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Well the snow is swirling around outside and it is too cold to go out. Perfect time to follow up my first post (see topic viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7680 with some photos of the restoration work.

We started off looking for a replacement race Mini after Andy's #921 suffered a shunt at Mosport in 2011. Rebuild had started, but part way through the process we decided that we would like to have a car with a bit more provenance. We didn't get very active in searching for another car, figuring the right car would "find us". It was over a year later that our good friend Charlie Pollet from Ohio sent me an email: Attached are photos of the Mini that Paddy Hopkirk raced at the 1966 Sebring 4 hour race, which was also a Trans Am race. There is no written verification to back this up, just that Bob Kimes told me and others this when he brought home with him from the race. The car has some surface rust but is very straight. One of the rear quarters has been repaired, but I forget which one. Also it has a fiberglass front end. All of the engines that he has are pretty much used-up. It's been sitting since the late '80s.

A few weeks later, the car was sitting in our garage.........


The Sebring connection was intriguing, albeit unproven (and may never be!), and the fact that the car has SCCA race history was exactly what we were looking for in a project car. Over the next few months, we started looking for more information on Sebring races from that time, as well as other race results and photos of the car. The mid-1960's were a time when the large and powerful US manufactured cars were dominating the racing scene, and reports and photos of the lesser classes like C-sedan were rare. At this time we don't have any US race results for the car prior to the first log book being issued when they became mandatory in the early 1970's, other than one event at the Nassau Speed Week from December of 1966, and several photos from Charlie and Randy McConnell which we did not connect as being the car until we figured out the "129 LNP" registration.

There were many details about the car that simply did not jive with a SCCA car, pointing to possible race/rally history before the car came to the US. Things like the rear view mirror, rally hole in the roof, switches on the door, being right hand drive, Sprinzel race seat, and other little things that deviated from the usual set up for SCCA cars of the day. We sent away for the Heritage Certificate, and discovered that the shell was not original and was sent to Appleyards. Finally in July of 2012, I got up the courage to post on this site in the hope that someone had more information about this unusual car. And of course that lead to several more interesting facts and educated guesses about the car's interesting history!

Original SCCA log book photo:


Fuzzy photo of 129 LNP at Mid Ohio, with Bob Kimes other Mini in front:


From Terry O'Neil, Chuck Dietrich racing 129 LNP at Nassau 1966. This is the only colour photo of the car to date in the Arden paint scheme:


Randy McConnell photo of 129 LNP again at Mid-Ohio. Randy is certain this is from a August of 1966 race. Was Chuck Dietrich racing it?:



But back to the restoration process!
By May of 2012, and before we knew more about the car's UK history, we had developed a plan and started the restoration process. Andy wanted to improve on the deficiencies that #921 had (we purchased that car fully built), upgrading this car with a modern and safe cage, racing seat, fuel cell, better setup for the driver ergonomics, and of course the mechanicals. We invited Nick Swift to drive the car in the Can-Am Mini Challenge, thereby giving ourselves a firm deadline for getting the work done! Nick has also agreed to build a complete power unit for us, which is underway now.

First thing was to weld up the wheel arches, clean up the front end for the new metal flip front (fiberglass one piece front ends are not permitted). The wheel arches had been unevenly cut, and we did not want to replace the rear quarters, wheel wells, or the A-panels as they were in rust free condition. The opening was not ideal but with the fender flares we are planning to run it will work out well. Because the car had been a race car all it's life, there was virtually no rust. Here are a few photos of the metal work stage:

Repairing the rear wheel arches:


Grinding off the welds for the repair to holes in the body:


Welding up the many holes in the body, a result of 50 years of racing!


