Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #122

Pininfarina's 1100 now on display in Turin

Mad six-wheeler Twini can be yours

Enjoying the Ogle again

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #118

Deep Sanderson 105 Twini is a shiny star

Supercharged Siva Buggy 

Your payments please!

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #90

More about the mysterious Emery Twini Mini

Midas Gold crash test car becomes a show car

The Mini Merveilleuse by Boano - really? Yes and no!

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #63

What a great donation of historic photographs!

Mini Festival organizers looking for Broadspeed GT

And another 'Sprinted' Riley Elf

Eve is looking for her husband's old GTM

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #8:

The ongoing investigations into Lady Di’s Mini

Picture proof found: WM Scorpion really did exist

And yet another New Zealand Twini found

Mystery Mini Derivative (84): Kiwi Twini

Twinis (twin engined Minis for those of you who forgot) were made in a wide variety. John Cooper's version became famous after it almost killed the man himself, but there were many more. You may be surprised about the number of Twinis built on Mini based cars too, or ones that almost saw the light of day. From Deep Sanderson to Butterfield Musketeer and from Scamp to Ranger. Read more about some of them here.

Tim Neal tipped me off about a Twini that's offered for sale in New Zealand. According to the seller it was built in Dunedin by a man who made more Moke style cars, all road legal ones but just with the single engine. This one, however, was different and was never road registered. It is now offered for sale, still as a project and as a 1970 Mini.

Apart from the mechanicals not much of the Mini's base appears to have been used with home-made steel floors, or so it seems, and a body which looks to be made of aluminium. It comes with a 'condition unknown' 850cc engine at the rear and a 1000- or 1100cc that has to be mounted in the front subframe.  There are twin fuel tanks and 12" wheels. A rewarding project no doubt. See the ad here.

Mini based Jeep style car - but with a difference...

Picture Trademe.co.nz

...As the car's rear is another engine bay

Picture Trademe.co.nz

Front oozes Jeep but then this was going to be a 4x4 

Picture Trademe.co.nz

There's an 850 engine in the space frame at the back

Picture Trademe.co.nz

While this one (1000 or 1100) is meant to go in the front 

Picture Trademe.co.nz

Simple dash with twin instruments. Twin tanks mounted directly under seats

Picture Trademe.co.nz

Floors appear to have been made specifically for this car

Picture Trademe.co.nz

Hrubon Phaeton Six - meant as a rallying Twini?!

The Hrubon Phaeton as well as its later sibling the Schmitt, both made in France, were a sort of Mini Moke but then substantially shorter so that it could be parked head-first in a spot. But there was a six-wheeled 'long' wheelbase version of it, too. I only had one picture of that (registration '286 W 67' well visible) and very little information. 

But recently I came across another picture of it. It's a horribly low-quality shot, but at least it does provide some of the much-hoped-for more info. It shows us that the car was dark blue in colour, but what's more: a tiny little side bar with info tells us it was not just available as a four-seater, but also as a Twini! From the text: "Disponible en bi-moteur pour les rallyes debut '82". That is: Available with twin-engines for the 1982 rally season. For heaven's sake - who knows more about that!

Hrubon Phaeton Six was, as far as I know, only built in a number of one

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

This snippet gives a little bit more. Available with two engines as a rally car!

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Dutch Twini scrapped - but picture emerges

Years ago I was told about a one-off twin-engined Mini special, built in The Netherlands in the early 1970s by the late Jan Slotboom. Arch Mini enthusiast Sipke Blom was the one to tell me about it and also added that he'd owned it at one time and - to his own shame - scrapped it. He really regretted that and also for not even having a picture of it either.

But I did find out a little more, as I contacted the son-in-law of Slotboom back in 2015, who remembered it well then. He told me: "It started when we found out about rallycross in the UK, broadcast by the BBC television. We really liked it and helped to promote a similar series in The Netherlands. David van Lennep was the main promotor behind it. At first it was all very amateurish, but then there was the Dutch ace driver Jan de Rooy who had a four-wheel driven DAF."

"My father-in-law thought he could make something like that and came up with the idea of the Twini, which used two 1100 engines. It was made with the rally cross in mind and I remember we tested it on the A50 motorway here in The Netherlands, which was under construction at the time. It came with a simple aluminium body and was very fast. It did especially well in the mud, but there were always troubles to synchronize the gearboxes. My father-in-law passed away in 1991 and the Twini went on to Sipke."

