MAD ABOUT MINIS Craziest racers based on the BMC baby

Minis weren’t just for the masses, but also for engineering mavericks who dared to be different in the quest for victory

Few cars have excelled in motorsport with such consistency as the much-loved Mini. It’s done so ever since it first ventured trackside on Boxing Day 1959 at Brands Hatch. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before enterprising race teams and men-in-shed boffins began extracting unfeasible amounts of power from the venerable A-series unit in a bid to beat their rivals. And, when that didn’t work, they shoehorned ever-bigger engines under – sometimes through – the bonnet, or simply put them where the back seats used to be. Then there were the engineering genii who cast their own blocks, cylinder heads and heaven knows what else besides. And let’s not forget the stubby projectiles that, to be honest, bore only a passing resemblance to Alec Issigonis’ masterwork. Mini content here was limited only to the outline.

Join us as we celebrate 10 of the best- and least-known Mini warriors that competed in a raft of disciplines. If they have one thing in common, it’s that none of them could ever be accused of being shrinking violets.

1 Vita-min

A magazine cover star, immortalised by Corgi and based on the Cooper ‘S’ in which John Handley won 1968’s European Touring Car Championship drivers’ title, the Vita-min broke cover at the ’69 Racing Car Show at Olympia. Its A-series – with a BVRT eight-port head, Godfrey supercharger and Tecalamit-jackson fuel injection – was said to give 180bhp at the flywheel, c120bhp at the wheels. With Jeff Goodliff, it romped to the 1969 Barc/castrol Hillclimb Championship, winning its class at every round. He’d bagged the previous year’s title in a different Mini, and made it a hat-trick in 1970 (in a Lotus Elan).

Anorak fact The car was geared for 105mph in second. Goodliff told Hot Car in October 1969: “I’ve only used third on the way down [a hill]. The car hasn’t yet felt top gear!”

2 Minnow GT

Bob Henderson’s Minnow GT was among the stranger-looking Minis on track in the early ’60s. Already well-known as a maker of the Us-designed Fish carburettor, and as an established Mini tuner and entrant under the Team Minnow banner, he began offering this conversion in 1962. According to Autocar: ‘The new Mini Minnow GT is intended as a poor man’s GT despite having more than £250 worth of extras in its standard equipment, ranging from disc brakes to a sunroof…’

Essentially a reverse-rake body makeover for the Mini pick-up, it was offered in kit form for £595 via MPG&H Engineering of Hackbridge, Surrey; a 1250cc A-series was also available. Henderson raced a Minnow with Cooper ‘S’ power and enjoyed some success in 1964-’65. It’s not known how many cars were converted.

Anorak fact Henderson subsequently designed and manufactured the Argyll supercar

3 Rotel Mini-porsche

Perhaps the most extreme Mini-based racing car ever made was this tubular-framed ‘silhouette’ Super Saloon built at the behest of Tore Helle’s ambitious Rotel equipe. That said, there wasn’t much actual Mini within. The car was mapped out by prolific pen-for-hire Len Terry. With a CV that included the Indy 500-conquering Lotus 38, not to mention the sublime Eagle-weslake Grand Prix car, this was an oddball project, to put it mildly. Helle had previously commissioned Terry to design the Viking Formula Three car, before changing tack and asking him to draw up a spaceframe chassis for a Mini packing – cue disbelief – a Porsche 935 flat-six engine sited amidships. The car appeared in early 1978 and was raced sporadically in Sweden into 1979, mostly with young charger Conny Ljungfeldt at the wheel. Its subsequent fate remains a mystery, however.

Anorak fact The Mini-porsche marked the end of Terry’s involvement in the motorsport industry. He later designed vintage-style vans for the likes of Fleur de Lys

4 Special Tuning 4WD Mini

Rallycross was briefly huge in the 1970s, with several works squads entering the fray with evermore exotic machinery. This one-off four-wheeldrive Mini was created by the Special Tuning Department in Abingdon in just nine days.

It had to be ready for a televised round at Lydden Hill, Kent, which resulted in Basil Wales and his team scrabbling to build a car from scratch. A Clubman bodyshell was secured before a prototype four-wheel-drive Moke was stripped to its constituent parts and its suspension swapped over.

The engine, meanwhile, was a 1293cc A-series to which the latest eight-port crossflow ST cylinder head was added, along with four Amal carbs. It was said to produce 124bhp at 6000rpm. Brian Chatfield was entrusted with braving the monster first time out in March 1971. He won a heat and finished second overall in the WD & HO

Wills Rallycross Championship event. The car was later campaigned by Hugh Wheldon and ‘Jumping’ Jeff Williamson.

