There are one or two things I’ve done in my life I’m so pleased about. I came up with an idea for a TV series and eventually watched it, and I came up with an idea for a car and, thanks to Ray, I eventually drove it. More than four decades later, it’s in my garage so I can still show it to people.

Mike recalls a journey to Transylvania in the Nimrod (picture here): “I had a case full of brand new cassettes – Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Yes, Deep Purple etc – and we got to this village and were immediately surrounded by a couple of hundred people all looking at the Nimrod. There was a bloke with a ghetto blaster. He only had one old naff cassette, the Red Army Choir or something. Anyway, I said ‘you may as well have this lot then mate’. He nearly died. One minute he’s got one ancient Soviet sing-along nonsense tape, then instantly, he’s got Western cool-dude hip stuff.”

Read the full interview here.

Mike Jupp and his Nimrod: "I’ve had it 46 years and I’ve still not quite finished it"

Picture Adrianflux.co.uk

Jupp: "When it was finished, it felt surreal to be actually driving something that started out as a scribble on a bit of paper" That drawing can be seen here

Picture Adrianflux.co.uk

Mike plans to give his beloved Nimrod another revamp, in the style of one of his television series

Picture Adrianflux.co.uk

Chunky rear mudflaps were designed to give the car the impression of having real wide rear tyres!

Picture Adrianflux.co.uk

Not many people can claim to own their Mini derivative for 46 years! Mike drives his still regularly

Picture Adrianflux.co.uk

Market round up (Summer 2017)

Time for another market round-up (previous versions here and here and here). What Mini based cars are offered for sale at this moment? I have made a selection, the majority of these ads have been tipped-off by readers. Keep them coming! Oh - and some more cars here.

GTM coupe, built up to look like a Cox GTM.  Previously seen on these pages. See it for sale here

Mk4 Mini Marcos in France, built up in Belgium with 1275 power. See it for sale here

Magenta, also in France. 1979 car. Rare to see it in a state like this. See it for sale here

Riley Elf 'Jolly'. Very unusual take on the Elf, found in Missouri, USA. See it for sale here
UPDATE January 2018: Can you believe this car sold in auction for $60,500 ?!

The Wolseley Hornet based Willson Special has been for sale for quite some time now. See it here

Rare RTV, ready to work on any farm or do any (slow) expedition. See it for sale here

Nimrod, also seen for sale here previously. Who will give it some love? See it for sale here

Stimson Trek. Probably the best possible example of the species? See it for sale here

Stimson Mini Bug. Nice Mk2 car in great colour. It's in Northern Ireland. See it for sale here

Also in Northern Ireland: a flashy Foers Nomad. One of 175. See it for sale here

Hustler Six, restored and looking very good, in Norfolk. See it for sale here

Scamp Mk2 dressed up as a military mobile drinks bar..! See it for sale here

GTM Coupe. Looks superb and I think it could be the (a?) works demonstrator? See it for sale here

Foers Nomad built up with most unusual side skirts and spoilers. See it for sale here

Mini Marcos Mk4. This one is in Italy and registered as a 1976 car with 1340. See it for sale here

Andersen Cub. 1987 car with 998 power, in Suffolk. See it for sale here

AEM Scout. Purple with cream leather. Brilliant for Summer 2018 already! See it for sale here

The sun seekers (2)

I'm off for a holiday for some time, but not without leaving you with no Maximum Mini stories. So here's a little series on Mini based sunshine cars that I wrote some years ago for Mini Magazine. Enjoy!

Apart from the obvious Volkswagen based Beach Buggy, the Mini proved to be a great base for a fun car too. Jeroen Booij looks at the best-known Mini derivatives for sunbathers; only to find out they all came from the south coast. Evidently not a coincidence.