Sipke Blom now contacted me again as the son of the man I spoke to, now found more on the car after all. Sipke added: "He says there are more pictures and even film footage which I hope to see soon. This photograph was taken at the Valkenswaard circuit in 1971, when the car came first in the Special class at the Dutch Rallycross championship. The two 1100 engines came with very special cylinder heads with the biggest valves I have ever seen, even in 1300 engines. Although I still very much regret to have scrapped the car, the son has now at least become really enthusiastic and I hope to see more of it soon."

Dutch Twini was built with Rallycross in mind and won the Special class in 1971

unfortunately it was scrapped later in the 1990s

Picture via Sipke Blom

The car's builder Jan Slotboom, seen here, was a real British car enthusiast

Picture via Sipke Blom

"The 1100 engines came with very special cylinder heads with the biggest valves I have ever seen"

Picture Sipke Blom

Deep Sanderson 'Twini' at the drag strip

Ever-enthusiastic fellow-Biota owner Tim Harber sent me some material related to the illusive Deep Sanderson 105 'Twini' or 'Twinny'. What struck me most was a clipping from a 1972 issue of Cars & Car Conversions magazine that was new to me. It's an interview with Irishman James 'Jim' Gavin, who worked for Chris Lawrence in the mid-1960s and famously sprinted the Twini at the British International Dragfests at Church Fenton in 1964 and at Woodvale in 1965.

From the article: "Jim came to England and worked for Chris Lawrence, the Deep Sanderson man, whose brilliance and ideas and driving was wasted by accidents and financial disaster. Jim found fun in everything at LawrenceTune, but most of all in a racing TwinnyMini single seater. Jim doesn't say wether it went round corners, as he used it only for dragging. In 1964 when the first Great Britain versus America contests were held. "The car would do the 1/4 mile in 11.43 and at the end of the run would be pulling 115-118 mph. It earned me some money, and this was very handy when we started SuperSport." The car was lying around partly built, using four tubes tying the two subframes together, and the whole thing was run with 10" wheels. The two engine craze rather faded away after John Cooper had an awful smash on the Kingston bypass in a saloon twinny. The LawrenceTune car used two Downton 1071Ss, and possibly the arrival of the 1275S saved any more disasters."

What's more: Tim also sent a link to some film footage of these dragfests, in which Jim Gavin can be seen briefly in action with the Twini - see below and go to around 3:10 for the Deep Sanderson. What struck me here is that the car looks to be green. I have a few black and white pics of the Twini at the drag strip, but always thought it to be red. It was red with a black stripe when I photographed it for Maximum Mini 1, back in 2007, with absolutely no clues of any green paint on the body.

Irishman Jim Gavin at work on the Deep Sanderson 105, which used two Downton 1071 engines

Picture Cars & Car Conversions, via Tim Harber

Gavin at the wheel of the Twini during one of the Sydney Allard-organized 'Dragfests'

Picture jeroen Booij archive

Gavin said: "It earned me some money, and this was very handy when we started SuperSport"

Picture jeroen Booij archive

"The car used two Downton 1071Ss, and possibly the arrival of the 1275S saved any more disasters"

Picture jeroen Booij archive

Gavin was quoted to do the 1/4 mile in 11.43 at 115-118 mph - this clipping says it did 13.18 at 109 mph

Still pretty impressive for the Twini though

Picture jeroen Booij archive

As found in 2007 - the Deep Sanderson 105 was red then, with no traces of any green paint

Picture Jeroen Booij

Unseen film footage by Nick Pettitt shows it in action on the drag strip when it was green

Video courtesy Youtube / Nick Pettitt

Aussie Twini breaks in hill climb

This movie clip of an Australian Twini was flashed over to me, and I understand it was taken at the Huntley Hill Climb in New South Wales last September. The car is said to use twin Cooper 'S' units and weigh 550kgs, but that's all. When you watch the video you'll see it goes off like a rocket but the climb seems to end not quite so good unfortunately. Any further info would be much appreciated!

