Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #79

5 Stimson Scorcher replicas / rip-offs

Unipower GT: lost film footage found, director's daughter tracked down and a heavy crash

The 4-wheel drive Mini derivative - made by the Ford Motor Company

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #61

Barry's Big Sale - all these cars are now for sale

New picture emerges - but where is this Mk2 Biota now?

The Aga Khan's Wood & Pickett Mini Margrave

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #50

Moulds to make the Coldwell GT body turn up after decades

Picture Mark Needham

Towns Microdot makes it to Los Angeles exhibition - registered

Picture Petersen Automotive Museum

The Mini based cars at the NEC Classic Motor Show

Picture Paul Wylde

Endless summer of 2022

August 2022 appears to have seen more classic car shows and meetings than the two years preceding it. A collection of sunny pictures made it to here a couple of weeks ago (click) - here are yet more of them that I came across or that were sent over in the last month or so. Keep them coming.

Matt Butler's son took his Siva Buggy for a trip. Matt: "Dad, can I borrow the Bug to go camping with a friend? Hmmm. OK - but be careful and don't go too far. One week later they're at the seaside!"

Picture via Matt Butler

Matt again: "England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, France. Now at Calais, the adventure is nearly over. Don't doubt the next generation!" Well said and well done boys!

Picture via Matt Butler

A very nice Mk1 Scamp seen on Malta. I believe it is for sale, too

Picture via Andy Turner

Many more Scamps made it to a meeting in Stourport last weekend. 

This Mk2 was pushed to the limits during the event 

Picture Becca Sydney

The number of cars attending the Scamp meet was impressive. Here a nice Scamp six-wheeler

Picture Roman Byk

Speaking of which... This Andersen Cub six-wheeler on Spanish plates was spotted last week in France

Picture via Thomas Laurent

And yet another Anderson Cub six! This time on Portugese plates and spotted at the 

All British Field Meet in Ontario, Canada

Picture Burton Reif

Last weekend in The Netherlands - the Euregio Meeting saw Mini Marcoses, Midases and Pimlicos.

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the event. One Midas owner drove all the way from Tallinn, Estonia!

Picture Rolf Roozeboom

The Causeway Coast Mini Show in Northern Ireland saw a variety of Mini derivatives. This is an Indespension Jiffy that was turned into a camper van. Nice!

Picture Neil Kilbane

These cars are facing the Atlantic Ocean. Here a Midas Gold convertible disguising as a Ferrari

Picture Neil Kilbane

A rarity on its own, this particularly good looking Onyx Tomcat also at the Causeway Mini Meet

Picture Neil Kilbane

The Whitby Morrison 'Batman Special' ice cream van of Andy McPhail at the 

Dorset Steam Fair last weekend. Look at that shadow!

Picture Andy McPhail

If there's one person who continues to surprise me with his finds in South-Africa it's Leon Daniels. 

This is his latest discovery: an Elswick Envoy in highly original condition

Picture Stuart Neil Greig

How about this for a parting shot? An RTV at the Scamp meeting in Stourport on a beautiful night

Picture Tyler Hughes

RTVs find new homes

I've been overwhelmed with messages about the Ogle SX1000 find (this one) - thank you all. In the meantime I've already found out a little more about the car's history and will write an update on that soon. There's some exiting news in the pipeline, I think.

One message came from fellow-Ogle owner and -racer Mark Burnett. He wrote: "Hey Jeroen. Love, love the Ogle, great find! Thought you might be interested in a recent purchase of mine... It’s a great thing. Needs a few little jobs doing (don’t they always!) but otherwise up and running! Best, Mark." That's a cool RTV - Rough Terrain Vehicle - thank you!

And it's not the only RTV that's moved about recently. Tyler Hughes also wrote to me some weeks ago: "Secrets out! Me and my dad have now restored an extremely early RTV! It's had a sympathetic restoration with all panels off, painted and re-fixed, full suspension rebuild with no bolt left untouched plus modifications to the rear to accommodate disc brakes at the rear and solving the issue of self steer! Bought of Tim from Hastings and it performed extremely well at the Scamp AGM picnic and is capable beyond our nerves.  Andrew MacLean has had a big input and assistance to get it done in time." Love it Tyler, thank you, too!

