Table of contents for February 2021 in MiniWorld

To celebrate 30 years of MiniWorld we are giving our lovely readers the chance to design a T-shirt that will be available to MiniWorld subscribers. Here's your chance to get creative and the winner will win a T-shirt with their design on it and a one-year subscription to MiniWorld. The T-shirt needs to have our 30th anniversary logo on one arm, with your design on the front. Keep it simple so that it can be reproduced easily on the T-shirt. Email your design to mw.ed@kelsey.co.uk with "T-shirt comp" as the subject or post it to the usual address by 15 February. Personal details will be destroyed soon after a winner is chosen.…

Mini bar My friend Stephen Forrest has created a beautiful bespoke cocktail cabinet out of the back end of my Mini which was written off in a car accident. Sarah Elwood Shame about your Mini but it looks fab! Make mine a pina colada [KD] Wonder and sparkle My daughter Kathryn turns 18 in February 2021 and I thought you would like to see her 17th birthday cake, made by my friend Ali of Ali’s Yummy Cakes, which was modelled on Kathryn's ‘93 Cooper ‘Sparkle’, bought in early 2019. We hope to have it ready for when she can (finally) learn to drive this spring! In the meantime she has been navigating for me and our spaniel in my Cooper 35th LE, Caj. Heather Nixon The cake looks yummy! Happy…

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MiniWorld staff and writers reporting on their month in, under and around Minis… Jenna Model: 1981 BL Mini 1000 Mileage: 83,169 History: Bought as a car to quench my Mini thirst and eventually sell; I got attached to it and plan to compete in regularity rallies… Since Jenna the Mini is finally back on the road I decided to start on my checklist of things to add to make her suitable for regularity rallying. Ultimately, I want to kit the car out with a number of rallying tweaks but, as I’ve always wanted to add a tachometer, I started with that. Having found a second-hand Smiths one in fairly good condition I set about testing it under the bonnet before fitting, as I wasn’t too sure if it actually worked.…

OWNER: KARL PUMFREY ISSUE: OCTOBER 2005 Karl decided on the AMT frame conversion to carry a 2-litre 16-valve Vauxhall engine for his Mini project. He found the bodyshell in fairly good condition in a breaker’s yard, filled with rubbish. He was told that he could have it for free if he removed the engine which had already been sold. He went straight home to collect his trailer! Inside the stripped-out motorsport-inspired cockpit he fitted a bolt-in six-point rollcage. It was painted in red with black arches and won concours trophies but he decided to revamp it. "I wanted a different colour, more rigidity and less weight." This time the cage was welded in, door bars were added, and the Mini was painted in Ford Imperial Blue. A Corbeau seat was…

In September 2018 I made my annual pilgrimage to the Goodwood Revival in West Sussex. Whilst walking past the Rally Round stand, my eyes fell upon an advert which read: “Win a place on one of our rallies. Fill out this form to enter.” Embracing the mentality ‘he who dares, wins’, I instantly filled out the form, popped it into the box and thought nothing else of it. On 1 July 2019 I got a phone call: “Mr Beard, do you remember filling in a form at our stand at last year’s Revival? Well, you have won the competition to join us on the rally from Paris to Biarritz which starts on 16 September. Can you come?” The caller explained that I would have to take part in a pre-1975…

Sometimes Santa likes to travel in something that has a bit more power than his usual vehicle’s brp (brake reindeer power). For Christmas 2020 he used a Moke to deliver selection boxes to children in Maynooth in County Kildare, near Dublin, Ireland. Oh, OK, Adrian O’Carroll borrowed brother Killian's Moke to take Santa around. Adrian of Irish Mini Owners Club said: “As there was no Christmas party the Residents’ Association wanted a convertible to give out gifts so I said I could go one better. So Santa went around the estate collecting Christmas lists and giving out selection boxes and the kids stayed in front of their houses. It was the perfect Santa sleigh!” Good work!…

Bubble forming I recently bought a 1972 Mini 1000, a car which I used to see around locally a lot when I was younger. It was owned for many years by an elderly person and has been idle in a garage for about 10 years. It looks to be in sound condition and the engine turns over so we are hoping to get it running in the next couple of weeks. After this, the brakes will be rebuilt and it will be put back on the road. The body will be resprayed in the spring ready for next season when I hope things will be better and it will be possible to take it to Mini shows. All the panels are sound but there are quite a few rust bubbles…

Back in the late 60s and 70s Minis, along with most other cars of the time, rusted very badly. Body repairs were expensive and most people did not want to spend money on extensive paint repairs every couple of years. So, a market soon developed for filler and aerosol cans, and many a repair was carried out at home. Within weeks, sometimes sooner, rust would start coming through again and the market responded with welding equipment and spray guns for home use. Today, MIG welders can be found in a lot of classic car owners’ garages. When used correctly they are able to produce excellent results. 40 or 50 years ago though, MIG welders were not available and arc welders were sold for panel repair purposes. This usually meant badly…

