Tag Archives: Mini

Wild Goose and The Pet – MINI T Building

5 Replies

On Sunday I got the chance to pop in to the T Building which houses the MINI Visitor Centre at Cowley near Oxford. Here are a couple of the vehicles on display.

The MINI One Alan Aldridge Special 2008, is a work of art by ‘The Graphic Entertainer’ Alan Aldridge who created a well known related work with an original Mini back in 1965 that appeared on the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine at the time.

Mini Mokes have featured in this blog, before this 1968 Austin Mini Moke is for Weske & Anja over at the Belgian Mini Forum and for everyone at the Mini Moke Club Forum.

The Mini Wildgoose was aimed at folks intent on spending their kids inheritance before the kids spent it for them.

Based on the Mini Van this wild RV conversion provided four seats in a ‘dinette’, ‘double bed’, table, curtain’s, cupboards and water carriers.

Optional extras included combined luggage rack and spare wheel carrier, which I guess was better than having it in the support vehicle driven by the wife, extended wing mirror’s, just how could you possibly reverse with out them (?), hammock bunk and all important undersealing of the cab !

Finally The Pet MINI covered in cow hide, was exhibited alongside a mass produced chaise longue similarly covered by Le Corbusier in 1927 at the ‘neue raume 07’ design exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s Mini Museum edition of Getting a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a 215 hp spec MINI Cooper S R56. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share

Sunday Service – MINI Plant Car Park

4 Replies

I took the 191,000 mile Passat out for a 180 mile spin yesterday to the MINI plant in Cowley just outside Oxford where the PistonHeads had organised a Sunday Service, a free gathering of 800 folks who like to worship their cars.

When I read through the list of vehicles that were booked to attend including a Ferrari California at the top of the list, my sceptical, if it’s too good to be true on the internet it is, side imagined some of those hoping to attend might be having a laugh.

However as evidenced by this very expensive tax disc, many people did in fact turn up in the vehicles promised, of the 50 plus vehicles from 28 manufacturers I photographed there were two current different model Rolling Royces, five Ferraris, helping to secure Ferrari Fridays for a while yet (!), 5 Bristols in 4 flavours a couple of Chevrolets and a 1938 Ford Deluxe Hotrod.

On an absolutely freezing morning the MINI visitor provided a welcome shelter with a completely eclectic collection of Mini’s both originals and Retro models photo’s of which I look forward to sharing in the fullness of time.

The meeting started at 9 am prompt and we were asked to clear the area by 1 pm. Ironically the afternoon drive home was in brilliant sunshine which would have been very welcome while I was taking these pix, but I guess we can’t have everything, certainly not in January.

With over 400 photographs to sort out I thought I’d share a handful of details to give you a flavour of what is to come here at Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres !’

I’d like to thank everyone at Pistonheads and the MINI visitor centre who made my first Sunday Service so much fun and finally I’d like to thank all the PistonHeads who brought such a fascinating collection of vehicles.

Hope you enjoyed some of the details in today’s edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you’ll join me again tomorrow for a trip inside the MINI Visitor centre. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share

The Mini Challenger – Citroen DS3

4 Replies

The Citroen DS 3 launched in 2009 is the first of the ‘Different Spirit’ range and replaces the C2 models.

It competes in the market place against the Alfa Romeo MiTo, Audi A1 and MINi.

Top of the range DS 3’s have 150 hp capable of 0-62.5 in 7.3 seconds with a top speed of 133 mph and 155 g/km CO 2 emissions.

It is award time of the year and this applies as much to motor vehicles as any other field of endeavour, in an act of unparalleled hubris Europe’s top motoring magazine writers have managed to vote a vehicle called a ‘Leaf’ that is not yet for sale or on the roads as European Car Of the Year. For once, and this happens very rarely I am in agreement with Top Gear magazine which has handed it’s gong for 2010 to the DS3 describing the car as ‘The peoples champion’.

The DS 3 was launched to an unsuspecting British public with the first product placement in a video by a British recording artist. You can see this same view at 2 mins 31 secs in Pixie Lott’s ‘Broken Arrow‘ video.

For those like me who believe competition on or off the track is the best place to prove a vehicles worth, Citoren have kindly built seven, consecutive, time World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb from Alsace in France a 202 hp DS Racing version with which to defend his title, I expect the DS will remain in the public eye for a while yet.

Thanks for joining me, hope you’ll join me tomorrow for Ferrari Friday, don’t forget to come back now !

Share

Micro Car Massive Performance – Mini Marcos

5 Replies

This particular MK3 Mini Marcos is kit #7198

The Mini Marcos was designed by Desmond ‘Dizzy’ Addicott who might be familiar to film buffs as one of the B17 & B25 pilots used in the film Memphis Belle.

