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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

Stimson's stories (5)

I promised to write more about the late Barry Stimson after the news reached me that he had sadly died on one of the last days of the year (click here). There really is a lot of material in words and pictures so where to start? I once asked Barry how the original Mini Bug came about and he told me the story in some detail of how it happened. So here we go, over to Barry himself: 

“I was in Vancouver with my Mk1 wife where we lived in a house belonging to American hippies, provided by the father of one of the hippies. The house was in Horseshoe Bay, a really pretty place. ‘Hey man’, they said to me, and we joined them. I was designing houses over here in the UK but I was having a hard time as the houses I designed were quite radical looking and the council planning department were reluctant to pass them, as they looked different. I thought I could build them over in Canada. Then my Mk1 wife decided that one of the hippies was more of a hippie then I was, so I came back with two children to the UK, leaving her in Canada. I’d seen a Meyers Buggy in Vancouver and thought I could build something like that in the UK. In the plane back I made a very simple line drawing – it is still representable for the Mini Bug and looks very simple. The reason for doing a Mini based buggy was that the Mini had its engine, suspension and gearbox all in one subframe. It meant I didn’t have to reinvent all of it. But it was a really smart thing, too. All the stuff that I do is sort of radical but to be radical it doesn’t have to be complicated.” 

"Back in the UK I rented a Nissen hut on a derelict farm in Chichester and that’s where the work started in the winter of 1969/1970. It was bloody freezing. Coral and Sean, my children, were 6 and 4 at the time and we were living in a camper van, parked in the building itself. Looking back it probably wasn’t particularly good for the kids, but they liked it and have good memories of the time. To start with I designed some toys for them, all out of pinewood. It was for them to play with, but I decided to market them too. But by the time I got the toys made but the Mini Bug was underway and I had no time left for the toys. ‘HPO 69H’ was a £20 or £30 Mini Van that was used as a base vehicle. It took over a week to make the plug and another week to make the mould from the plug. The chassis was lofted on the floor in a lock up garage. I didn’t employ anybody whatsoever; although I understand a while ago a chap said he’d built the first 100 bugs. Well, we didn’t even build a hundred of them I believe! There was an up hand welder involved though, who’d worked for the navy dock and there was also a laminator who was working in the same laid down farm. The guy was probably one of them who worked three huts down and who I think gave me a hand. We made jigs and the navy guy did the chassis’. The first body which came straight out of the mould looked horrible with rough edges and I cut it off with scissors and then made the flare around it. It still looked ugly so I thought let’s dress it up a little more. We rounded the edges off, changed the screen and put on a Targa bar. Everything sort of grew, it evolved.” 

 “I was at the time always looking for the easiest way out to create shapes. If I could take a quick moulding of an existing shape to give me a curve or a shape. The scoops for the lights of that car were made from breadbin lids. It was all very low-tech but quick; I wasn’t using any modeling clay or anything. The windscreen was made of Perspex and to bend it I used an old electric fire to heat it. That was changed quickly from Mk1 to Mk2 with very little Mk1s built. I would be really surprised if there’s any Mk1 car left (one turned up last year - click here). I probably built just five or six. The difference was that the car’s body was now separate with the whole front of the Mk2 lifting off.”

The original Stimson Mini Bug prototype 'HPO 69H' in a rare colour picture

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And the original sketch, made by Barry in the plane from Canada back to the UK

"It is still representable for the Mini Bug and looks very simple"

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

This is the prototype's chassis with engine under construction in Chichester in '69 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And ready! That's a proud Barry behind the wheel, 29 years at the time

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

‘HPO 69H’ was built from a £20 or £30 Mini Van that was used as a base vehicle

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Next up: a photo shoot for Hot Car magazine. Note trim lines now added to body

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And with some 'dolly birds' for some further PR shots. That's Stimson-style! 

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

First ad of the car seen in early 1970, looking for agents at the time

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

This is an early brochure, which I've seen only once. Who has a copy of it?

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Front cover of Hot Car magazine made the ball roll for the Mini Bug. 

Barry would later become art editor of the magazine also

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Barry Stimson dies at 82

A real shocker on the last day of the year: Barry Stimson died at the age of 82 yesterday. Barry was the man behind a great number of designs, many of them Mini based. Best-known of these was the Stimson Mini Bug, but there were also the Stimson Safari Six, Stimson Scorcher, Stimson Trek and many more. Apart from cars there were also boats, camper vans, bikes and even the odd amphibian or tracked vehicle, most of them coming to life in the 1970s and 1980s. He once told me: "Oh, there were plenty of other plans, I mean, I had some sort of design diarrhea at the time." Some of his ideas never reached production while others made it to the prototype stage. But apart from being a very prolific designer, he was a lovely and funny man in the first place who was always happy to see you and dish up some good stories from his many travels and all the vehicles he used on them.

Barry's wife Caroline told me that in September he'd had a stroke and had to have a blood clot removed from his brain. This morning she wrote: "Hi Jeroen. Just wanted to let you know that Barry passed away peacefully last night" I will start the new year with a series of articles about this very special man. Meanwhile, I wish all the best to Caroline and the rest of the Stimson family.

