Le Mans movie clip

You have read the story of the Deep Sanderson No.44 that made it to the 1963 Le Mans 24 hours race (click here if not). With the 2011 race going on right now, you may want to see it in motion too. Well, all right, just give another click here for that.
On Monday I will have a close look at the Deep Sanderson's revenge at Le Mans in 1964 with previously unseen pictures. I may assure you it will be more exiting then this year's race!

Oof! That's a near miss with the Ferrari 250 GTO of Ecurie Francorchamps!

Was Alto Duo meant to be electric?

Yesterday, I received a message from the ever enthusiastic Jacques and Emilien Pillot, the French father and son duo that are much into Mini derivatives and own a couple of rare cars over in France, of which they say it is a real pain to import them. Never the less they keep on collecting unusual stuff from the United Kingdom and have in fact now just picked up a rare Alto Duo. Jacques wrote: "Good day Jeroen. I have sent you a serie of photographs of the Alto Duo that I bought in Great Britain. It is a Smart of fifteen years earlier! (length: 2.49m, width: 1.53m; height: 1.54m). It was originally designed to be an electric vehicle and in one of the pictures you can see the location of the battery tray below the floor (this picture comes from the restoration record)."

In fact I am not sure whether the Alto Duo was specifically designed to be an electric car as early brochures, impressions and test reports of the car that I have all mention it just to be Mini based. Fact is, however, that at least one Alto Duo was specifically built as an electric car. That particular Duo is said to have been used for a record attempt on the M25 ring road in the 1980s, but I have never been able to find out out more about that. I did find what was left over of the supposed record car a couple of years though, but it was not more then just the body. Who knows its real story?

UPDATE 5 July 2011: The real story has come to the light. Click here to read it.

The Alto Duo of the Pillots that is now in France

Picture: Jacques Pillot

Despite Mini engine, the chassis may be made to carry batteries, too

Picture: Jacques Pillot

Body of the electric Alto Duo 'record car' that I found a couple of years ago

Picture: Jeroen Booij

Minis at Le Mans: 1963

One of the bravest efforts at the Le Mans 24 hours race, in my opinion, has to be that of the 997cc Mini powered, rear wheel driven Deep Sanderson 301, designed, built and raced by Christopher Lawrence himself with co-driver Christopher Spender. 1963 Was the first year the little team made it to the French endurance race and two more were to follow. I found quite a few pictures of Deep Sandersons at Le Mans and it took me a while to find out which cars drove when, but for 1963 it is pretty straightforward as the team did not go to the test day in May and clearly showed its numer 44 during the race. Another 301 was entered and was supposed to be raced that year, wearing number 45, by the French 'Equipe Lausannoise' of Renault tuner Bernard Collomb, but it never made it to the track. Most fragments below are from Lawrence's autobiography 'Morgan Maverick' and give a wonderful sense of the event.

"Strangely, we had no troubles with the the scrutineers, being the only English car in the 1000cc class with three Alpine Renaults, three René Bonnets and two Italian Abarths. We had no real problems during practise either, except for a total refusal by the car to steer properly in a straight line. It was really very good in the corners but along the straight it was truly awful. Nothing we did seemed to make any difference and I suppose we slowly got used toit and got on with it. (...)"

"I did the first stint obviously, lasting for four hours. 21 Gallons, 1000cc, drag coefficient of .29 and a frontal area of eleven square feet saw to that. The car could do 150mph plus along the Mulsanne straight. It had been timed during practice through the time trap about a mile after Les Hunaudières café at 152.6mph. I brought the car into refuel at eight o'clock and handed over to Christopher in 37th place out of the 52 cars that started. Unfortunately, Christopher put the little car firmly into the vast sandpit on the outside of Mulsanne corner on his first lap. He had arrived there going very fast, braked too late, and just slid off the road into the sand. (...)"

"With its 10 inch wheels and low ground clearance, trfying to drive it out immediately burried the rear wheels until the engine and under body were just sitting on the sand, and although he tried everything he could think of to get it out, including digging away the sand from beneath the car with his bare hands, he was getting nowhere. We were getting a blow by blow report from our signallers who were right opposite the action, totally unable to do anything but hope."
"Salvation came in the end from a kind corner marshal, who threw a decent sized branch off a nearby tree to Christopher, who was able to use it as a lever to force the car onto former ground and then away back to the pits. (...) We found nearly everything full of sand, including the rear brake drums, which were just stock Mini. We did our best to clear things out but with so much time allready lost, I was keen to get going again."