Anorak fact David Angel won three rounds of the 1972 International Dutch Rallycross Championship in the car. Four-wheel drive was banned in rallycross ahead of the 1973 season

5 Vita Mini-buick

Harry Radcliffe was once a permanent fixture in Mini circles as a star driver, car builder and entrant for BRT Developments/british Vita Racing Team. In addition to claiming 1968’s European Touring Car Championship, among other gongs, the squad built the notorious Mini-buick. First raced in 1964, it was based on a 1071cc Cooper ‘S’ but had a 3.5-litre Buick V8 rigidly mounted in the rear. Drive was transmitted through the 13in front wheels via a modified E-type diff and ’box. Contrary to popular belief, it was a serious engineering project, mainly raced by the team’s fearless co-director Jeff Goodliff and hill-climbed by Radcliffe. With the driving characteristics of a well-flung brick, it reliably flambéd its tyres, so was popular with racegoers. A pre-fame Brian Redman tested the car at Aintree and described it as being “lethal to drive”. Shock. Anorak fact During its maiden test run on the road, it turned left unexpectedly on changing gear. It crossed the road, scattering people at a bus stop, ending up in someone’s garden

6 Conroy Motors four-door Mini

Minis had a rich history in rallying, but this example remains among the strangest variations ever to head off-piste. Built by Conroy Motors of Finchley, it comprised a Mini Van body with a regular saloon’s rear end grafted on, plus two extra doors (in effect, front doors taken from opposing sides and reversed…), with the front wings and roof being skinned in aluminium.

Powered by a 1293cc A-series engine and registered as an Austin Mini Cooper ‘S,’ DAN 3H was fielded on the 1970 Daily Mirror World Cup Rally by James Conroy and Allan Keefe. It was one of only four cars competing in Class 1 (1300cc or less).

Sadly, this peculiar-looking creation was among the rally’s earliest retirements after the rear suspension collapsed on the ‘Prime 2’ run from London to Lisbon.

The car was later repainted and denuded of its cowcatcher and 13in Minilite alloys before being sold on. It still exists, too. Anorak fact The only other Mini on the 1970 Daily Mirror World Cup Rally, the works 1275GT campaigned by John Handley and Paul Easter, also retired – it suffered a blown engine just four days in

7 Coldwell Twin-cam

WDC ‘Bill’ Needham was another legendary Mini tuner from the north of England, arguably his most famous competition tool being his twin-cam hillclimber. The Sheffield man had already produced a raft of tuning equipment under the Coldwell banner before unleashing this trick variation on the theme in 1967. Comprising a 1071cc Cooper ‘S’ bottom end and a one-off cylinder head, with twin distributors and coils, it also gained fuel injection in time. Teething troubles blunted performance early on during the ’67 season, but it came good before the year was out. The car survives, having been stored for almost 40 years, and is currently owned by Mark Needham, the son of its creator. Anorak fact Bill Needham later moved on to building the Mini-powered Coldwell sports-racer and the front-engined Mink F3 car

8 Complan Turbo Mini

Few made Minis dance quite like Alec Poole. Having starred in Ireland and on the British mainland aboard his own indecently quick Wolseley Hornet, he went on to claim the 1969 British Saloon Car Championship with an Equipe Arden Cooper ‘S.’ A year later, the lofty Dubliner ran an altogether hotter variation on the theme, becoming one of the first Mini racers to opt for forced induction. His Complan-sponsored, turbocharged 1.3-litre Mini was mostly fielded in Ireland, where it proved a frontrunner in circuit races and hillclimbs – and not just against other saloon cars. Or at least it did when it wasn’t eating transmissions, given that the highly stressed A-series was pumping out in the region of 180bhp. Weighing 127kg less than a standard car, this thin-skinned Mini was good for an alleged 140mph. The undoubted highlight of the car’s debut season was outright victory from the back of the field at an Irish Motor Racing Club meeting at Phoenix Park. The car was later reconfigured with a Clubman-styled front end, and given a displacement hike to 1430cc. Anorak fact Poole also campaigned it in Guyana under the Team Speedbird banner. It is rumoured to have been sold there and later cannibalised

9 Gordon Allen Twinmin

Described as ‘something of an engineering adventurer’ by Motor Sport, Gordon Allen was that and more. He was never one to follow the herd, as evinced by his many left-field engine builds. Having already designed his own dohc racing ‘twins’ for use in motorcycles, he later moved on to making Minis go faster than Issigonis could have ever envisaged. These encompassed everything from making his own 16-valve, five-bearing units with adapted Cosworth-ford BDA cylinder heads, to his most famous (notorious) creation – a twin-engined Mini with 1.5-litre units and adapted Jaguar twin-cam heads. Allen made the alloy blocks, pistons and cranks, and the car was raced by accountant Rod Embley with some success in the mid-’60s. Allen moved on to create a longwheelbase Mini with A-series units at either end. Anorak fact Allen also built a twin-cylinder Bda-derived engine, which was used to great effect by Mini ace Peter Day – it took nine race victories in 1975

10 Westfield TRA/TRZ

Westfield is better known for its Lotus-inspired roadsters, but also had its own brand of Mini Special Saloon ‘silhouette’ racer. The car’s origins were Swiss, conceived by amateur driver/ constructor Daniel Terrez. He built the first TRA (Terrez Racing Automobile) by chopping and reconfiguring a Westfield SEI chassis before fitting a rollcage and a 1.1-litre Suzuki ’bike engine amidships. The power unit drove through its own integral gearbox via a duplex chain to a modified SEI diff. It was clothed with a glassfibre Mini body.

Terrez received orders for replicas, so Westfield took it on as a production model (all things being relative). Renamed TRZ, it had a purpose-designed spaceframe with an integrated rollcage. Priced at £2750 in 1994, it’s unknown how many were sold. Anorak fact A batch of TRZS was made for a one-make race series in France