Barry Stimson with one of his more controversial designs: the 1976 Stimson Scorcher

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

He designed anything from amphibians to six-wheelers, here the Stimson Safari Six with its creator

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And working on the Stimson Trek here: his personal favourite vehicle design

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

This was his best-known and best-selling Stimson: the Stimson Mini Bug

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

 But there were many more, not all of them Mini powered and not all reaching production

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Apart from cars Barry had a great love for traveling. Here at age 17 in Venice on his way to Africa

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Caroline and Barry a couple of years ago at their home in Portsmouth. He will be much missed!

Picture Jeroen Booij

Stimson's stories (4)

Well, more pictures then stories this time, but some very nice material never the less. It's not very often that you see moving images of a Stimson MiniBug being auto crossed in period. You see it here, thanks to the ever enthusiastic Barry and Caroline Stimson, who dug it out from some old boxes. The car driven seriously fast seen here is the rare racing version of the MiniBug; the CS+2, driven by autocross-champion John Bevan, who was sponsored by Cars & Car Conversions magazine at the time - they wrote about his exploits on a monthly basis. Some more info here. Enjoy the film for now!

Video courtesy Barry & Caroline Stimson

Stimson's Stories (3)

It's always good to speak to Barry Stimson, who is never short of a story. But this time he's started to upload moving images he found somewhere in his attic. And so you, too, can hear and see him tell some of his tales! This one is about his very last Mini based vehicle: the Stimson Trek, launched in 1981 and seen here on BBC footage when Barry explained the car for television. More movie clips of his other creatures are to follow as Barry has unearthed some more material. Watch this space. 

Video courtesy Barry & Caroline Stimson / Youtube

Be part of the 1981 alternative car scene! T-shirts and video tapes were available from Barry

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson / Jeroen Booij archive

Stimson's stories (2)

It's Barry Stimson's birthday next week - about time to share another of the many great tales he told me. This one is about a Mini based sports car that never was. But also about the approach that is so typical of Barry. You'll have to love him for it!

"A man called Cooper also came round to the Nissen hut in Chichester where I was building the Mini Bug. I can’t remember what he drove but the car was definitely posher than mine. He’d heard of what I was doing, and I asked him what he wanted. I’m not a name dropper and I honestly didn’t know who he was, which made the conversation go really strange. He had planned to meet me and said his name was Cooper. ‘Like the car’, I said and he said yes. I wasn’t totally sure if he was John Cooper but we had a nice chat. He told me about his twin engine Mini and I said that it sounded dodgy to me. He then said he wanted to build a Mini based sports car and had a sketch that he’d like to show to me. He came with something on a rough piece of paper. Not a beer mat or a serviette, but definitely not a blueprint. ‘What do you think of that?’ he asked. By the way, he was talking it sounded like it was something done in the pub. I said it looked okay but there was something not quite right about it. It looked a bit like the Biota. Yes, that and a cross between the Deep Sanderson. It wasn’t horrible but he wasn’t happy with it and asked if I was interested. ‘Would you like to do it?’ he asked. I said I was quite busy. We chatted on and he seemed really nice and friendly before he went. That would have been the first day we were in Chichester and he would have been 40 or 45 at the time. It was only later that I was told it was the John Cooper. I didn’t follow it up as I was already doing things I wanted.”

What do you get when you cross a Deep Sanderson and a Biota? A Cooper perhaps?

Pictures Jeroen Booij archive

Barry Stimson at the farm in Chichester in a six-wheeler prototype. More on that later!

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

Stimson's stories (1)

Okay. How about a new series? Regular readers out here know I've been doing more of them - on Le Mans cars (Minis at Le Mans), on my Camber and Maya GT researches (The Camber / Maya files), on mysterious cases of disappeared derivatives (Urban Legends) and of course that all-time favorite of the Mystery Mini derivative. Anyway: time for new online series now, and this time it's all about what I believe to be the most prolific designer of Mini based cars: Barry Stimson.

From the late 1960s-on Barry designed, built, drove and marketed a great number of wild vehicles, and many of these were Mini powered. Not all of them were a hit, but it's a fact that there are some great tales attached to them. What's more: Barry likes to chat about them with me, and thanks to his free-of-charge telephone account it's not too difficult (or costly) either. Great. But where to start? Barry had a laugh about his first car, when I asked him about it. A Ford 93E of, he thought, 1937. It may not be a surprise that it didn't last very long in its original shape. "Any pictures of it?" I asked him, and to my great surprise I found them in my mailbox only minutes later. That was the one to start with.

Barry was 17 at the time and told me that his mum and dad thought he'd gone mad cutting up this still very usable car. Barry: "But it sort of started there... with a hammer… a saw... a spanner… and a vision. Mum hated the thing and banned me from parking it outside their house in Portsmouth! …Can’t think why? Oh, and yes, they are dustbin lids on the wheels!"

So there you go. Not a Mini derivative for this time, but there's much more to follow as this man was responsible from anything Mini based from three-wheelers to six-wheelers. Welcome aboard Barry!

Barry Stimson at the age of 17, here on his way to adventures in Africa…

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

The first Stimson: a much modified Ford 93E, much to the horror of The Stimsons!

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

 It was the start of a long list of cars, tricycles and amphibians to come. Note dustbin lids...

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

 A disgrace to that neat and tidy street in southern England in the late 1950s!

Picture courtesy Barry Stimson

 Ever the optimist: Barry Stimson's balcony overlooks a marina, here some years ago

Picture Jeroen Booij