Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #132

Le Mans Mini Marcos - at the 1967 London Racing Car Show

One-off Méan Sonora spotted at Spa

An unbuilt Kingfisher Sprint is unearthed

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #107

Beautiful new pictures of Unipower GT racer

This is the Mk1 Mini Marcos of the 1966 Racing Car Show

More 4-wheel steering Minis

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #106

Racing Car Show 1966: launch of the Mini Marcos

More historical pictures of Coldwell GT found

Le Mans Mini Marcos - roundel lights connected

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #59

1971 London Racing car Show Special

With... the Mini Jem Mk2

The Stimson Mini Bug Mk2

...And the car that sent Jem Cars to the wall...

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #46

Minis at the 'Ring: Roy Johnson's Mk1 Mini Marcos

What happened to the original Camber / Maya GT demonstrator?

The ART Mini Marcos at the 1969 Amsterdam Racing Car Show

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #7:

Wild Heerey GTM found in France

Unipower GT goes continental

Butterfield Musketeer at Racing Car Show '62

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #6:

A photographic look at the DART's launch in January 1964

Richard Oakes and the 1977 Midas prototype 

Warwick Mk2 racer - a Mini derivative..?

Yes, that does look very much like a Mini engine ...but...

Tracing the DART's origins (1)

I was contacted by Nigel Fraser Ker a little while ago, and while things started out chatting about the Mini Marcos, we were soon directed towards the Marcos' origins: the DART as it was designed and built by Desmond 'Dizzy' Addicott. Nigel happened to know quite a lot more about Dizzy and an intriguing correspondence followed. Over to him:

"I would be happy to tell you a little bit more about Dizzy - at least the part that I know from personal experience. My father was a pilot, first of all with the Royal Air Force and then he got a job with De Havilland as a test pilot. They were keen to hire him because he managed to save an aircraft which was of a type which had been causing many deaths due to unexpected engine failures. He had one himself over the North Sea and managed to save it by gliding it into Schiphol airport. This meant that De Havilland were able to inspect it and find the fault. This was back in about 1956 and I think it was when he first met Dizzy who was himself a test pilot. In fact I think he was one of Britain's most experienced - he had flown very many different types of aircraft (I remember he once flew a Catalina back from South Africa as a delivery). My father moved into flying jets for commercial airlines and briefly had a job in South Africa so we all went with him."

"The job didn't work out so Dizzy managed to get him a job working at the British Aircraft Corporation, based in Weybridge (Surrey) and flying out of a nearby airfield called Wisley. I remember going there as a child and seeing them testing the BAC One-Eleven. Dizzy was a real character - very much old school and great fun and he visited us many times at our home in Bookham, Surrey. Incidentally, my father used to share an office at the Weybridge factory with Sir Barnes Wallace - I don't know if you've heard of him but he is the guy who designed the famous bouncing bomb which was used against the Germans in the raid against the dams. Anyway my father (who was a bit of a troublemaker like Dizzy) said that both he and Barnes, who was making a nuisance of himself by saying that Concorde would never be commercially successful, were put into an office together away from other people so they wouldn't cause any trouble!"

"When I was 17 my father persuaded me to buy a Mini Marcos kit. Unfortunately, I became so involved in motor racing (I used to work for Bernie Ecclestone at the Brabham F1 team in Chessington and then drove mainly rally cars) that I never got around to building it and so I sold it again, but I have always felt an affection for the design, tinged with a little guilt at not completing it! Anyway, the Weybridge BAC factory (which was located at the Brooklands racetrack) was mainly converted into an industrial estate, but with a museum to commemorate the racing and aircraft work that used to be carried out on the site. Accordingly, I decided to take the children along to see it. You will imagine my surprise when one of the racing cars on display had Dizzy's name written down the side of it! With such an unusual name it must have been the same man, so I did a little research and found out about his interest in cars and also that he had designed the Mini Marcos. At this point it all fell into place - I realized that the reason that my father had recommended the car to me was because it had been designed by his friend. Perhaps I knew this at the time, but I had certainly forgotten. 

Anyway, I'm sorry to say that Dizzy (along with my father) are now dead. Dizzy died on the A11 road heading towards Norwich. It was a stroke and I believe that he knew nothing about it. He really was an extraordinary character - someone should write a book about him, if they haven't already! When I decided that I was not fast enough to make sensible money out of motor racing I decided to get a proper job, so I settled down and started my own family with my wife Fenella. Now, my daughter Kate is 22 and the two of us are competing in the Mini 7 Championship (really to give her a chance to learn about motorsport). She is really enjoying it so we have been trying to decide what to race next year, and when I was searching around the forums, I found out about your car and was naturally excited to learn more about it."

Well, that was more than I expected!

