Innehållsförteckning för April/May 2025 från MiniWorld

Welcome to our bumper-sized springtime issue, in which we’re celebrating the evolutionary spirit that’s always sat at the very core of the Mini. Across its lengthy production run from 1959 to 2000, this British icon transformed through many different formulae, always remaining recognisably Mini while experiencing myriad developments and refinements. And that was just the mainstream production models: the marketing department saw to it that an endless stream of special editions and limited runs hit the streets; tuners (officially sanctioned or otherwise) sought to refine and redefine the platform, and of course there’s always been an army of enthusiasts ever-eager to reimagine the Mini in clever and creative new ways. We’re celebrating this energy of generational evolution with a raft of thrilling feature cars, starting with a supercharged café racer…

Formula 1 racing is often described as the pinnacle of motorsport, where drivers and car designers pit their wit and skill against a field of equally determined rivals to see whose combination of car and driver can come out on top. Funded by astronomical budgets, the F1 circus travels the globe, pushing the envelope of automotive technology right to the bleeding edge. The lure of huge contracts, lucrative sponsorship and advertising deals, as well as the kudos of being the fastest men on four wheels, draws in the cream of the world’s motor racing superstars. But while the modern day championship may present itself as the very fastest, most advanced and most watched motorsport on the planet, there are » those that still hanker for the glory days of old,…

At the age of 29, Dan Hall has already owned some pretty cool cars including amegarare Suzuki SJ413, a BMW 1 Series, an Audi A5 and a Mk7 Golf GTD. With the exception of the back-to-basic but highly capable Japanese off-roader, these cars were all built with performance and refinement in mind, ideal transport for this high-flying chartered accountant. But since an early age, Dan has always had a passion for the classic Mini which possibly has more in common with his ’80s Suzuki than any of those modern German cars. “As a child I was fortunate enough to attend a number of car shows, including Top Gear Live at the NEC after watching it religiously on TV every Sunday night,” Dan explains. “TGL also happened to coincide with the…

Back in December 2021, MiniWorld featured our ‘lockdown build’ JPS Mini that my dad, Nigel, and I built to ship out to my brother, Richard, in Australia. Well, as of November, dad and I met Richard in Australia for the first time since the car was shipped out to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday and to be with the car once again, taking part in its first Australian Mini adventure down under. Classic Cars & Coffee, a once-a-month Sunday morning meet usually held at Perth University grounds for all thing classic and special, organised its first driving tour around the city and suburbs for the Subiaco to Swan Valley drive day. Cars & Coffee liked it so much, they used the Mini on the advert for the following month’s car…

HOW TO ORDER: It couldn’t be easier to sign up for a whole year of great Mini content than with a subscription to MiniWorld, the magazine that loves the original Mini just as much as you do. Join the MiniWorld family and you’ll be part of the ever-growing community that adores everything about this all-time British favourite. Each issue is jam-packed with amazing feature cars, from superbly finished restoration projects to brilliantly modified examples. Not to mention exclusive news, club information, technical and historical features, plus event reviews. There’s also a classified section that can get you on the road to enjoying the whole Mini scene. Guarantee your copy 13 times a year with a subscription to MiniWorld and have each issue delivered directly to your door – sent out…

Our project Mini, Donni, an MPi Rover Cooper which lived for many years on the mean streets rather than in a garage, was showing signs of corrosion on the subframe. But that wasn’t the original cause for the swap, as at some point someone had replaced a captive nut for the camber/toe bracket mounting point, which wasn’t sitting flush and threw out the Mini’s suspension geometry. The subframe was solid but surface rust was becoming a real issue. Due to a few other plans we had for the suspension it became clear that a replacement was needed. These plans included fitting P&L coil springs, which work well with 12” wheels, and KAD front and rear anti-roll bars, as we’ve been impressed with them on our other project cars. For the…

Prices include VAT Traders To get your products on these pages email: mw.ed@kelsey.co.uk. Post: MiniWorld, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL, UK. (Prices include VAT). AUTOGLYM POLAR FOAM SPRAYER Autoglym has launched its new Polar Foam Sprayer, an easy-to-use and highly effective snow foam dispenser that can be operated without a pressure washer. This is compatible with the Polar range of cleaning solutions: Polar Blast, Polar Wash and Polar Seal. An alternative to more expensive pressure-washer foam cannons, while using far less water. The Polar Foam Sprayer is pressurised using the built-in hand pump, and the integrated bottle has a 1.9-litre capacity that facilitates complete foam coverage of the average car. A built-in safety lock prevents the sprayer being activated accidentally once pressurised.…

For many people, one of the things on their bucket list is travel, usually a trip or vacation to a faraway or exotic location. While Rhonnie and I travel, we are often asked if we have a bucket list. At that moment, it seems like a strange question as we are usually in a faraway country that would be on someone’s bucket list; we don’t have one as we want to be realistic and don’t want to take the chance of not being able to empty the bucket before we kick it. But if we had one, would driving a classic Mini for two weeks in Chile in the Andes Mountains, along the Pacific coast, and then attend the South American International Mini Meet be on it? Seriously?! It would…

There were so many special and limited editions across the Mini’s decades in production, almost too many to count. The evolution of the model was more radical than many would suspect; while a launch-year Mk1 and a run-out Mk7 are both immediately recognisable as icons of the purist bloodline, there’s actually not a whole lot shared between the two. And in amongst all of these generational developments and model-year intricacies, the marketing team was always poking and prodding, coming up with new and creative ways to shift more Minis. It would be impossible to list out and illustrate every single special edition, limited run and concept here (that would be a whole book in itself), so instead over the coming pages we’ve pulled together a selection of our favourites to…

