Rugd1022

Photo c/o Paul Miller, Laira in September 1976...

James Dean and Marlon Brando have so much to answer for...

Going through some old photo files just now I came across this one of a Mk1 Morris Cooper 1275 S which I took almost ten years ago en route to the annual Mini day at Stanford Hall, the reg' number looked familiar and I realised the car appears in the Brooklands road test book on Coopers, it was upgraded with a Taurus stage 1 tuning kit and featured in an article in 'Car & Car Conversions' in July 1965...

The quick release knobs aren't actually part of the grille David and never came from Benelite, they're separately bought aftermarket items fitted by me. Paddy Hopkirk (amongst others) sold thousands of them in the '60s and '70s. Very handy for those times when you find yourself faffing about with the starter motor, dynamo or alternator!

Yes, 50 006, released in 1980.

Photo c/o Jim Hardwick, taken from the signalbox, 50 007 coming off the Cov branch at Leamington Spa on 20th March 1982... the 'box and the Ford foundry are now gone and the field sidings in the vee of the junction have long since been disconnected from the mainline...

Another genuine Benelite grille but with rectangular lamps, no doubt from a Radford or possibly a Stewart & Ardern converted Minsprint… they even did a 'cyclops' version with a single lamp hole, I've never seen one before... and I'm not sure I want to...!

The one in the photo is a genuine Benelite grille David, but I agree, the smaller spotlamps make it look a bit odd. Benelite made about ten different versions of those grilles in Mk1 and Mk2 form, not all of them had holes for lamps either. Some had eleven slats while some had thirteen. Some had a curved bit on the slat immediately below the bonnet latch opening and some didn't, some had the Benelite badge in the opening and some didn't. Mine has the curved bit on the third slat from the top (you can just make it out in this photo) and doesn't have a badge...

Each to their own Jim, the Benelite grille with integral lamps is a sought after item these days, my Mk2 S still has one on which gives it a bit of a 'Radford' look. Two bolts and it comes off the car easily enough. They were popular (but not cheap) back in the day partly because of fashion but mostly because the original Lucas headlamps were pretty dismal!

Somewhere in British Columbia, a humble Mk2 Mini 850 or 1000 with some tasteful period mods...

Far Far Away - Slade

Watcha Gonna Do About It - The Small Faces...

C7964 with the 08 is an absolute gem Dave

Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who (again!)

A'noon all, just dug this out of storage and remembered why it was put there.... there's nowt in it no more...!

Touch me I'm Sick - Mudhoney

In the Marcos factory yard at Bradford-on-Avon in 1967...

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake - The Small Faces

Purloined from a poster over on Pistonheads, lovely 928 at a corker of a petrol station in Much Wenlock...

Never mind about the quality, that '66 Mini Pick-up is even rarer than a Mk1 Cooper S! Very, very few early pick ups or vans survive today as so many were bought and abused by farmers and builders, they almost all rotted away very quickly. Nice colour on that one too, Willow Green . Bought a new battery for the Cooper S last week and gave it a decent polish (the Cooper S, not the battery!), hoping to bag a decent quality indoor dust cover for it from from Hamiltons at the NEC show in a few weeks. I picked up their brochure at Race & Retro last week and didn't realise they also produce deep pile leather bound carpets sets for classic Minis, so I might give them a go on that score too. If it's any good it'll be about as close to a genuine Radford carpet as I can get. Meanwhile, from the depths of my Mini files currently clogging up my poor battered hard drive comes this rare LHD Mk2 Mini 1000 with Innocenti front wing repeaters and Radford / Hooper style wickerwork sides, I can't tell if it's hand painted or the stick on 'fablon' type...

Yours must have been one of the last built and registered David, as I mentioned sales were quite slow and it took a while to shift the last ones off the line. There were a few early H reg'd ones but most were J reg'd with the last few stragglers not sold until after the K plate came out in August '71. Just been chatting via the Mk1 Performance forum with the owner of this nicely modded Mk3 S, it was sold new to a doctor who took it straight to John Sprinzel's workshop in Lancaster Mews to have the mag alloys, Wood & Pickett arches and Shadolite tinted glass fitted. I do like the uncluttered look of the Mk3, from the front especially it looks like any other Mk3 850 or 1000 with the same grille and bonnet badge, if it were mine though I don't think I could resist adding more period goodies to it. The current owner also has a '65 Radford being restored which belonged to George Harrison and his brother Peter...

Find yourself a very early untouched Mk3 Mini 850 or 1000 from October '69 and you've got yourself a bonafide classic, they are surprisingly rare now and differ from the 1976 MkIV onwards more than you'd think. The Mk2 was really just a facelifted interim model, but only because BMC lacked the funds to retool the entire range in one go to have the same (slightly larger and differently shaped) internally hinged doors with wind up windows as the Mk3 Elf and Hornet. Not surprisingly there are more Mk2 Coopers and Ss around than the 850 and 1000 models as in the early days of Minis being seen as classics they were worth restoring, but all Mk2s can be considered 'rare' as they were only made from September '67 to February '70. Ironically the sought after Mk1 1275 S is much more common! Early Clubmans and 1275GTs are now becoming sought after too as the values of the Cooper models have put them out of reach for many enthusiasts. The Mk3 S is often rightly seen as a better car overall than the earlier Coopers, there weren't many official road test reports when they were new but everything I've managed to dig up gives them the thumbs up in the areas of comfort, equipment levels and performance. Sales were admittedly slow, partly because they looked almost identical to a Mini 1000 and because the 1275GT had been launched almost five months previously and some buyers wanted something new and different, but with only 1,570 built from March '70 to July '71 the Mk3 S is now a niche model. Simon Wheatcroft the MCR Mk3 S Registrar has about four hundred known cars on his books, which isn't bad going considering the usual attrition rate for British cars from the '70s and the fact that only 792 were sold I the UK. (Some of those four hundred have been repatriated from overseas). This 1970 example is a beauty, one of the lads on the Mk1 Performance Forum went to see it last week and says it's a minter and the real McCoy... https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1071730 ...

A few shots from Race & Retro at Stoneleigh on Saturday afternoon... the green and white South African built Mk1 997 Cooper was for sale and I'm told it went for £17k yesterday...

Marc Bolan's wife Gloria with her 1275GT in Upper Richmond Road, East Sheen...