Innehållsförteckning för April 2022 från Mini Magazine

Restomods have become a big deal in recent years. From Singer 911s to Alfaholics GTAs, these bigmoney classics are increasingly finding homes in the garages of wealthy collectors… and it’s not just a plutocrat’s pursuit, we’re seeing this growing trend in the Mini scene too. The Clubman on the cover is just about the best we’ve seen so far: this freshly-completed build features 16v Vauxhall power, all the trimmings to make it track-ready, and a supremely plush interior. Everything about it whispers ineffable class. Regular readers may notice that the mag feels a bit thicker this month – that’s because from now on you’re getting eight extra pages! Don’t say we don’t spoil you. And there’s a twist: we’re going to be including a little bit of new MINI content.…

■ Ever since the guys at Mk1 Performance Conversions started putting on Mini track days almost a decade ago, they’ve always run them to support a chosen charity. Over those years they have, with the support of entrants and customers, raised thousands of pounds for some really good causes. And in 2022, their Blyton Park track day will be raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support; with a charity raffle to be drawn on the day of the event, Sunday 1st May. Tickets costs £5, and the top prize is a unique piece of memorabilia from the founder of Mk1 Performance Conversions who, in 2006, was instrumental in organising a reunion of former Downton employees; at that time a huge poster card, more than a metre wide, was signed by all…

When Rob Kinsey bought this ’89 City E to keep him busy during lockdown, his intentions were to simply carry out a few necessary repairs, get out there and have some fun. Things didn’t go quite to plan as Rob is the first to admit he got slightly carried away! Those minor repairs soon spiralled into a full-on rebuild, which gave him chance to add more than a few of his own clever touches. “My first and third cars were classic Minis,” Rob tells us. “I’ve always wanted another since I sold my last example decades ago.” As the years passed, Rob set up his own business called Rank Events, specialising in wedding car hire, classic and modern taxis catering for a wide range of events including film work. With…

As this fine publication perhaps proves better than any other, the humble BMC Mini and its myriad offspring come in many shapes and flavours – and once left to the devices of talented engineers and customers, with many drivetrains and powerplants too. Over the years, that tiny ten feet of tin has managed to accommodate everything from fire-breathing V8s, Redtops, almost every bike engine you can think of, and (whisper it) even electric power. I’m all for anything that keeps a Mini relevant and on the road, so all power (literally) to the elbows of these talented spanneristas. But for me at least, were I to spec a dream Mini for myself, it would certainly have an A-series under the bonnet. To my mind, this plucky four-banger deserves almost as…

Time flies when you’re not looking, and in the blink of an eye it can be both many years since I last wrote a nontechnical article in these hallowed pages and it can also be the 50th Beaujolais Run. For younger readers, the Run started in 1970 over a well-lubricated meal at the Hotel Maritonnes in Beaujolais. Clement Freud and Joseph Berkmann challenged each other to get a bottle of Nouveau back to London quickest, and over the next few years they did just that while reporting on it and taking pot-shots at each other in their wine columns for The Sun (yes, really) and Sunday Times. As with the later Cannonball Run, word spread and the Beaujolais Run eventually became a very popular annual flat-out race across France. The…

at every show there’s a bunch of cars which look very similar and blend into one another, but there’s always one or two which scream ‘I’m different!’ and demand your attention. With its Monte Carlo rally theme and an immaculate finish inside and out, Leo Wakelin’s R53 JCW is most definitely one of these. Leo grew up watching the original Italian Job and Mr Bean on his telly, so from a young age he forged a strong fancy for the classic Mini and this led to his first car being a 1977 Austin 1000. But driving around in a 1960s-designed (and sized) car among the sheer volume, physical size and pace of 2020 traffic can be a bit hairy, and that’s when Leo’s love affair with R53s began. “I’ll always…

A Tartan Red Cooper S. That’s what’s to blame for everything you see here. Back in 1966, when Derek Hatton was 16, he started working at a Vauxhall dealership, and one of the mechanics had a brand-new Cooper S. Derek was smitten from the start, and the love-at-first-sight theme transcended the generations and directly informed the makeover of this ’93 Mini Sprite. “I realise this is a retro look and some people won’t like it, but the main thing is I do and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction,” he says, and that’s very much the point of owning classic cars. Your car, your rules. The only person it needs to please is the one behind the wheel. So then, back to the sixties: “The mechanic’s girlfriend used…

