Classic Tails
TIPS, TRICKS AND NOSTALGIA FROM A LIFETIME IMMERSED IN OLD CARS
Andrew Everett lays claim to another slightly tenuous ex-Works car link.
DON’T JUDGE ME – I WAS ONLY YOUNG!
A few issues back, I rattled on about a sort of ex-Works Escort Sport that I built from bits in 1987. A year before, I’d built a Mini from a bare shell, and there was a rather tenuous ex-Works connection to that as well.
What happened was that in the summer of 1986, I’d bought a Mini Clubman Estate that despite its V registration (DTF 455V if I recall correctly) was in fact a 1974 model. It had been accident damaged, but was appealing because it was free. It turns out that it was a Belgian assembled 1100 model, imported in 1979 and converted to RHD, which would explain the misleading number as back then cars were given a plate that reflected their first UK registration date, not their build date.
The Clubman shell turned out to be beyond repair with creases in the floor and roof, but that was no problem back then because I could just buy another shell. I lived near Thatcham at the time and knew of a Mini breaker in Reading, so I rang him.
‘Yeah, I’ve got a really solid Mk1 shell here, yours for 30 quid,’ he said. So, armed with my dad’s Sierra and a trailer, I went and got it. And he wasn’t joking – it really was a good one, with zero rot but a horrid Q plate. Hand-painted in a dark green (originally it had been a pale blue/ grey), I set to with Nitromors when it was really vicious stuff and bare metalled that shell in a weekend. A Mini Mk2 donated a bonnet, bootlid and two doors, after which it was primed and painted in bright red with a white roof inside and out.
The Clubman was then systematically stripped and the running gear bolted into the new shell. Being a later car with the rod gear change, I had to cut a hole in the saloon body’s tunnel for the gear lever and make a bracket, but apart from that it went in nicely. It ran really well too – I found an absolutely rotten 1968 Mk2 Cooper 998 with a seized 1300 engine and robbed it of the front disc brakes and twin SU carbs, exhaust manifold and the 100mph speedo. I think I used the wiring loom as well.
By now my project was looking like a car and, inspired by my dad’s book The Works Minis, I added Cooper badges and a new grille bought from Mini Spares as well as a decent set of those 10in Cosmic alloy wheels shod with new Camac 165/ 70 tyres. A single-box exhaust meant I annoyed the neighbours on a regular basis.
Now for the crunch. I wasn’t having a Q plate and the DVLC (as they were then) were not going to give it an age-related plate even though I had a valid chassis number, so I just used a V5 from a scrap Mini Minor that had been issued VSV 605 after a plate transfer – I’m not proud of this, but at the time it was just the easiest thing to do. And, looking through the appendix of The Works Minis, I discovered that this donor car’s original AA2S7-7045 chassis number showed it was not just any 1959 car, but had been 618 AOG, one of three (617, 618 and 619) used by BMC for the Mini’s earliest rallying exploits and taking the Mini’s first ever class win on the 1960 Geneva Rally. To my shame, at the time I couldn’t really have cared less about this!
On the way to the MoT, a rear brake cylinder blew spectacularly, rendering the brakes useless – or even more useless than the puny 998 Cooper discs were when working. I fitted some Ferodo pads and a servo from an Austin 1300 GT, after which they were OK for one good stop before fading. Of course, I drove this Cooperised bitsa like a bloody loon. With a flash of red and white and the bark of a barely silenced A-Series I managed to evade the law, but I did the engine no good at all when hammering along the M4 at 85-90mph. ‘What’s that smell?’ I wondered. Looking at the cloud of oil smoke behind, I figured it out. Easing off to 60mph, I got to Reading College and it seemed OK, although the engine bay was soaked in 20/50 pumped out of the breather.
I added some oil and it kept on going, but it was never quite the same, using a pint of oil every 100 miles and giving off the odd puff of smoke. A local factor were doing reconditioned heads for £60, so I bought one and fitted it, re-honing all four bores with a glaze buster in an electric drill at the same time. To be fair, it was much better after that.
The Escort then arrived, and to pay for it I sold the Mini for £500. I last saw it in Thatcham a few months later, and spoke to the guy I’d sold it to later still. The engine had finally coughed and he’d sold it to a Mini buyer who was hoovering up any Mk1 he could find – the name Kuwahara rings a bell – and off it went to Japan, but not before VSV 605 had been removed and put on another car. This effectively ended any chance of a DVLA paper trail should I ever want to track down the car I built, always assuming it made the long trip back to the UK from Japan. No doubt it still exists somewhere, and no doubt it has been restored as the Old English white 1960 Mini Minor the chassis number claimed it to be.