Show off! To get your Mini on these pages, email mw.ed@kelsey.co.uk with photos of you and your Mini, plus information (put ‘My Mini’ in the subject box) or post to: MiniWorld My Mini, Kelsey Media, Cudham Tithe Barn, Berry's Hill, Cudham, Kent, TN16 3AG, UK. If your Mini is awarded the 'We Love It’ badge, you’ll win a goody pack, courtesy of Meguiar’s (www.meguiars.co.uk). Email us to claim your prize. Mark Glanville Rover Mini Cooper Sport press car I bought my 2000 Mini Cooper Sport back in 2007. At the time the vendor informed me that when the car was new it had been owned by Rover and it was originally left-hand-drive. He had it professionally converted to right-hand drive when he acquired it for his wife from an employee…

In 2013, parking up in the vast Mini display at the Mini Cooper Register’s magnificent National Mini Day at Beaulieu, we spotted a very modified Clubman Estate with 13” alloys and wide arches. ‘Nothing that unusual,’ you might say, but this Mini really stood out with its modified bonnet and front end, even in a subtle hue of black. It clearly didn’t have an A-series engine and more development was clearly in the pipeline judging from the large hole in the front panel awaiting something to provide boost. Chatting to Alec, his then Honda B18C4-powered Mini was still a work in progress. In 2019 it made a comeback to the MCR day. This time it was in the fearsomely competitive concours and caught the eye of even more show-goers as,…

NOVEMBER 1994 ISSUE Many long-term Mini fans would agree with the claim on the cover that the Mini 35 event was "The greatest show on earth." The big-budget August bankholiday weekend event at Silverstone was hosted by Rover and you can see from the cover photo that Mini fans were there in their droves, with many visiting from all over the world. It was combined with an International Mini Meeting, organised by LSMOC, and Mini folk do love to party! MiniWorld's News editor Steve Bennett asked: "Was it my imagination or were there more foreign number plates in the camp site than British?" A highlight for many was the cavalcade of Minis on Silverstone's historic track and there was also a Russ Swift stunt show. The MiniWorld stand had 5,000…

Minis were designed back in the 1950s and, like all cars of the period, they require quite a lot of maintenance to ensure that everything is running as smoothly as the design allows. The great thing is that much of the maintenance is very straightforward and can be quite good fun to carry out. Regular servicing means that major rebuilds will be required much less often. THE TWO TYPES OF MINI SUSPENSION Unlike many other cars, even those that have been, or were, in production for many years, the Mini has two different suspension systems designed by Dr Alex Moulton: dry rubber-spring and Hydrolastic. Mechanically similar, it is really just the springing and damping which differ. Hydrolastic was introduced on saloon Minis in 1964 and continued on some saloon models…

When fitting up a newly restored or repainted Mini it is very tempting to fit some of the shiny bits, such as the grille and bumpers, to get a better impression of what the finished result will be like. It is fine to trial-fit these items but such parts are best stored for final fitting when all of the mechanical items have been installed. This includes items such as the locks and the bonnet latch or lock. It is vital to get the bonnet lock correctly adjusted before fitting the grille, especially if a later bonnet lock with a cable release from inside is fitted, or the grille may get damaged trying to release the bonnet again. It is a good idea to trial-fit the bonnet lock to the panels…

MiniWorld staff and writers reporting on their month in, under and around Minis… OBie Model: 1967 Mk1 Austin Mini History: Bought by my dad as a present for my mum in 1977 and used as a daily drive until 1991 Mileage before restoration: 93,063 miles On arrival with Ted, at Team C Racing near Ipswich, the next step was to completely strip the shell. All serviceable parts were collected up to be carefully stored away until we were ready to set about restoring them for the build-up. With the body completely stripped it was difficult to assess the true condition of all the metal so it was sent out to a specialist grit blasting company, B&R Bodyworks Ltd of Ipswich. This process carefully removes all the loose flaking rust, underseal…

OWNER: STEVE SHARPE ISSUE: JUNE 2005 The focus for this Mini project was ICE and styling rather than bhp. “I drew loads of pictures of a Mini with a bodykit and no rear quarterlights or a rear screen. I thought the welding would be a major headache and if it didn’t work it would be hard to get it back to normal, so I decided against it,” explained Steve Sharpe. He tasked someone with fitting the kit and found that the back arches of the LAMM bodykit had been put on the front and the front arches on the back, so Steve had to fix it himself. A universal bonnet with an air vent bulge was bought at the Max Power Live show. The bulge was cut out, sectioned to…