Season's greetings

A merry Christmas and a happy New Year with lots of Mini (based) motoring to all Maximum Mini readers and fans. Thank you for your support in 2019 and don't forget to vote for the 'Best Find of 2019' (click here).

One little scoop for the new year already then - The mysterious Swedish Ogle SX1000 seen below (full story of it here) has been tracked down! All about that, and much more Maximum Mini articles are to follow in 2020. Have a good one!

A possible 'Best Find of 2020' already? - this Ogle SX1000 has just been found. More to follow

Picture Jeroen Booij archive / Teknikens värld

What is the Find of the Year 2019?

It's time to introduce you to the nominees for the 'Best Find of 2019', a contest held on Maximum Mini every year. Once again I picked out what I believe to be the 5 best finds and discoveries made in 2019. It's up to you to decide which one wins the title.

You will find the cars that have made it to the contest below. To vote simply drop a comment below stating your favourite (click here if you read this through an email message), or do it on my Facebook page (here). The one with the most votes wins - it's simple as that. Now, over to the candidates:

Long search ends in a London shed: MoBi One finally found. Full story here and here

Rumours of its survival came true: Australia's sports car 'Project X' survives. Full story here

The British-built ASP 1300 racer appears to be alive in Kansas, USA. Full story here

Unrecognzable as such but this really is the Salt & Pepper Mini Moke. Full story here

A surprise find at a New Zealand wrecker's yard: the Wellington mystery Special. Full story here

Christmas offer 2019

When Christmas nears, it has now become a tradition to offer Maximum Mini books with a discount, to all of you who haven't got them yet, or who'd like to give one to somebody else. You'll get 25% discount on Maximum Mini 2 and 3. All prices below include postage and packing in a purpose made box. Drop me a line on jeroen at jeroenbooij.com with your wishes and I'll send you a payment request.

This offer starts today on Wednesday 11th November 2019 and runs until 25 December 2019.

To the UK

£26.25 for Maximum Mini 2
£30.00 for Maximum Mini 3
£52.50 for Maximum Mini 2 & 3


To Europe

€33.95 for Maximum Mini 2
€37.50 for Maximum Mini 3
€63.75 for Maximum Mini 2 & 3


To the US

$46.50 for Maximum Mini 2
$52.50 for Maximum Mini 3
$93.75 for Maximum Mini 2 & 3


To Japan

¥5,500 for Maximum Mini 2
¥6,000 for Maximum Mini 3
¥10,500 for Maximum Mini 2 & 3

Wellington mystery Special survives - only just

When Jud Chapman saw a car he didn't recognize at the local wrecker's yard in Horopito, New Zealand, he took some photographs of it and posted the picture online. it didn't take me long to recognize the car as the mysterious 'Wellington Special' described in Maximum Mini 3 and also here with a picture of Graeme Farr. Graeme was quite sure the car had been scrapped after having photographed it in the 1990s, but apparently it survives - only just!

And that was not all to the story. Another New Zealand enthusiast, Bob McBurney, saw the pictures, too, and also recognized the car as he'd even been a former owner. He added: "It's an Eclipse based on an Austin 1300 floor pan supposedly to look similar to a Lotus Esprit. I was told it came from Britain as a kit with 1100 or 1300 floor pan and running gear, but I'm not sure. It was in primer when I got it and had pop up headlights using a wiper motor. I ran my 1430 mini motor in it for a bit of fun. Guys didn't know what just passed them! I owned it over 30 years ago but it had rust in the floor pan so I moved it on. It definitely turned heads, pity the floor pan was rotten. Amazing it's still around, I totally forgot about it. I would have liked to know who built it."

Graeme Farr, who thought it had been scrapped decades ago added: "Wow, who would have thought! I think it had a council towaway sticker on it when I saw it. I thought it had just been abandoned there as it was the end of a dead end street. Good to see its still around. A friend (has a Mk1 Cooper S) sometimes looks after a hotel owned by the same owners at the Horopito wreckers and I will ask him where it came from."

So there we go again... Who knows more about the car that's now identified as the Eclipse? And last but not least - will somebody see the potential of it and save it from the scrappers after all?!