Australian Twini on chunky slick tyres is an Australian hill climber

Video Imavoiding / Youtube

The Kingfisher as a 4-wheel drive homologation special

‎The story below was posted online by Tom Wilkinson‎ last week and  I wanted to share it with you guys here as I rather enjoyed reading it. It's a nice little tale about the Kingfisher Sprint, or actually one very unusual version of that car dubbed the Kingfisher Turbo Sprint Coupe 4WD HS. He we go, in Tom's words:

"I’m not sure how we met our friend John, but he came up to the farm when we had our first Avengers. We would take him up the road, but John was a Hot Car reader (not Cars and Car Conversions, Rallysport or Motoring News), so he thought that when we were explaining it was a Group 1 Avenger, he got it into his head it was Stage 1 engine (remember those?), and was thoroughly shaken by his ride up the road. Now John was one of those guys who was always vague about his background, or how he earned his money, but always had a tale to tell about how qualified/experienced/knowledgeable/skilled he was, and his stories were always told to reflect that. One of the ones I do remember was how he’d been a snowmobile salesman in Vancouver and used to race them along frozen rivers with his mates. Personally, I thought he was a part-time script writer for Jackanory. Anyway, John bought a Lancia Delta HF Turbo 4WD, the forerunner to the Integrale. He regaled us with tales of how it had lost a little crispness to the handling when it underwent a RHD conversion, so he upgraded the turbo and put a Koni handling kit on it. He wasn’t so happy when Coke was on his way back from Newcastle one evening, and caught and passed him at Weldon Bridge and left him for dead going along the Coquet to Rothbury - in a bog standard Citroen Visa Diesel."

"So, when we got a phone call from John one day to go and see him at his new car factory in Rothbury, we were just a little bemused. It was at that time when there was another John, also making cars, but based in Northern Ireland, so you can imagine, “our” John was immediately nicknamed Delorean. Anyway, off we went to Delorean’s new factory where he’d bought the remaining assets of the Kingfisher Car Company (Roger King , the originator of the Kingfisher, had got into financial difficulty and gone into receivership). He was always the master of hyperbole, so he explained how he intended to market the “new” Kingfisher as a real performance car, and intended to build a rally version, the Kingfisher Turbo Sprint Coupe 4WD HS (the four wheel drive homologation special)
But Delorean being Delorean, it was going to be perfectly engineered, unique and ultra-competitive. (Please bear in mind that these were based on Mini 850s!). His plan, having researched the history of competition Minis was to create a twin-engined version, one in the front and one in the back, like the factory had experimented with for rallycross. Then he was going to turbo-charge both engines."

"He then sprang the big surprise: “And I’d like you two to drive it. I’d like one of you to do an English Championship, and the other to do a Scottish Championship. What do you say?” Well, we managed not to burst out laughing (and not wanting to scupper a deal that just by some remote chance, he ever got going), and started winding him up. “Can you fit it with Group 4 Minilites John?”
“No problem. I’ll get my engineers on it this week” (We were the only people in this lock-up unit!) “And can you fit Bilsteins too?” “I’ll ring the factory in Germany in the morning, and get them on it” “And can you design a high range/low range transfer box for it so we can have both a forest ration and tarmac ratio?” “I’ll ring Quaife in the morning” (I wonder if this was the prompt that caused Quaife to create their dual range gearbox!). After we’d run out of ever more outrageous questions, Delorean then says “So we have a deal then?” “Absolutely” we said, and he shakes our hands and tells us he’ll get his legal team on drawing up contracts first thing in the morning."

"As far as we know, the last we heard he was selling off job lots of moulds, resin and matting, and desperately trying to get out of the lease with English Estates. And we’re still waiting to hear from his “legal team”

This actually is a turbocharged engine in a Kingfisher Sprint. There's just one engine though...

Picture Jeroen Booij 

The very first Kingfisher Sprint, built in the Rothbury factory. Roger King is the man with the beard

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

The Twini Ranger by ex-Broadspeed man John J Thomas

While the infamous Twini Scamp, built by former McLaren engineer John Hornby, is now restored (seen here on a Maximum Mini display in 2016) and the Deep Sanderson 105 Twini still for sale (all about that here), pictures of another Twini emerged last week through Magenta owner Ken Warburton. It's the Twini Ranger! 

Ken got hold of them through builder John J. Thomas, who is a bit of a legend if you ask me. Thomas was a former Broadspeed employee who later went to work on his own and came up with a number of interesting projects. Best known, perhaps, was his six-wheeler version of the Ranger Pick-up - the Ranger VI - which he marketed himself. I have been trying to get in touch with the man for some time - to no avail - but must admit I had completely forgotten when Ken came up with these shots.

They show another one of Thomas' projects, which was a Twini Ranger. The car was powered by 1275cc A-series engines front and rear thus coming with four-wheel drive. I'd never heard of it before and would be interested to learn a bit more about it. About time to get in touch with John J. Thomas after all! Meanwhile, I'll place it together with the other two Twinis that are still missing: the Butterfield Musketeer Twini and Bufi Mowog...