The team behind the Fastest Mini in the World Race have announced that Castrol Classic Oils will be continuing as the lead sponsor for 2022. Following the enormous success of the 2021 race it will again be one of the must-see feature races at the Mini Festival Brands Hatch. “We are delighted to continue our involvement with this prestigious event,” said Castrol’s Martin Bentley. “It really speaks volumes about our longstanding association with the Mini marque, that includes development and success in motorsport, and underlines our continued enthusiasm to maximise competitor and spectator enjoyment.” The front-running cars are Spaceframe and Supersaloon classic Minis boasting 200-300bhp+, reaching up to 130mph on the Indy Circuit at Brands Hatch before diving into Paddock Hill Bend – thrilling stuff for both drivers and spectators!…

SPORT PSYCHOLOGY Sale price: £21,840 Photos: Historics Auctioneers ■ 2000-model cars like this represent the end of an era. In April 2000, the ‘Mini Classic’ range was launched as a way of sending the old battlers out into the night, and there were three tiers to this swansong range – the Se7en, Cooper, and Cooper Sport. The latter was a fullyloaded offering coming complete with fresh black-and-nickel leather seats, leather steering wheel, alloy door furniture, metal-finish facia, and some interesting options such as Anthracite paint and a CD player. The red example we see here was first registered on September 30th 2000, not long before the last ever Mini rolled off the Longbridge production line. It’s had one extremely careful owner from new and has only covered 18,150 miles in…

GET FEATURED Want to get featured? Send photos of your project to: minimag.ed@kelsey.co.uk PROJECT PROFILE THE OWNER NAME: Charlie Smith AGE: 19 OCCUPATION: Engineer LOCATION: Mid Wales THE CAR: CAR: Mini City E START CONDITION: Non-runner since 2009 CONDITION NOW: Stripped down, starting the body work repairs TIME TAKEN SO FAR: One month ESTIMATED TIME OF COMPLETION: Spring 2022 ON THE JOB Charlie Smith is a 19-year-old engineer with a passion for cars, especially older cars that need some love and attention to save them from the scrapyard. Unafraid to get stuck into any project, big or small, he’ll see it through from start to finish be it mechanical, body repairs, even tackling the paintwork. Self-taught Charlie has had a liking for Minis for some time, and it was simply…

It’s always harder to drag your carcass out of bed for a car show in the winter months, isn’t it? It seems like a good idea the night before, then the alarm goes off, you realise how cold it is, and suddenly you don’t quite fancy it so much… Fortune favours the brave, however, and those of us who did manage to sufficiently gird the loins to leave the house on January 16th were treated to an absolute belter of a gathering at Bicester Heritage. The journey itself was a bit surreal; the drive up from Surrey was shrouded in thick fog the whole way, and we had similar reports from people who’d driven up from Devon and down from Birmingham… fun when you’ve got candles for headlamps, but all…

The Mini is known in popular culture through film, fashion, art, and of course music. I’ve been influenced by music ever since I can remember - cars and rock ‘n’ roll are both very impactful on my life. However, with so many incredible talents owning these equally incredible cars, choosing just one is pretty tricky. So I’ve decided to start with The Beatles, because they all had a Mini and everyone knows the Fab Four - but did you know about their bespoke beauties? Four very special Minis designed by Harold Radford Coachbuilders Limited were gifted to The Beatles by their manager. Every Mini was unique and created especially for each individual band member; George Harrison was the biggest petrolhead in The Beatles, a fan of motorsport and fast cars…

We are, as you may well have spotted, in a jubilee year in 2022. On February 6th, the Queen became the first monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. We’ll be getting a four-day weekend in June, which is a nice little bonus. Of course, jubilees are always cause for celebration, as they always bring these little bonuses along with good vibes in spades. Cast your mind back to 1984, and we find the Mini celebrating its 25th anniversary, its Silver Jubilee – and what better way to rejoice than with a special edition? The Mini 25 was a limited run of 5000 cars, 1500 of which were allocated to export markets, and the spec was terrific: with the body painted in crisp and fresh Silver Leaf Metallic, the accompanying trim…