Wellington mystery Special is found at a wrecker's yard in Horopito, New Zealand

Picture Jud Chapman

This is the same car decades ago, and believed to have been scrapped since this picture was taken

Picture Graeme Farr / Jeroen Booij archive

It has much deteriorated since but at least survives. We now also know it was named Eclipse

Picture Jud Chapman

Austin 1100 base is visible in original Blaze Orange. Somebody save this vehicle!

Picture Jud Chapman

Unipower GT websites fall over each other?

A plethora of pages dedicated to the Unipower GT has found its way to the world wide web in the last couple of years, with a new one being launched this week, claiming to be the only official site.

From the message I received: "The intention is to build on this initial content and maintain its currency to make it interesting for all going forward."

But wasn't just that the idea of the earlier ones, too? First there was the website of Portuguese Unipower owner, racer and enthusiast Rui Sanhudo, by now pretty much outdated but still going strong online. When UK based Unipower owner and enthusiast Tim Carpenter started a new fresh website a couple of years ago I was very keen. Tim owns his car for a long time, but only started using it more fanatically since he rolled it out of its long-term hiding place more recently, by which time he found there was no good information to be found online, too, filling in the gap.

Not much later UK based Unipower owner and well-known figure in classic Mini circles Peter Flanagan started a Facebook page for fans of the Unipower GT, which soon grew to hundreds of members and opened up lots of new information, too. A separate Facebook Group was started some time later by Pete for members only. They are another up-to-date source for anything Unipower.

And now there is the new website started by Unipower owner and enthusiast Gerry Hulford, who ran a Unipower GT register back in the 1970s and 1980s and who owns the original factory records. A couple of years Gerry told me that these records would be donated to the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, but I don't think that ever happened. Gerry now wrote: "I would like this website to be a portal for the sharing of information for the benefit of all", and "I have deliberately avoided providing details of the cars/owners themselves as I have always maintained confidentially of all ownership details for obvious reasons."

But with all the information already online, a proper register of cars actually may just be the only thing missing? I have once started to make a database with cars, put in order by their chassis numbers, but thought I'd better leave this to the dedicated Unipower owners / fans. What do you think? Is it good to have as many enthusiasts making their own club / register / database / page, or should they all join forces?

Click on the links below to take you to the websites as mentioned above, to see them for yourselves

unipower-gt.com
unipowergt.org.uk
unipowergt.uk
Unipower GT Facebook page
Unipower GT Facebook group

Finally, there is by now quite a lot of Unipower information on these pages, too.
This link sends you to all the 82 Unipower GT related articles that I wrote in the last 9 years or so.

Lolita Mk2 in old pictures

I was donated a lovely old picture of the Australian built Lolita Mk2 (see Maximum Mini 1 for full story and beautiful picture by Craig Watson) recently and ended up finding several more at Aussie motoring press agency Autopics. The Lolita was designed and built by Henry Nehrybecki's and Ian Pope's 'Lolita Automobile Developments' in 1967. The car came in the Can Am-fashion of the late 1960s and used some innovative ideas. The 1310cc Cooper 'S' engine was canted much forwards and came from the rally Mini of Australian race ace Bob Holden, who took the Mk2 to the tracks, too.
The car later received an Alfa Romeo 1500 engine, but was restored to its former glory in the 2000s with another Mini 1380 unit. By the time Maximum Mini volume 1 came out in 2009 it was owned by Greg Neal, but I'm not sure if he still has it?

New (to me) photograph of the Lolita Mk2 in action on an Australian track in the late 1960s

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

But more have been unearthed by Autopics. This is the car at Warwick Farm in 1969 

Picture Autopics.com.au

Same race, it seems. The car was driven by Aussie legend Bob Holden here

Picture Autopics.com.au

Bathhurst, 7 April 1969, with Bob Holden behind the wheel once more

Picture Autopics.com.au

Warwick Farm, 5 September 1970. Holden racing for Lolita Automobile Developments

Picture Autopics.com.au

The Lolita Mk2 appears to have been modified here with aluminium spoilers?

