Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #100

 

 Maximum Mini Find of the Year 2025: These are the candidates

Camber GT and Maya GT: windscreen and its origins

Twin-engined Bufi-Mowog in action in 1968

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #82

Stop press! Zagato Mini Gatto rediscovered - again!

Full history file with 50 pictures...

...and original historical material

Detailed report from the rediscovery in 2008

And the highly original state it was in then

Now in Maximum Mini Newsletter #57

Zagato Mini Gatto: 10 new photographs!

The Broadspeed GTS, controversy and Club Voom Voom

Mini Marcos' wildest racers

Zagato Mini Gatto in Jidéhem's Starter

Look what was sent to me! Another page from the old Belgian comic / motoring magazine Starter, which used to be so richly illustrated by the artist Jidéhem. I wrote about it before as some Mini based had made it to the magazine's motoring reports in the 1960s (Mini Jem, Ogle SX1000 and Quasar Unipower - click here). Somehow I'd missed out on the Zagato Mini Gatto, which was featured also in 1961. A great favourite car here and one I still regret not having bought many years ago. Thank you very much Frank Lannoye!

Spirou behind the wheel of the Zagato Mini Gatto as drawn by Jidéhem

Picture Jidéhem, via Frank Lannoye

It's named BMC 850 Zagato here. "While the design is well carried out, it can be accused for having an unusually long bonnet to house the famous small transverse engine"

Picture Jidéhem, via Frank Lannoye

Zagato Mini Gatto scale model - but where's the real deal?

Janet Miedema, who runs a company named Rialto Models got in touch recently. She wrote: "I have read your article about your discovery of the Morris Mini Zagato 'Il Gatto' in a shed in Italy with interest. Is there any news on the car since that time, could it have been restored since? Some time ago I developed a model of the car in a 1:43 scale."

I replied to Janet that I was shocked to find out that the car was sold in 2012 (click here) in a pretty sorry state while it had passed through 3 or 4 ownerships in the years preceding. This while I had made such an effort to track it down and would have loved to have become the owner. Shortly after that I got in touch with the new owner, Simone Bertolero, who seemed eager to restore the car and even received some help from its designer Ercole Spada (click here). Things looked good, but not for long. When I contacted Simone more recently, he replied to me with three words: 'Sold to USA'. I asked for more information when the answer was: 'I haven't the contact anymore'. And there the trace ended once more. Somebody who knows where in the US it is? Meanwhile, we can enjoy Janet's lovely scale model, as below, and for sale here.

UPDATE 15 February 2020: And sold out already!
UPDATE 16 February 2020: And available soon again.

Zagato Mini Gatto as a 1:43 scale model by Rialto Models looks great

Picture Janet Miedema

The real car was missing for decades, until found in a Milanese shed. It supposedly is in the US now

Picture Janet Miedema

New: Maximum Mini Heritage

I get so many requests from people who want to find out more about specific cars, that I think the time has come for a new service. I also think its fair to say that Maximum Mini is by now the largest source on Mini based cars built between 1960 and today. The Maximum Mini files include original build specifications, sales literature and historical correspondence on many of these cars plus contain a photographic archive with more than 50,000 pictures.

So if you would like to know more about a Mini derivative, Maximum Mini Heritage can supply you with copies of all relevant documents. Contact me and I should be able to give you the available background information, even if a car is very obscure.

This new service includes the following:

A copy of each photograph, sent digitally:
£ 6.00

A file on the make and model of any Mini based car, including words and a selection of photographs, sent digitally:
£ 45.00

A full file on a specific car, including all the material and information available from the Maximum Mini archives, presented in a Maximum Mini Heritage folder, with updates up to 12 months from order:
£ 275.00

Last but not least, I am pleased to offer an elaborate Heritage search service. Do you want to find the car you have always wanted to find? Then I am your partner. In the past 10 years Maximum Mini has proved even the unfindable can be found. From Quasar Unipowers to Mk1 Mini Marcoses with or without Le Mans history. From Gordon Murray’s personal Mini based car to the sole Zagato Mini Gatto. Now, how about your dream derivative? Feel free to contact me.
£ P.O.A.

Found: the IGM Minbug by Gordon Murray, seen standing next to Maximum Mini's Jeroen Booij here. Murray had given up searching for the car - Maximum Mini carried on and succeeded

Picture Maximum Mini archive / Michiel van den Brink

Found: the long-lost Le Mans Mini Marcos that famously came 15th overall at the 1966 24-hours race.

Nerve-wrecking search involved bags of cash and all-or-nothing drive to Portugal

Picture Maximum Mini archive / Jurgen Kersten

Found: the Zagato Mini Gatto. Elio Zagato and his chief designer Ercole Spada were certain it was scrapped. Maximum Mini found it in a Milanese shed where it stood since 1973 with 4,107 recorded kms.

Picture Maximum Mini archive / Pieter E. Kamp

Found: One of 13 built Quasar Unipowers in a French barn. And it was one of three there! 

Picture Maximum Mini archive / Arno Lingerak

Car meets creator

From Moncalieri, Italy, the picture below reached me. It was sent over by Simone Bertolero of Auto Classic who currently owns the one-off Zagato Mini Gatto. Bertolero decided to restore the car after it wasn't sold through eBay last May (see here). Meanwhile he's had a visit of the designer himself, Ercole Spada, who is willing to assist with the restorationm where he can. Perfect!

The Zagato Mini Gatto with Ercole Spada who designed it back in 1961

Picture courtesy Simone Bertolero

Zagato Mini Gatto for sale

What can I say? One of my dream Mini derivatives has come to the market. I searched the Zagato Mini Gatto for years only to find it in 2007 in the Milanese shed where it had been parked decades earlier. The owner said he'd never sell it, but was to get in touch with me if he'd ever change his mind. Fast forwards five years and the car is on eBay (click). I asked the current dealer who offers it for sale why it is dismantled (with just 4107 kilometres on the - Alfa-Romeo - clock it certainly wasn't when I found it). He replied: "The car passed through 3-4 ownerships in the last years. The guy who sold me the car told me that one of the previous owners started a restoration, but the works were stopped soon because health disease of this guy." Unfortunately it seems that this chap used sand blasting methods of stripping the paint off, which appears to have badly warped the panel work. Apart from that I understand he is looking for a price I will never be able to afford, so all there's left is hope that it finds a good home. Do get in touch if you buy it, as I have lots and lots of information and old pictures of the Gatto.

UPDATE 3 May 2012: Car remains unsold. Current owner now plans to restore it himself.

The Zagato Mini Gatto was complete when I found it in Milan in 2007

Picture courtesy Pieter E. Kamp