Tyler's dad Pete demonstrating the capabilities of the RTV at the latest Scamp picnic

Picture courtesy Tyler Hughes

 Tyler restored it together with his dad and with the assistance of Andrew MacLean

Picture courtesy Tyler Hughes

 It's believed to be a very early example of the RTV (Rough Terrain Vehicle) 

Picture courtesy Tyler Hughes

 The RTV was designed by Robert Mandry of Scamp Motor Company fame

Picture courtesy Tyler Hughes

 Another RTV was bought recently by Ogle SX1000 racer Mark Burnett 

Picture courtesy Mark Burnett

Record RTV ends at blind spot

One of the most surreal record drives must have been the one that former rally driver Peter Wood set when he drove an RTV from John O’Groats to Land’s End in seventeen days time from in August 23 to September 8, 1988. Not impressed? It will be when you know that Wood was fully blind when he did so! Sponsored by British Gas and navigated by Gabriel Hartley and his son Tom, Wood drove the RTV mostly over beaches, forest tracks, disused railway tracks and meadows. The ‘Blind Drive’ raised almost a quarter of a million pounds for the blind and the BBC made a short documentary about it (here). 

The RTV was deemed the ultimate vehicle to tackle the run since it was designed to go anywhere. The vehicle’s designer was farmer Robert Mandry, who’d also been responsible for the Scamp and who wanted to prove that a vehicle with four wheels could actually perform better than one with tracks without damaging the ground so much. It used a galvanized square-section steel tube frame mated to Mini or Ford Escort engines, placed longitudinally and amidships and driving all four wheels. The really clever bit was that the driveshafts were also running through a large bearing on which the two halves of the whole vehicle articulated, making the body twisting independently of the cab. A Ford-powered RTV was used most during the Blind Run, with a Mini based one used as a back-up vehicle throughout the record drive. 

The last car - that's the Mini based one - is actually still owned by Andrew MacLean, who runs the Scamp Motor Company. When he told me that it survives in a field in West-Sussex, I had to see it and so we went over to have a look. The vehicle is in a totally original state, but would benefit from a full restoration. The whereabouts of the Ford Escort based RTV remain unknown to this day.

Would you believe this car was used for one of the maddest record drives in history?

Picture Jeroen Booij

It's virtually unchanged since the day it wrote history in 1988 but does look rather sorry for itself 

Picture Jeroen Booij

Four-wheel driven through Mini power... and with articulating chassis/body...

Picture Jeroen Booij

Blind driver Peter Wood (with white stick) with navigator Gabriel Hartley (right) and his son Tom at the finish in Land's End in September 1988

Picture courtesy Andrew MacLean

British Gas sponsored the 17 days long Marathon Blind Drive from John O'Groats to Land's End

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

More snow bound Mini derivatives

Keeping with the snow-theme (Tuesday's Canadian ice racer here) let's have a look at a few more Mini based cars which were used or meant to be used in snow. First photograph comes from Scamp-boss Andrew MacLean. He added: "It's a publicity picture of one of the most successful Mini based RTVs, bought by Scottish Hydro-electricity in 1987/'88. Mini 1000 Automatic running through a pair of Triumph differentials with slightly modified and beefed up Mini suspension, LHD steering rack with extended arms and... drum-brakes all round! 15x15" Dunlop Treadlight Flotation Tyres leaving a footprint of only 3psi, so ideal for snow, shale, sandy beaches and mud!" More recently this car has been fully restored. 

Second there's the Mini-Trac expedition vehicle, designed and built in 1965 for the Australian researchers based at the Wilkes Antarctic Station: one of the coldest and windiest places on earth. The Mini-Trac was built by Terry O’Hare who ran a coachbuilding company in Sunshine (!), just outside Melbourne. O’Hare used an Austin 850 and removed its original driveshafts, universal joints, hubs and suspension and had drive sprockets fitted to the differential output shafts, providing its 850 power independently to both tracks via chains. Two more Mini-Tracs were built, one went to New Zealand and the other to Canada, but all three haven’t been seen for decades. The Wilkes base was abandoned in 1969. Could they survive?