Picture Autopics.com.au

Beach Car becomes most expensive Mini ever

Remember this article of some five years ago? A Mini Beach car then caused a bit of a shock in the Mini community when it was sold in Monterey, California for no less than $165,000. The auctioneer's fee of 10% came on top of that, making it without a doubt one of the most expensive Minis ever to be sold. I was contacted by the car's new owner from Florida some time later, who said: "I am the crazy person who bought the Beach Car at the auction in Monterey. Yeah, I know...crazy money. What can I say? It seems people are judging me fairly harshly. I don't care what they think."

Well, there is at least one person who is crazier. Yesterday, another Beach Car was sold in an online auction in the US. This time for the price of - sit for it - $235,000 including premium. The car, it must be said, seems to be in an absolute time-warp condition and is believed to be in single family ownership since it was new in 1962. The build records indicate it was the third to last Beach Car built on March 19th in 1962 and painted Smoke Grey with a Snowberry white roof. The odometer reads out just over 3,000 miles and by the looks of it that could well be genuine. So, a rather unique car indeed. Worth the money?

UPDATE 15:00 - Hang on, I forgot about this one. Pretty close though!

Picture: bringatrailer.com

Picture: bringatrailer.com

Picture: bringatrailer.com

Picture: bringatrailer.com

Le Mans '66 - an update

It seems to me that Le Mans '66 was pretty good received, and I have received a multitude of comments from people who’ve seen the movie, all very positive. When I went to the theatre myself I had not too much of an idea what to expect, though. Admittedly, I had become a real Le Mans ‘66 anorak and I was afraid the movie could only disappoint. But I really loved it and highly enjoyed the movie myself. The filmmakers did a terrific job in recreating the 1960s atmosphere with even the pit boxes and grandstands on Le Mans’ start/finish line (known to have been completely rebuilt in the early 1980's) largely reconstructed in Southern California. I knew these so well from pictures, so to see them now recreated on a big screen was quite something. No sight of a Mini Marcos anywhere in the movie though, but hey, I wasn't expecting that either. Thanks for everyone sending over film clips from Youtube showing my car in action in the actual race – some of them being new to me, and Renaud Surteauville for sending over the press card of the film premiere at the Le Mans museum - a copy of the original Le Mans 1966 press card!

But how about the car then? Well... Painting it was supposed to be the next step and with the primer now (hopefully) fully dried out I contacted my Marcos mate Joost, with whom I prepared the car’s body and put it in primer last December. We had a jolly good time doing that and I was looking forwards to having a similar kind of experience. But when I rang him in the summer to see if he could come up with a date anytime soon, he had to disappoint me. Having just bought a house needing renovation and busy with work and his own cars, he couldn’t see any time soon for painting mine. What’s more: the spray cabin we’d hired previously needed work too, with the owner having no time for that right now. We've come up with a new date though: March 2020.

Then there's the car's mechanicals. As you may remember I made an arrangement with mechanic Philippe Quirière, who runs Mini World Center in southwest France, but disillusion number two was on its way when I contacted him, too, in the summer asking to come over with the car in September. Philippe wrote: “Sadly, it's not possible for two reasons. Unfortunately the crankshaft takes me an incredible time! The machining is turning out to be very complicated and very expensive, surely the most expensive Mini crankshaft ever! But we agreed, so I decided to go all the way with this unique model. But the most important thing is that I'm expanding my garage, and to this day the lack of space, is too risky for a job like this. The building will be finished within three months, so we can finish this unique project in good condition.” So there we go. Even though I would not have preferred it, I have now even more time to prepare things really well. Stay tuned.

Ford vs Ferrari vs Marcos, an original Brockbank cartoon of 1966

Picture Brockbank / Jeroen Booij archive

Salt & Pepper Moke survives!

Well, well... Last week saw the revelation of the Fairley Spoke's previous life as a standard Moke used by the Beach Boys. This week has another amazing Moke discovery - the car used by Sammy Davis junior and Peter Lawford in the 1967 movie 'Salt & Pepper' (more here) has been unearthed.

I was contacted by Davis Guyan, who wrote: "I recently discovered your blog from June 2016 where you had photos of the Moke 'KOA 750E' (see here). I have owned the Moke since March 1991 and still own the car today. It does not look like it did in the film as somebody has reverted to the standard look. When I purchased the Moke the person I bought it from said he thought it was in the Bond films."