But it wasn't even all. When I showed some historical photographs I had of Dizzy and his workshop, the detective in Nigel was awakened and a fascinating search followed. You'll read all about the result later this week. 

UPDATE 25 August 2023: in part 2 we find back the actual premises where Dizzy built his DART. Click here

The unique and fully rebuilt DART at Goodwood back in 2010

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

This rare picture shows the car being built in the winter of 1963

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

"Dizzy was a real character - very much old school and great fun and he visited us many times"

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The DART shortly after being unveiled at Paul Emery's stand at the 1964 Racing Car Show

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Racing Car Show '64 again. Left to right: Paul Emery, Jim Clark? (I think) and Dizzy Addicott

UPDATE: Believed not to be Clark, but who is it then?

Picture via Giles Chapman

Monika and the Unipowers: more pictures

I have found some new pictures of the two Unipower GTs that were on display at the 1967 Racing Car Show, and several of these show our lovely model Monika Dietrich in the cars and notably on their bonnets. Yes, some of these have been shown here before. But hey, with these new ones, why not show these again and now the whole collection of them?

Monika Dietrich was born Monika Haberkamp in Cologne, Germany but came to London in the mid-1960s as an au-pair before she was asked to model for a number of advertisements. She had a few minor movie roles also and I understand she is still going strong.

The Unipower GTs on display at the '67 Racing Car Show were the ones wearing chassis number 1 and 9 and are both still alive and well also. The red car (number 1) is owned by Tim Carpenter, who takes it out to events and shows regularly; the white one (number 9) is a competition model, which was purchased by Jan Odor of Janspeed fame in '67 and was raced by Geoff Mabbs under the Janspeed banner before being sold to Cars & car Conversions magazine and repainted in red a year later. Like Tim's car it has been fully restored, too.

UPDATE 13 March: Unipower GT Owners Club & Register front man Gerry Hulford contacted me and he's not amused. He is convinced the red car is not chassis number 1 but chassis number 8. He may very well be right but I am not sure.

Olympia, London, January 1967. That's the Unipower stand in the front

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The white GT is a competition model, the red one is chassis number 1

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Things start prim and proper. Monika joins Moss - on the bonnet of the white car

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Now get rid of that racing driver and apply the sexy look

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

More clothes off and in the door opening please

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

No, back on the bonnet and back to the sexy looks

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Now over to the red car, finding position first (note Pirelli Centuratos, too)

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And smiles again

Picture Richard Hesseltine archive

And now in full colour!

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Suitable for a cover shot! That's Bilsport magazine of Sweden

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Bye for now!

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Stimson's stories (6)

Following Barry Stimson's death on the last day of 2022 (click) this is another part in a series of interviews with the designer. This time about marketing the Stimson Mini Bug in print, on the motorshow and on television. "It was exactly like you’d do a documentary about the swinging sixties" Over to the late Barry:

"We went to France to get the pictures for the Mini Bug brochure. It was unbelievably fun to drive the vehicle there. You know it was in 1970 and not all the bloody tourists were there yet. The girl I took with me was Patsy and she can be seen in the brochure. She was known as one-eyed Patsy since she had just one eye, which you can't see because she's wearing sun glasses on the pictures. But she was a lovely soul. And a tough cook, too."

"The car on the Racing car Show stand still was the same car, I think. So much was happening at the time. Jem cars came to me because they’d seen the Mini Bug on television. Can we be agents for the Mini Bug, they asked. They seemed really nice people. The Mini Bug was also used on the Cliff Richard Show and Olivia Newton John was filmed in it driving it and then in studio shots with a wind machine whilst singing. It was also in a television series The Freewheelers (footage here). They asked me to talk about design on radio and tv – it was usually William Towns or me who was asked. The trouble is that in those days everything was shot on 16mm film. And although the BBC transferred a lot of the stuff; they scrapped a lot of it, too. There was also footage shot on the beach of Littlehampton for a motoring programme named Wheelspin. They just hired a helicopter and went filming for a complete day." (footage does survive though - see here).

"They were supposed to be difficult times but it didn’t affect me in the slightest. It was pure fun. A mate was stage manager of the musical Hair and another friend was Julia Goodman who was an actress. It was all fun, exactly like you’d do a documentary about the swinging sixties. It was all promo girls and Champagne celebrations. Meanwhile, I’d got involved with Ian Smith, who wrote The Lotus Story. He knew all sorts of people who said to me he wanted to get in business; we can sell lots of these - that sort of thing. That’s how Barrian Cars was formed, after my and Ian’s names. He was friends with people like Graham and Betty Hill and Colin Chapman. Rosalyn, Ian’s wife and I flew to Monaco for a promotional thing. Ian drove the bloody Bug to the south of France. Over there I was introduced to all the people and we had diner and all the rest. Ian clearly wanted to introduce the car to other people there and it was intended to drive the race circuit at Monaco with Jacky Stewart behind the wheel. But David Benson, a Daily Express journalist, took it on the course first and stuffed it into a wall. The wall fell onto a person working on the other side of it and there was a lot of commotion. They wrote it off and it had to be shipped back. I had to spend another two days with one of the girls, which wasn't too bad."

