Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #88

Mini Marcos reborn and unveiled!

Differences, similarities and back story

And another sign from the long-lost Saga

Whatever happened to the Saga?

Some cars are easy to track down, others aren't quite so. The Saga fits in with the latter and has proved to be quite a - erm - Saga - to find. So far with no result.

The Mini based creature was built in 1964 by Brian Diss, who’d just left sports car manufacturer Elva. Diss told me back in 2009: “When I left them, I decided to build this on my own and finished it as a prototype. My job at Elva was making the moulds and that was also what I wanted to do with this car. It was meant to have a hatchback in the production version.” Diss based his Saga on a tubular steel frame chassis with a double marine ply floor. It used an 850cc engine from a written-off Mini with new subframes at both the front and the rear. He made the body from aluminum. Diss married to a French girl not long after and took the car with him to France, where he opened a garage in Avignon. "I sprayed it a dark red, an Opel Monza colour, and used it to go on a holiday to southern France. We must have done 20,000 miles in it.” Diss, his family and the Saga came back to England after two years, now setting up a company repairing accident cars for insurance companies. The prototype was sold in 1970 or 1971 and was last seen in the mid-1990s (click!). Where is it now?

These unique pictures were given to me by Brian Diss.

The Saga when it was in France, repainted Opel Monza red

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Diss thinks he drive some 20,000 miles with it while in France

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The registration '470 LP 80' is from the departement of Somme

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The car was re-imported to the UK later and re-registered 'GAP 65C'

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Anyone remembers it in France? And where is it now..?

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The Saga continues

Quite a few of the cars that were on my priority list when I started searching for Mini derivatives have been found by now. Some haven’t and one that keeps on haunting me is the ‘Saga’. I was beginning to wonder if the car survives at all, when I received a message about it this weekend.

Stefan Sellin from the very North of Germany writes: “What made me to write you is the Mini Saga in the chapter ‘The cars that didn’t make it’ on page 122 of your book. When I was in the UK in the mid-nineties I paid a visit to a company that had a lot of nice cars there, like a few Radfords, a Mc.Queen Woody and... the lost Saga that was offered to me for 1000 pounds. Unfortunately I did not know about the rarity of the car and did not buy it as it missed one rear light (!!!). Please find enclosed a picture of the car made on the day when I was there. I think the car was sold to Japan or Hong-Kong.”

The Saga as seen for the last time, just before being sold

Picture Stefan Sellin 

I am not so sure the Saga ever made it to Japan or Hong Kong but at least Stefans message now points out it was sold more then once in the 1990’s. The car was built back in 1964 and the story of its birth is both quirky as funny as I have learnt by now from its designer and builder who spends his days in France now. He lost track of the car after he’d sold it in the late sixties, but would love to know if it survives too. He sent me a stack of wonderful pictures of the car from the time of his ownership. Great stuff.

I did track down the subsequent owner too who had it until 1993, but unfortunately he, too, doesn’t know more of its whereabouts after he sold it. He only recalls it went to a man in the Northampton area who intended to restore it to its former glory. Sadly, the trial ends there. Now that it does seem it has been sold at least once more, it may throw a new light on this never ending saga. Stay tuned. Or better: drop me a line when you know where the Saga could be.