"The car is white but under the white paint there is yellow paint. I have been trying to research its provenance and I recently acquired a heritage certificate from Gaydon and when it left the factory in 1967 it went to the BMC Publicity Department. It was last MOT’d in 2009 to take it to Longbridge for the 2009 IMM to celebrate the Mini's 50th anniversary. It has spent most of the time in my garage off the road. We also took it to Salou for the 2005 IMM which was quite a feat as its an 850 automatic. I also own a shorty Mini and a standard Mini and have been a Mini enthusiast for many years and previously owned a Mk1 Mini and a Mini van and have attached some photos of my Moke as it is today. If you have any more photos of my Moke or information I would be interested in finding out all I can about my car. Many thanks for any help you are able to give me. David Guyan"

I also asked David what he planned ever to bring the car back in its mad movie splendour now that he knows of its movie heritage. He replied: "That's under review at the moment. I am yet to decide. I had hoped it was one of the Bond Mokes as they weren't as outrageous and could be driven with less impact. I am being told I should bring it back to its Salt & Pepper glory. I will let you know if I do."
In the meantime I have sent over hi-res pictures to David, so at least he can recreate the vehicle if he ever wants to. Perhaps there are readers out here who can help also. Feel free to drop a line below.

The Salt & Pepper Mini Moke from a promotional picture of United Artists

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

And the car as it is now, owned by David Guyan and unrecognizable as the movie car

Picture David Guyan

This photographs shows the dashboard with all its modifications made for the movie

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

These have gone also, but you can still easily see that they were once fitted to this car 

Picture David Guyan

The owner was told the Moke was used in one of the James Bond movies - not quite

Picture David Guyan 

Loaded with every extra available at the time and more - this certainly was a mad Moke

What would you do if you had it? Bring it back in its former glory? I would!

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Boxer Sprint project now offered for sale

Due to the unexpected death of Ian Shearer (obituary here), his family has decided to sell his much beloved and last project car - the original 1986 Boxer Sprint prototype. The Boxer was a lightweight spyder version of the Nimbus Coupe that Shearer designed a couple of years earlier. The car’s fiberglass body tub was moulded as a single piece with some areas strengthened with Kevlar. The clamshell bonnet hinged forwards and the engine cover flipped the other way for easy access. Brakes, steering column and pedals came from the Mini donor, with the rectangular headlights sourced from VW’s Scirocco. A wiring loom was made for the car, but according to Shearer a modified Imp loom could be used, too. Kitcars and Specials magazine wrote in September 1986: “The Boxer Sprint is designed to be either a club racer and/or a second road car, and as such it makes no pretence of being a refined everyday vehicle. Although, having said that, it will be seen that it has the potential to be made as practical as any two seat sports car.” Still, no more production cars were made, with only the prototype being registered. Shearer found it back on a farm in Kent in 2017 (see here) and started a comprehensive restoration.

Unfortunately he never got 'round to finish that and the whole project is now for sale. It's not just the car itself, fully registered as a 'Nimbus Sprint' with full V5 logbook and all the paperwork. But it also comes with the original moulds, two engines and a whole load of bits and pieces. Ian's son Will: "The car comes with all other items required to get it on the road. There will also be a lot of materials that I am happy for the buyer to have too - things like GRP mat, microfibre filler additives, resins, and hardeners/catalysts. Also, the odd tool that I have no use for, there is a cylinder honing tool for example; basically I'd be happy for anyone buying to rummage through and take what they feel is useful to them. I have taken some photos of all the stuff that will be sold with the Boxer. Everything appears to be complete though it is spread all over! Dad was never one for being organized!"

See the full ad here.

UPDATE 28 November: BLACK FRIDAY Special - only on Friday the 29th offered for £1500!
And I also throw in a signed copy of both Maximum Mini 2 as Maximum Mini 3

A cover star in September 1986: the Boxer Sprint prototype before being registered

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

These are the moulds for the monocoque shell and clamshell front, included in the sale

Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Designer Ian Shearer found the car back in 2017 and started a comprehensive redesign

Picture Will Shearer

Due to Shearer's unexpected death, the whole project is now offered for sale

Picture Will Shearer

Included also: one of two engines - this is a modified A-series

Picture Will Shearer