Last in line here is the Stimson Snow Bug, as it was drawn in 1969 or 1970 by the great Barry Stimson (he can't remember exactly). Barry was approached by an Austrian company to design a snow vehicle that could carry four people over snow and that would be cheap to build. Barry: “Snow mobiles were out there but they could only carry two persons. I did it as simple as I could make it. It would have had two rubber based tracks and to make it turn left you just put the brake on the right hand wheel, or the other way 'round'. Unfortunately it never left the sketch stadium after the Austrians lost interest."

The RTV used by Scottish Hydro-electricity in the 1980s - 'Ideal for snow'

Picture courtesy Andrew MacLean

One of three Mini-Tracs, built for expeditions on Antarctica, in New-Zealand and Canada

Picture Jeroen Booij archive via Craig Watson

The Stimson Snow Bug never materialized. The request came from Austria

Picture Jeroen Booij archive, courtesy Barry Stimson

Back from the UK - what a trip!

Having returned from the UK, I can look back on a week with some fantastic meetings but also with some real downsides, too. Things started pretty gloomy when the fuel pump of my beloved Saab decided the time had come to stop pumping fuel on the night before leaving for Calais. Thanks to my garage we could fit a new one just in time, but then I still wasn't prepared for the terrible traffic jam around Antwerp, which caused me to miss my ferry. And my first appointment. More trouble lay ahead, but let's focus on the good things first: the people I met. Thanks guys, you've been great! I took hundreds of photographs, so let's scroll through a small selection here.

That's Andrew MacLean of the Scamp Motor Company welding another chassis. He's done hundreds!

Picture Jeroen Booij

While this machine has made all the body panels for all the Scamps that were ever sold

Picture Jeroen Booij

Andrew then brought me over to a field where he knew one very special RTV had been parked up

It's certainly worth a story on its own

Picture Jeroen Booij

This man is mister Santos and he is the curator of the UK's largest classic car collection.

The warehouse behind him stores only one half of it, but was too big to photograph in full!

Picture Jeroen Booij

I was given a grand tour and was left amazed. While focussing on the top end of the market, this collection also houses some Mini derivatives. Hustler Sixes for example 

Picture Jeroen Booij

And how about this Wood & Pickett Mini? - a car that was previously featured in Maximum Mini

Picture Jeroen Booij

Master of the coachbuilt Minis is Steve Burkinshaw, here in his Hertfordshire based workshop. 

We had a truly lovely day and made some great plans for the future

Picture Jeroen Booij

The number of coachbuilt Minis that Steve restored over the last decades is quite unbelievable. 

And then the stories that he tells about them! 

Picture Jeroen Booij

A typical car you'd find in his front garden, one with great provenance. More special stuff behind

Picture Jeroen Booij

Over to the Midlands. Stimson-fan Paul Wylde managed to buy this Stimson Scorcher two weeks ago. Did he want to take it out for me to do a photoshoot? Oh, yes

Picture Jeroen Booij

And his mate George Marsh came over, too, bringing a beautifully built Domino Pimlico 

Picture Jeroen Booij

Next stop: Worcestershire, where I bumped into some genuine barn finds. 

Some real obscurities there! Recognize some?

Picture Jeroen Booij

The one I actually came for was outside. It's the long-lost Micron GT! More to follow

Picture Jeroen Booij

Havoc struck when, on a particularly dark and deserted Lincolnshire road, out of nowhere a couple of deer stood right in front of me while I traveled at 50mph, damaging my beloved Saab

Picture Jeroen Booij

One deer was hit at the right side and one at the left. I never found them as it was so pitch dark. 

These pictures were taken the next morning

Picture Jeroen Booij

Don't say I just hit a tree. My mate who is into the game trade told me this was the hair of fallow deer

Picture Jeroen Booij

ABS boss Tony Bucknall made up for it though, spending much of a day to show me around his place and talk about his passion for Mini derivatives. He has quite a few!

Picture Jeroen Booij

Oh, and did he want to push out the mighty CJC Bison for a full photo shoot, before I went to catch my ferry back? Of course he wanted that!

Picture Jeroen Booij