Proof of its existence: the Twini Ranger was built by former Broadspeed man John J. Thomas

Picture John J. Thomas via Ken Warburton

Seen here without its hardtop on snowy surface. The number 'MAY 208' is on a BMW these days

Could the car survive? The Twini Scamp all of a sudden resurfaced some 10 years ago (click)

Picture John J. Thomas via Ken Warburton

Seen here with two more of John J. Thomas' projects: a Ranger six-wheeler and a Magenta

Picture John J. Thomas via Ken Warburton

IMM 2016 - all of the rest

After yesterday's flood of Mini Marcoses and Midases, now over to the rest of the Mini derivatives that made it to the International Mini Meeting in Lommel, Belgium. Quite an eclectic mix of Mini variants! Oh - and missed the show, but want the book? Then simply go here.

Happy to have served you from my humble tent! On display some unique cars: a Barclay Minibug (left), the Twini Scamp (right) and a lovely little Schmitt behind

Picture Jeroen Booij

Mean Sonora BMC owner Louis Lempereur was one of many to buy the brand new 

Maximum Mini 3 book at the spot.

Picture courtesy Louis Lempereur

Proud owner Dylan Doek with the unique Twini Scamp he is now almost finished restoring. There'a a 998 engine in the front and an 848 in the back, just like it was built by McLaren engineer John Hornby in the mid-seventies

Picture Jeroen Booij

When the bonnets are closed the double rev counters and temperature gauges may give you a clue to its unusual mechanicals…

Picture Jeroen Booij

And another proud owner… Andre de Wit with his Barclay Minibug. Andre knows his Dutch Mini derivatives. He is currently restoring a Dutch-built Siva Moonbug, too

Picture Jeroen Booij

His Minibug could well be the only one surviving. A handful is believed to have been made, but I have never come across another with the Barclay name moulded in its bonnet. Nor has Andre

Picture Jeroen Booij

The Schmitt is owned by Bart Vanreusel of Belgium, but I forgot to photograph him with the car. But here is a shot of it that I took some years ago in Antwerp. Thanks for attending Bart!

Picture Jeroen Booij

Everyone who restores an early Jimini deserves my full attention. This one was just superb

Picture Roald Rakers

It came from Austria and was on display just two stalls from the Maximum Mini stand

Picture Roald Rakers

Mengers four-door Mini is one of three built by Dierk Mengers of Oldenburg, Germany. He was there, too, and collected his book from the Maximum Mini stand

Picture Jeroen Booij

This nice convertible Mini is not a Crayford Mini Sprint, but a one-off built in 1968 in Bexhill, East Sussex. The owner's son and daughter both have several Mini variants, too

Picture Jeroen Booij

If you look closely you may spot this car wears the same registration as the Jiffy pick-up featured in Maximum Mini 2. But then it's the same car

Picture Jeroen Booij

It was converted into a Jiffy Romahome by its new owner Ivo Krul. And, yes, he spent the nights in it, too. Ideal for an International Mini Meeting!

Picture Jeroen Booij

Dutch Domino Pimlico. It's only recently that I found out that these cars were actually built in The Netherlands, too. I think this is a British built one, though

Picture Jeroen Booij

A Mini Meeting would not be complete without Chris Westgate and his Mk1 Scamp. No doubt he liked to see the Twini Scamp being restored!

Picture Jeroen Booij

More Scamps made it over from the UK. Here a pair of Mk2s in panel van guise

Picture Jeroen Booij

But this was an even greater surprise! A rare Scamp six-wheeler with unusual body modifications

Picture Jeroen Booij

And talking about six-wheelers - Robert Asselbergh brought over his Stimson Safari Six project

Picture Jeroen Booij

He's owned the car for some years now, but hasn't found the time yet to start its restoration. One day…

Picture Jeroen Booij

A Phoenix Estate won't rust of course, but this one appeared to have done just that!

Picture Rolf Roozeboom

I missed it, but my old GTM Coupe came over to the IMM, too. Who owns it now?

Picture Rolf Roozeboom

And this Heerey GTM was spotted by everyone but me, too. Nice car!

Picture Thierry Quertain

Powder blue paint and Cortina rear light suit the car well, I'd say. Who knows more about it?

Picture Thierry Quertain

All the way from Austria in a GTM Rossa convertible. Well done sir!

Picture Thierry Quertain