Lawrence continues the race and describes comprehensively how he managed to go on racing the Deep Sanderson, even when the brakes have stopped working. At 00:30, eight and a half hours after the race started, he was supposedly lying 40th. At 4:30 in the morning he writes he was 26th and second in the 1000cc class. But then he was flagged off as the car had been behind its minimum average speed at midnight. Lawrence writes: "The rule was that all cars must maintain a speed within 10% of the leader of the class, and this is checked every four hours. They said they had checked our speed at the time but in retrospect, minimum average had not been achieved at eight hours in. (...) Obviously, we probably were well off the pace at the midnight check time, but why had they waited untill nearly 12 hours later to take any action? Could it be that we might actually win the 1000cc class, normally the preserve of the French tiddlers (...)? In actual fact, no one won the class, as no 1000cc cars finished. The number 50 Alpine went out at 14:00 hrs on Sunday with a broken con rod. So the 301 was the only running 1000cc car left at four o'clock on Sunday, but that was locked up in parc fermé."
But the Deep Sanderson team was to return the next year. Watch this space for that story.

PS: I have seen pictures of the car in the sand pit but am unable to find them at the moment. As soon as I do find them I will post them here.

The chaps of Downton engineering seem happy after having installed the 997cc engine


A lot of racing is waiting, or so they say. The Deep Sanderson in Le Mans' parc fermé 

And here the Deep Sanderson 301 can be seen on the weighbridge, I wonder what it weighed

I think it's being pushed to its starting position here. A traditional Le Mans start that is

Picture: Maurice Gates

The Deep Sanderson 301 in the pit street with the rear section open, showing the Mini mill with SUs

Chris Lawrence behind the wheel of his own car coming out of the Esses. A dream come true?

Rare picture of the car at full speed at the Mulsanne straight. It was said to do 150+mph there

Bad luck at Le Mans. The Deep Sanderson slid and had to be dug from a sand pit
Update: seconds after this picture was taken No.44 was caught on film. Click here

Love from Rome

How cool is this?
One of the better Mini derivatives that I have seen offered for sale during the last years was this particular Ogle SX1000 that spent most of its life in the US. Presumed to have 48,450 miles only on the clock and certainly in a very authentic looking condition, it looked like a time-warp to 1962. Where better to end up next then in Europe's most historic place? Yep, it went to Rome! See here.
The new owner writes: "On monday my Alfa 156 daily driver spewed oil from the servo steering and I put the Ogle into action for three days while the Alfa was being repaired. This included two trips to Rome, about 13 miles from my home, in 30 centigrade temperature. She ran beautifully and never missed a beat! The Ogle gets a lot of attention in Rome as nobody has literally (ever) seen one!"
Congratulations to the new owner and thanks to bringatrailer.com for sharing the pics.

Who wants to go and see the Mille Miglia when this drives in central Rome, too? 

Picture: bringatrailer.com

Historic car, historic back drop. Note cool Californian black plates

Picture: bringatrailer.com

Bitten by the Bison (3)

Been sitting in the garden, reading motoring magazines, lately? Our man Buffalo Bill definitely doesn't hang around like that! He wrote:

"I have removed the Weber for now, it is so over cammed that its impossible to shunt around the garden with it on, it needs a good strip and clean as it will tick over but with any throttle load it just stalls - a pair of slave twin SU's are in place and let it start and run fine - handily the bar that links the rear towers unbolts (which I had to do to allow the jet tubes on the carbs to fit) and rebolts 1" lower down - handy! The clutch is done and it's better than it was before, but still heavy - something to do with the shorter pedal providing less leverage I guess."

Weber carburettor has temporarily been swopped for a set of twin SUs

"I have also removed the exhaust, it was so loud the neigbours had started to 'mention' it, so for now its got a recycled RC40 box just to keep it at a more reasonable level - it's got the getto outside the body work look, but it works and will pass an MOT with it - I had to remove the black portion of the rear to repair it anyway, so now great shakes - it is a bit vile, but will do the job. I have won an Elise backbox on ebay, so may be able to make that fit. The problem is that the exhaust is limited by the boot shape - the boot needs to be fitted to hold the Targa top."