"Ian Smith also was a member of the Dog House club in Mayfair and I went there too, to meet up with some of these people. I wasn’t all too impressed, but it was agreed that Barrian Cars would give a Mk2 Mini Bug to the club for charity and they were raffling it off. The car got built but I wasn’t in a position to donate a kit to a bloody charity, I didn’t have any money, so eventually Lord Stokes of BMC supplied us with a brand new engine and sent it off. But when it came here there was no distributor cap and there other bits missing and so I phoned them up. A couple of days later, I had by now completely forgotten about it, a box was sent over which contained 20 distributor caps, 100 spark leads, five carburettors and all other sorts of parts. I rang them to tell them there were way too many parts and they told me these parts came in boxes of twenty or ten or whatever and there was no union job to take things oút of boxes. This is how British Leyland went under, maybe..?"

Making pictures for the brochure with One-eyed Patsy - "A lovely soul and a tough cook"

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

A great opportunity to drive the Mini Bug demonstrator over to the south of France

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The things you come across abroad... Barry jumped out, Patsy still in the car here

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The Mini Bug was to return to southern France soon with Ian Smith at the wheel

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Barry in his element on a cross-country road somewhere near the Mediterranean

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Racing Car Show time, more dolly birds needed at Jem Cars' display. The year? 1971

Picture Jeroen Booij archive 

Rare colour picture of the show. Mini Bug, Mini Jem and Jem Futura on the left

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The Morning Telegraph article by Ian Smith, who drove the Mini Bug all the way to Monaco, 

only to see it being written off into a wall by journalist David Benson there!

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The Deep Sanderson 301 prototype (2)

We've seen how the Deep Sanderson 301 prototype came about (click here) and LawrenceTune Engines Ltd. then took the car to the 1962 Racing Car Show. From that year's show guide: "The pride of place on the stand goes to the Deep Sanderson rear engined sports car. The car evolved directly from our last Formula Junior car and is of very advanced design. Suspension is all independent by Lawrence trailing link; engine is 1,000 cc transverse mounting; brakes are discs on the front and drums on the rear. The car is primarily for road use and will be sold in kit form at a very low price." The brochure showing the still unpainted car mentioned that price of 951 pounds, included taxes. 

Was that price very low for a kit car? Some of the motoring correspondents visiting the show and writing about the Deep Sanderson must have thought so: 'Construction kit sports car of SIX GRAND' headed a Dutch newspaper, mentioning the price in Dutch guilders. An Italian magazine headed 'KIT COSTS A MILLION', referring to the price in Liras and calculating it more precisely at 1.128.750 Liras. 

At least LawrenceTune Ltd. had nothing to complain about press coverage. Most reports praised the car's technical solutions, taken over straight from the press information, as they mentioned it was due for series production soon. Some of the quotes: "The Chris Lawrence monocoque system is just one of the novelties that mark his diminutive Deep Sanderson for more attention than most sports cars its size ever achieve", "Tiny bomb is said to do 0 to 60 mph in 9 seconds flat with a top speed of 107 mph", "The new Deep Sanderson sports car has stirred up quite a bit of interest at English club racing circles." 

Let's have a look at those racing activities next.

Stand 73 at the 1962 Racing Car Show, showing LawrenceTune's Deep Sanderson 301 prototype 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And without people... Also on display a tuned Morgan engine plus Ford and Mini tuning parts

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

301 Prototype's engine is a 1000 cc which received the LawrenceTune treatment

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The Deep Sanderson 301 was the first Mini based sports car using the Mini engine at the rear 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Like the rear, the prototype's front suspension uses the Lawrence Link suspension too

Picture Jeroen Booij archive 

Cockpit: "Probably most spacious ever in a serious sports car of this diminutive dimensions"

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

 

1962 Racing Car Show where the car was launched, like the Butterfield Musketeer seen here

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The car made it to the international press following the show. This is from US 'Sporting Driver'

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Dutch report was keen to mention the price in guilders: 'Construction kit sports car of SIX GRAND'

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Thanks to Sports Car Graphic we learn that this was the equivalent of 1700 US dollars at the time

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

...Or one million Italian Liras, according to Auto Italiana. The UK price was 951 pounds

Picture Jeroen Booij archive