Here’s my 1993 Mini Mayfair 1275cc. It was previously owned by my parents since 2004 and was in daily use till 2008, but was in need of some TLC. Fast-forward some time and with it stripped down to a bare shell I purchased it from them in 2010 with plans to restore it, with help from my dad, Stuart. Without his help the car definitely wouldn’t be what it is today! Having always been a fan of motorsport, and more specifically rallying, it was always destined to be inspired by a rally car. It was originally planned to become a Mk1-styled rally build, however since finding out about the ’90s-spec rally cars its fate was sealed and it has been very much inspired by 1990s Group A/Monte Carlo/Network Q rally…

This is my 1986 Mini Chelsea. I purchased the car in 2021, and at the time it was halfway being turned into a Mini Cooper Monte Carlo rep and had none of its original features or trim. I soon realised how rare this model was, as only 1500 were made and at the moment only 38 are currently registered on the road with the DVLA. So I spent the next three years searching to get all the correct trim, mostly very good used or new-old-stock parts including the Nimbus Grey door handles, bumpers, grille and arches, and then a full interior – and most importantly the correct alloy wheels with the very rare centre caps. The caps are not very secure once on so I only have them fitted when…

When you look at the Mini’s production numbers through the years you will notice that they reach a peak in the early 1970s, only to go down slowly in the following years. But as we all know now the Mini wouldn’t phase out after that. By 1984, when the car’s 25th anniversary was celebrated at Donington Park, the little car was still a bestseller, and reason for Austin Rover to come up with a 25th Anniversary model. Another five years later the Mini amazingly still outsold other models; production figures had in fact gone up again, not least because of the rediscovery of the Mini on the Far Eastern market. The 30th anniversary was held at Silverstone in 1989 and the manufacturer launched another special edition to celebrate three decades…

Contact us Send club, trade, motorsport and all other Mini news to: Email: mw.ed@kelsey.co.uk Post: Mini Scene, MiniWorld, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL UK Midas Owners Club Celebrates 40th 2025 will be the 40th anniversary of the Midas Owners Club. The first Midas was produced in 1978, and since then over 600 cars have been made; at first they used the Mini as a donor, then the Metro A- and K-series. The Club shall be celebrating with a special event in addition to its usual events and meet-ups, which will take place at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon, Warwickshire on Sunday 1st June. They are keen for as many Midas cars as possible to attend, no matter the age or condition,…

Scott Turner, who regular readers may know for his stunning Mini restorations, had quite a different interest in the early nineties – the BMX biking craze. So imagine how the then-20-year-old Scott felt on seeing this radical Mini with just the right registration plate. “I’d seen this actual ERA in Lookers showroom in Southend, Essex,” he recalls. “I’d gaze through the window at it.” Like many others at the time, Scott was in awe of what was marketed as the ultimate Mini. But, being young and in a crazy period of British motoring when the hot hatch was king, owning it was only a pipe dream. “No one could insure them, which I think is why they didn’t sell,” he says. “Thankfully classic car insurance makes these things much more…

Let me introduce John Doherty! The Aussie who has done it all and more; now he competes in his striking blue Mini Cooper S and enjoys mixing it with some of the most powerful and expensive cars on tracks and hillclimbs Down Under. Take Phillip Island Festival of Motorsport, one of Australia’s top events – John diced with a Ferrari 250LM to the finish: “It was the real thing, not a replica Maranello product, just shows what a Mini costing a few dollars can do against one of the most potent, and expensive, cars around…” This was March 2024, and we are getting ahead of ourselves. John Doherty was born in the Melbourne suburb of Preston in 1966 and later moved to Research, which was “out in the sticks in…

My mum bought this car back in 2005 when I was 13, and I loved it as soon as I saw it. Her first car was a Mini so she wanted to be able to own and drive another one; she bought this one to use on weekends and to have fun in. When it came into her possession it was fitted with an ERA bodykit, which looked nice from a distance but when you got a bit closer you could see it wasn’t the best of jobs! She had so much fun driving the Mini, but other things in life started taking more priority with money so the car got neglected for quite a few years as she was unable to afford to run it as well as everything…

Hi everyone! My name is Ben Smith, and I’m 11 years old. At the age of 10 my dad said to me that I couldn’t own a car until I’d built my first car. That at the time didn’t really mean a lot to me, I just said yeah! Luckily, my dad is really good at fixing cars, and we’re working on this project together so that I can learn as much as I can while we go along our big adventure. I’ve written this so that I can share our progress with you all. My dad said we need to decide what car to build. I said straight away a Porsche 911, to which he just laughed. You won’t be able to insure that at 17, he said! So…

The rocker gear at the top end of an overhead valve engine such as the A-series and A Plus is an extremely hard-worked part of the engine. The rocker gear works with the individual rocker arms acting like a lever, similar to a seesaw in a playground, transmitting the rise and fall motion of the camshaft lobes via the followers and pushrods, to open and close the valves. However, unlike a seesaw, the central pivot point, i.e. the rocker shaft, is offset rearward in the arms, so that the lift at the cam lobe is increased at the valve. The difference between cam lift and valve lift for a particular set of rocker arms is given as a lever ratio, and you simply multiply the cam lift measurement by this…