Sno-Cat

Tracked Mini Cooper

– an inventive sort has superbly winterized their Issigonis marvel. Bright orange in the whiteness of fresh snow. I need tracks like this for our Mini to navigate the alley.

Four Score & Ten

Match your Mini

– Cool guy Steve McQueen would have been ninety today. he even makes a brown cardigan look hip: the ideal garb for a coffee ‘n’ cream Cooper.

Coop Soop

Hot Rodder July 1966 | a ‘toon clipping from a vintage magazine unearthed in Minnesota. If you try and drop a Chevy small block V-8 into a Mini Cooper you’d better think about the pilots cockpit.

One Third Italian

Mini in Red | my cousins project is coming along a treat. Classic Mini in rally colours here showing off the Sir Alec Issigonis inspired engineering to achieve compactness before it was chic.

Small is Beautiful

Sixty Mini Years | Today marks the 60th Birthday of the classic small car. Designer Sir Alec Issigonis introduced the Mark I compact runabout which always seem larger on the inside. One of the most fun cars to drive.

“Helen, I think we took a wrong return at Aylesbury.”

No. 1 Corinthian Arch – this year is the 60th birthday of the classic small British car: the Mini. So the blog will periodically dip into the history of the coolest vehicle ever devised. It beats the Beetle, dashes the Deux Chevaux, sinks the Cinquecento. I like this photo for the black and white photojournalist look as well as the Arch at Stowe where my wife live IN for a summer back in the mid-nineties.

Wrenchin’

Oily hands and a 10mm socket – just read about the passing of the creator of the global mechanics phenomenon, known as the Haynes Workshop Manual, John Haynes (1938-2019) aged 80. The step-by-step photographic and illustrative descriptions of dismantling and reassembly was conceived whilst he was a public schoolboy recording the renovation of an Austin Seven into an Austin Seven ‘Special’. The first published book in ’66 was for an Austin Healey Sprite. Hundreds of manuals for cars and motorcycles later the library stretched from the Solo’s Millennium Falcon, Kirk’s Enterprise to NASA’s Space Shuttle, and Apollo.

… or Bust!

Mini Me – latest update from my cousin Keith Wallace and his Mini project. Engine in, wheels on, steering and suspension fitted. I’m recommending red body with white roof like a mid-sixties Monte Carlo rally in Cooper regalia.

‘Gin Tree

Tres Leches – the cream of the crop that milked the british motorcycle industry’s technology to the limit of the day. The 750cc triple cylindered motor used in the BSA A75, & Triumph T-150 & T-160. Certainly looking the part with a bank of Amal carburetors;nicely finned barrels & Head; and a useful kickstarter.

Gulf

Fill ‘er up! Or so you would have asked Dick Dunkle, proprietor of the Gulf service station on the old Lincoln Highway (Route 30) that went cross country in the days before the Interstate system was laid. The terra-cotta tile work and old mechanical pumps as atmosphere. As did the rain stotting down on Bedford PA. The Minx sits in the forecourt: “one for the album!”

Utility Mini

Baby Blue – clear out that back couch and the micro truck had many more uses: as a work horse (or pony) the rear barn doors offered ample access to the rear space. Breakdown. (RAC or AA), police work, workmans tote, camper van, or just plain truck. It sure was a versatile little car. Second only to the Model T in regards to adaptive use.

The Traveller – the original British ‘woodie’ was the longer wheelbase Mini with distinctive rear bodywork decorative trim. Also called the Countryman it was the luxury Mini for those Barbour wearing, Hunter booted rural wannabes. Well, back in the sixties there was no such things as hipsters or yuppies. But, this diminutive estate was a cool runabout.

Minx

Clubman – also known in original guise as the Traveller, Estate, Austin ‘Shooting Brake’. People loved Sir Alec Issigonis’ diminutive Mini but needed a slightly larger carrier. Hence the longer wheelbase. 

Minx

Clubman – we brought home this little nipper yesterday. Champagne grey Mini Cooper in station wagon trim. Gertie the VW GTI was getting a bit incontinent, wobbly on her pins and was probably going to be an economical hole… so a replacement was contemplated. It had to be city manageable, greyhound transportable, cool and fun. The Mini checked all the boxes…