Not too far from Barry Stimson’s workshop, another two Mini derivatives with bold Beach Buggy styling were conceived at around the same time. From Poole came Neville Trickett’s more traditionally styled Siva Buggy. Trickett had been responsible for the sporty MiniSprint in the mid-sixties. By 1970, however, he came up with his Mini based Buggy. It hadn’t gone unnoticed to him, too, that Volkswagen based Beach Buggies were becoming a hit and as an answer he made his own version. For the price of £195 the customer bought a kit to build one himself. It included a fibreglass body and a steel tube chassis frame that carried most of the Mini’s suspension. Radius arms were lengthened while the Mini’s suspension trumpet cones were shortened. Headlights and rear lights were included too. The complete front subframe with engine from a donor Mini could be bolted in, and some more Mini-parts like instruments, pedals and wheels could be re-used. Bucket seats, a flat windscreen in an aluminium frame and black vinyl hood all were extra’s, as were 13-inch wheels that gave the Buggy a better appearance then the Mini’s standard 10-inchers.

A great example of the British-built Siva Buggy in typical seventies fashion

Picture Siva Moonbug Skyspeed register

And another in 'Beach Patrol' livery. Pity it was photographed on the tarmac though!

Picture Siva Moonbug Skyspeed register 

The Siva Buggy was marketed by Skyspeed limited of Feltham

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

These two drawings come from the rare British brochure

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Trickett was soon fed up with his Buggy customers and decided to have the car distributed by a motor accessory company who offered it as the Skyspeed-Siva Buggy. They sold quite a few before the moulds and production rights were sold to Euromotor in Amsterdam who had been Siva-importer for some time. Euromotor started building cars offering them as the Siva Moonbug. By now purple had become the standard colour with other colours available for extra money. They carried on production until 1976 when a fire destroyed the Amstelveen (close to Amsterdam) premises and the original moulds.

Dutch-built and Dutch-registered Moonbug was built under a license in Amstelveen

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

This is another Dutch car, found much modified on a Dutch scrapyard in the 1980s

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Extract of the even rarer Dutch brochure of the Siva Moonbug

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Then there was illustrator Mike Jupp, just further eastwards along the south coast. Jupp was asked to design a car in 1969 that had to be based on Mini-mechanicals and was supposed to be a beach buggy-style fun car too. He liked the idea of what he now calls a ‘Juppmobile’ and started drawing. Intrigued about World War II-machinery he says he was influenced by the Volkswagen Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen so perhaps it is not surprising the Nimrod he designed had some similarities with amphibians. The Nimrod-name derived from the famous Nimrod fighter planes. Together with carpenter Ray Jay of Hunston he started working on a prototype from his parents farmhouse, but when he was half way finished the men who had come up with the idea for the car withdrew from the project, leaving Jupp and Ray behind with nothing but a half-finished car. The two now decided to put it on the road themselves. It wasn’t until 1972 that it actually was ready. The ladder frame chassis came with a floor of plywood while the roll bar was made from a scaffold tube. The fibreglass body was an open two-seater with high sills and no doors. Between the windscreen and the rear screen there was a bar to give the body a bit more strength and a black vinyl roof was attached to it. Headlights and rear lights came from the Hillman Hunter and a Minivan petrol tank was fitted. Jupp admits that he wanted to give the car as much ‘Beach Buggy looks’ as he could and designed chunky rear mud flaps to add to the impression of wide tyres! Jupp took delivery of the car and even drove it to Transylvania in 1974 with a trailer behind it to carry tent and gear. When a friend asked for a second car Jay began to think about limited production, eventually building another four Nimrods. Years later the car was offered again in 1979 by Nova Cars, but it is unknown whether they ever sold any cars. Nigel Talbott and his company ‘T.A.C.C.O.’ in Wincanton did build a few another two years later, but it is believed not more then fifteen Nimrod were build in total by 1986, by which time the car had disappeared.

The Nimrod prototype being evaluated at Ray Jay's workshop in Hunston

Picture Mike Jupp / Jeroen Booij archive

Mike Jupp looking at the Nimrod he has owned for many decades now

Picture Jeroen Booij

And the same car seen where it belongs: on the seaside. Here towing a small hover craft!

Picture Mike Jupp

Nova Cars marketed the Nimrod for a while, but they didn't produce many

Picture Jeroen Booij archive