" I have also got the glass ordered - it was financially enlightening!! The people who make the glass said that the problem with mass produced car glass is that it is cheap because they make so much, and when I told the guy that the side window (which was the expensive bit) was from a one-off car he just went 'Oh, that must have cost the original owner a fortune to make...' It has to be CNC-cut because of the shape around the pill box electric windows - I've had it all remade in the correct light bronze tint as well, which cost a bit more. Igot the glass out tand can now retrim all the dash and pillers, then get the new glass back in the next couple of weeks. I have also started on the pop up lamps and used a MX5 motor in a bodged bracket to make sure it could lift the mechanisim, it did at a furious speed, so I have bought a complete pair of MX5 set up to try and use one to control both lamps - anything will be better then the shakey slow noisy motor that was in there before."

Exhaust, too, is a temporary fitment. Elise box may be better

"Then there's the tyres. These are pretty critcal as anything lower and the front spoiler scrapes on the floor due to the huge distance between it and front wheels - also the tyres need to be pretty chunky to match the wheel arches. I found a set of over 30 year old tyres on ebay that sold for over 200 euros!! I've now found that Avon do a CR500 245/50/13 which is about as near as I can get. They are well expensive (and on back order...) but I think I have found a part worn pair. Annoyingly Avon don't do a 205/60/13 to do the front, but there are plenty of tyres avalible in that size."

That all sounds as if it won't be too long before the car is on the road again. What is our man going to do then? He says: "If it drives okay I will keep it, if its an understeering deathtrap it's going!" Watch this space.

Minis at Le Mans: 1962

It's June, and in motor sports circles that means 'Le Mans' is under way. This is the first part of a series about Mini derivatives that made it to the legendary 24 hours race. Or, well, who attempted to do so as the very first Mini based sports car meant to tackle the French endurance never even made it to the circuit de la Sarthe. It was Gordon Fowell of West Bromwich who entered his Gitane GT in the experimental one-litre class in the 1962 race, starting on June 23 of that year. The pretty aluminium bodied Gitane, named after the French cigarette, had only just been finished with an 887cc 84bhp Mini-engine at the rear. It used wire wheels which did not give a clue to its Mini-motorisation while suspension used coil springs although the idea was to use the Mini’s original rubber springs for production versions.

Production was to start later that year, but first Fowell wanted to promote the car with a comprehensive racing programme and he entered it not only for Le Mans, but also to that year's 1000 kilometers of the Nürburgring in May and the Trophée d’Auvergne in July. Fowell was to drive the car himself with London-based car dealer Dan Margulies as a co-pilot. But Margulies, who passed away in September last year, told me he never even saw the car when I spoke to him a couple of years ago about the Gitane. The car was sold to the brother of the man who helped Fowell build it, who raced it throughout the 1960s. He sold the prototype in 1968 'to a chap in Devon', but it never reappeared. Gordon Fowell passed away at 62 in 1999 but had a stake in a few more racing cars. For more information and cool pictures of the Gitane GT you will have to buy my book, I am affraid.

Original sketch for the rear-engined Gitane GT shows an extremely low sports car. This is
years before the Unipower GT came to life but there are some definite similarities

This is a picture of the clay model. Note the sketching on it that was done by
Gordon Fowell who clearly found the design not low enough

And that's what the prototype looked like when finished. This could have been fun in between the
big Ferraris. The last trace of it dates from 1968 when it went to Devon

Not a Mini derivative but the famous Morgan Super Sports that won the two-litre class in '62. It lead to a string of Le Mans entries for driver Chris Lawrence who returned the next year with his
Mini powered Deep Sanderson 

What is the story behind this MiniSprint?

Quite a few people have asked me whether the car you see on the pictures below is a real MiniSprint. In fact I do not know, although it looks to be a Stewart & Ardern Sprint. It is currently for sale for a hefty sum in central France and will need a complete restauration. According to the seller it is based on a 1963 Mini Cooper and is an original UK right hand drive with special dashboard and doors that have been modified with wind-up windows. The rear lights and wheel arches seem to be modified too. Click here for the ad. It comes with a French log book but without the delicate glass.