■ Hopefully you got the news that Mini Fair had been postponed before you rocked up to Stafford County Showground on January 30th! The show was held back for ongoing Covid reasons and to ensure safety for guests and exhibitors, with a new date set as Sunday March 13th. Organised by Mini fans for Mini fans, some of the key highlights we can look forward to in March include the Pride of Ownership awards, spanning five decades of Mini with classes for both classic and modern cars; the BMC Premier Mini Concours finals will see the red carpet rolled out for the very finest examples, and a charity auction will be raising money for this year’s chosen cause, the Motor Neurone Disease Association. The theme for the club stands this…

The spectrum of classic car restoration exists by degrees of originality. At one end of the scale, you have the fastidious concours types who insist on every conceivable facet of the car being precisely as it was from the factory, right down to the direction of the screwheads and the correct misting of overspray in hidden places. At the other end of the spectrum we find the fullhouse customisers, throwing caution to the wind, creating a vision of their own imagining and tradition be damned. Every classic car you see exists somewhere on the scale. And if there’s one modifying trend that defines the modern age, it’s the premium restomod. A lot of people like the idea of retro looks with modern performance, and you’ll no doubt have spotted a…

Sometimes there’s one sole element that serves up the inspiration to pursue, fuel and complete a project. It might be the rekindling of a lost love, or the fulfilment of a lifelong dream, or the memories of a parent’s old car. For Jake Stevens, it was a whole rich stew of ingredients that led to the tasty dish you see before you: “The reason I learnt to work on cars was that I couldn’t afford to pay someone to do it,” he says, “so the whole time I was building this car, I wanted to be able to show people that you can give it a go and do it yourself.” Having started to learn the basics as a teenager, he built up the skillset to take his Mini off…

PARTS AND COSTS 17% pulley, belt, colder NGK plugs, modded bypass valve (£211.04), Airtec intercooler (£399), fitting (£250) TOOLS REQUIRED Spanners and sockets, pulley removal and tensioner tools, breaker bar, penetrating fluid, Loctite TIME TAKEN 4 hours plus DIFFICULTY Upgrading an R53’s supercharger pulley to a smaller item is a logical move; indeed, MINI themselves did it with the JCW, fitting an 11% reduction pulley from the factory. There are various options on the aftermarket, but 17% seems to be the sweet spot – the most extreme you can go while still maintaining everyday reliability. It’s not just a case of swapping the pulley though, there are other knock-on mods that need taking care of… you’ll be needing the correct-sized serpentine belt to fit it, plus a set of ‘colder’…

There’s a thread that runs through a surprising number of iconic and desirable cars across the generations – the Mk1 VW Golf GTI, the Mk3 Ford Capri 3.0 S, the Lotus Esprit S1… it’s the notion of sitting inside Jackie Stewart’s hat. Tartan may sound like a mad idea for an interior trim choice, but as you can see in these images, the Mini Sidewalk got the idea bang-on in style. The vivid colours, the beguiling tangles of squares and rectangles, it’s magnificent. If we’re being brutally honest, there wasn’t a whole lot extra to the Sidewalk beyond its kaleidoscopic fabrics. Launched in June 1995 as a limited run of 1,000 cars, it was based on the Sprite and came with lowly-spec steel wheels and non-opening rear windows. Buyers could…

at the end of the last millennium things were changing for car design. The classic Mini was no longer a viable option, but rather than new-age futuristic-looking designs that dominated the ’80s and ’90s, the beginnings of a new wave of ‘retrofuturism’ was hitting the design studios – led by cars like VW’s re-imagining of the Beetle, with other iconic model names such as ‘Mustang’, ‘Thunderbird’ and ‘Fiat 500’ quick to follow with retro-inspired designs. So, when BMW wanted to relaunch the MINI brand as a 21st-century car that offered the same fun-loving characteristics as the original Mini, they turned to Frank Stephenson. The man behind the Maserati MC12 and Ferrari F430, plus the MINIrivalling Fiat 500 – and, more recently, the McLaren P1 - previously held Head of Design…