The Mini Marcos was born out of the design for Dizzies DART a modified Morris Mini van acquired for £5.00 with a caved in roof. This car was converted in to the Dart with a fibreglass body. All older Mini Marcos cars are slightly asymmetrical at the rear as a result of the original DART chassis twisting when the roof was cut off.

This particular MK 3 Mini Marcos is kit # 7232.

The DART project was taken over by Jem Marsh of Marcos cars who used the DART to make body moulds for and sold finished fibre glass bodies as kit cars from 1965 – 1970 and again from 1991 – 1996.

The DART also gave rise to the Mini Jem sold by Jeremy Delmar-Morgan which in turn gave rise to the Kingfisher Sprint.

Perhaps the most remarkable story about the Marcos is its brief international competition history at Le Mans where in 1966 Claude Ballot-Lena and Jean Louis Marnat were classified last in 15th place, the car was stolen soon after the race.

The following year the Chris Lawrence / Jem Marsh Mini Marcos was timed at an astonishing 146 mph on the Mulsanne Straight, but did not finish .

Steve Roberts in his Trans XL Mini Marcos set four British Land Speed records at 1 mile, half mile, kilometre and 500 meters for cars up to 1600cc which still stand today.

Wishing everyone a fabulous Friday, don’t forget to come back now !

Share

The #3 From 1/32nd scale to 1:1 – Scalectrix Mini 1275GT

Leave a Reply

There used to be a joke that the first thing a man would do on the announcement that his partner had given birth to a boy he would go out and buy a Scalectrix set. And indeed I remember buying one for a friend as his wedding gift, prophetically his wife gave birth to three sons, triplets !

Photo Neil Munn – http://www.munz.co.uk/scalextric/

Scalectrix is Britain’s premier entry brand into the world of 1:32 scale slot car racing. Launched in 1957 Scalectrix has produced many sets based on various layout’s with two little Mini’s to race.

The 1970’s #3 1275 GT Mini shown here, picture courtesy of Nei Munn, is a fictionalised racer based loosely on the 1960’s Britax Mini Cooper .

It was perhaps no surprise to see a full size replica of the #3 Scalectrix Mini at the Mini Festival recently. The 1275 GT replaced the Mini Cooper completely in in 1971. The hideously restyled, by Roy Haynes, boxy front end was based on the Austin Maxi and was safer but comically less efficient aerodynamically than it’s predecessor. For all it’s faults the restyled Mini did achieve success in racing Richard Longman becoming two time British Touring Car Campion in 1978/79 in his 1275 GT and still has its fans today.

Thanks for coming by, don’t forget to come back now !

Share

Don’t get mad get even – Replica Revenge Mini.

Leave a Reply

Today’s featured vehicle is a replica of ‘The Revenge Mini’ which won the 1967 Monte Carlo Rally in the hands of Rauno Aaltonen and Henry Liddon. Unusually the car is probably most famous because of the events that took place on the 1966 Monte Carlo Rally.

There has always been a bit of an edgy competition between France and Britain in just about every field of endeavour, I guess no one wants to be first loser against their immediate neighbour. Evidence of this can be seen in the Monte Carlo Rally of 1966. The Mini Cooper S had been the winning car on the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964 in the hands of Paddy Hopkirk and Henry Liddon and again in 1965 with Timo Mäkinen and Paul Easter at the wheel. Timo and Paul crossed the line in first place in 1966 with Roger Clark in a Lotus Cortina second followed by Aaltonen and Hopkirk both driving Mini’s in third and forth.

However much to the surprise of everybody the top four and two other British cars were disqualified for cheating. Their crime was running non standard (performance enhancing ?) single filament headlight bulbs. It transpires that when teams had entered they had done so on the understanding that these bulbs would be legal as they had been over the previous two years but then the rules were changed after entries had closed making these bulbs illegal because the models of the disqualified cars did not have single filament bulbs fitted as standard.

Curiously the car declared as the winner Pauli Toivonens Citroen was allowed to and did run with these bulbs because some ID19’s were fitted with the single filament bulbs on the normal production lines. Naturally the result upset everyone Prince Rainer snubbed his own prize giving ceremony , Pauli Toivonen, declared the winner, swore he would never drive a Citroen again, and kept his word, and the British Motor Corporation protested the result which 10 months later was declared final and stood.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Of course better than getting mad is to get even so in 1967 BMC came back and Rauno Aaltonen with Henry Liddon co driving the #177 took the Mini’s third and final Monte Carlo Victory. Observant fans of Michael Caine and the original 1969 film ‘The Italian Job‘ will remember Crocker making reference to the ’66 Monte disqualification in the workshop where the Minis are being prepared and some one is checking the head lights Crocker says ‘I hope their dual filament bulbs, we wouldn’t want to be caught doing anything illegal now, would we ?’

Wishing everyone a fabulous weekend. ‘Don’t forget to come back now. Hear ?’

Share