France based MiniSprint project car is for sale at a whopping 11,000 pounds

It could well be a S&A MiniSprint with the typical deseamed shell and rectangular headlights 

Steve Burkinshaw's car surely is a S&A Sprint. Note roof gutter that finishes at the b-pillar here
Picture: MiniWorld magazine

Mystery Mini derivative (11)

I have had some comments on the fact that some the cars featured on my blog are Mini Moke derivatives rather then Mini derivatives. I know, but just like these cars too, so decided to include them here. As a matter of fact there are some cars that are 1100 based that I find interesting too but was unsure whether to include them or not in book or blog. Paul Wylde replied to that question with an example: the Navajo kit car that was made in the early 1980s in a workshop on the grounds of Goodwood. Paul wrote: "Definitely a rare beast so that's a yes from me. Cars like these have to be put down on paper so they will not be fogot." Tim Neal added: "Yes, include them. They tick all the boxes: Designer, A-series, Longbridge etc... unlike others!"

Anyway: I had some Mystery Mini (or well, 1100) derivatives to start with, so there we go. This one comes from Graeme Farr (the Kiwi with a soft spot for De Joux's, see here) and appears to be 1100 based. Graeme wrote: "This unknown Morris 1100 based car used to live in Wellington – I am fairly sure it was taken to the tip by the local council shorty after the photo was taken – probably in the 1990s. Shame". Question is: who knows more about it?

UPDATE 9 December 2019: The car survives at a wrecker's yard in Horopito and is named Eclipse. See here.

 

Spotted in Wellington by avid reader of this blog. What is this nice car?

And this is supposedly Mini Jem No.2

After yesterday's very early Mini Jem (click here) I have taken a deep dive into the archives to find out more about the car on the leaflet, but couldn't find anything. What I did find though was a nice article in a 1971 issue of Hot Car magazine, supposedly about the second Mini Jem built. It wrote:

"David Griggiths is 24, and drives a 1967 Mini Jem. It's his seventh car (...) When we say a '67 Jem, what we actually mean is a Mk1 Jem, registered in 1967. David bought the car in the summer of 1970, from the second owner, for £270. It was, apparantly, the second chassis on the road. When he bought it the engine was clapped, it needed two new tyres, wheel bearings, and the wiring loom was unspeakably bad; it wasn't colour coded and when somethings stops, as it frequently does, he has problems, to put it mildly (...) Originally this Jem had an SPQR gear linkage attached to the 850 gearbox. It wasn't up to much though, so when the engine was rebuilt it was replaced by an 1100 enclosed gear linkage (...) Gearchange is now super sleek, and with the low gear ratios of the 850 box the acceleration is such that wheelspin in first, second and third is possible in the wet. Top speed is around the 95mph mark. Performancewise it'll keep up with a Cooper S to about 50, when the S will just begin to show who's boss. (...) David has some very strong feelings on his car. 'I must say this', he said, 'I've never failed to enjoy driving it. It attracts attention, sure, but that's not a half of it. I love kit cars. The age of distinction is slowly dying. Just look around this car park: there's only half a dozen makes around.That's the whole thing about kit cars - however much goes wrong the individuality keeps you interested. Of course, water comes in something wicked on left hand bends, but it's something you either fix or put up with."

Now, after some fiddling with the DVLA website I was much surprised to learn that the car is still in the database, showing it was put on the road in March 1967. That sounds fair as the first Jem bodies were produced in the Summer of 1966 meaning it took a privateer a winter to turn an early body into a car. It was sorn in september 1988 which is over twenty years ago, I know. Something in me says it could still be hidden in a barn though...

Mini Jem number 2 with then-owner Griffiths in class dress. Where are they now?

Could this be the Mini Jem prototype?

I recently came across this shoddy picture of a Mini Jem brochure. It features a Mini Jem Mk1, and a very early one it seems too. In fact I believe it has to be the earliest Jem in a brochure or leaflet, and perhaps this could be the prototype. The London address of Jem Developments that it states is the place where Jeremy Delmar-Morgan built his first few cars. There is another Mk1 brochure (see here, also for the Mk2 and Mk3 brochures) but that shows the address where production moved to in November 1966 and so the one featured here has to be older. Could the car shown on the pictures (registration KGH856C?) indeed be the prototype? Who knows more? Or who has a copy of this cool brochure?

Other then known brochures, this leaflet shows original address in London where 

Mini Jem was born. Could the car be the prototype? Also note delicious works Transit Van 

UPDATE 25 May: Richard Porter wrote: "Jem no. 5 is KGH 858D - could it be that one?" I think he is right - I'd totally forgotten about its registration number while that particular car was fully featured in 'Maximum Mini'