Boot floor with fuel cell modifications:


Test fitting the roll cage:


Cage in final stages of welding:


Once all the welding was done, it was on to media blasting of the shell and assorted parts. We had previously invested in an industrial quality air compressor, which ran at full tilt to keep up to the CFM needed to run the media blast. We used walnut shell and sand media to remove the old paint. Here are a few pics of the process:

It's a messy job that takes a lot of time. You get about 8 minutes of blast per tank, then you have to recover the media and refill. Not a fast process!


Body shell starting to look great with most areas complete:


Blasted shell now primed with Epoxy primer:


Then it was on to fitting for all the custom stuff: lines, hoses, dash, seat mounting, steering column bracket, window net, gauges, carb box, etc. etc.

Carb box:


Seat fitting. Note this seat is designed to protect the driver from side impact as well as being HANS approved. Not at all original but MUCH safer!


OBP Pedal Box:


More interior fitting:


Once all this was complete, it was on to body work! Everyone knows what that is like, so just one or two pics:

Exterior of the shell now in hi-build awaiting block sanding and fixing of any imperfections:


Doors and front end:


Then on to final prep and paint - getting close to the messy stage being over! After much consideration, we opted to paint the car in the colours of Wedgwood Blue with the stripes for the exterior, Tweed grey for the engine bay and underside, and Arden blue for the interior. This was exactly what the car would have been since the late 1960's. The roll cage was painted a matt black. This involved 6 separate colours, and many hours of masking!

Here we are almost ready to paint the Tweed grey:


Car masked off to paint the cage:


Interior now painted:




Engine bay and underside now Tweed grey:


Starting the masking process for the white and dark blue stripes:


Ready to spray the white strips:


Stripes done, getting ready to mask up for the Wedgwood Blue:


Shell fully painted - at last!




At the moment we have the car in back in the main garage, and will shortly start the more enjoyable process of assembly!



If you have a lot of time on your hands, the complete and ongoing restoration process can be viewed here: http://www.toyboxracing.com/kimesarchive.html I will add more posts as things progress with the car assembly.

Cheers,
Rachel

Nice write up Rachel many thanks for going to the trouble, I'm sure I can speak for most on here that we have all enjoyed the story of this car so far.
Graeme

Cool to see this old "war horse" being restored

love the story, and can see from this new thread, that you really do the car justice,
with all the nice work .

Jens Christian

ive loved the story of this car since it first appeared on here - great history and provenance!


that paint job is one serious bit of ocd masking work, if I had attempted that there would have been one 'awww shit' moment when all the paper was peeled off and one bit was the wrong colour, that's for sure!

proper impressed !!, agree rich, serious masking

looks great!

It'll be great to see this historic 1071 racer get back on the track after all these years, and it's nice to see you've used some of the original Arden team colour inside the car, though we have to remember this car did most of it's racing in the U.S !

'Great job' Rachel as you North Americans say.

PS. I do hope there'll be a Mk1 Performance sticker on the car when it's finished !

PPS I'm sure at some point we'll dig up some more history to this car, I'm slightly side tracked researching another 60's racer I've found at the moment, more on that soon.

Pete wrote: PS. I do hope there'll be a Mk1 Performance sticker on the car when it's finished !

Pete, please come to Canada one day - my offer stands! Where can I purchase the coveted MKI sticker? I will display them most proudly on the car, tool box, etc.

Cheers,

Rachel

Flygirl wrote:

Pete wrote: PS. I do hope there'll be a Mk1 Performance sticker on the car when it's finished !

Where can I purchase the coveted MKI sticker?l

Mmmm....that's a very good question actually !

Thanks Pete, it would be great to have a couple of stickers if they are available.

So back to the "unknown - still investigating" project on this car. We all know Pete and others have done an amazing job with the car's UK history. The number of photos, results, reports, etc. is exceptional. As Pete says, more info will probably surface, especially if we could get Steve Neal to talk to us! Even if he does, 50 years of racing and living have probably erased a great deal of detail. When we got the car, I had thought the UK history would be the most difficult part, but as it turns out the early US history is very elusive. Part of the problem identifying cars is that US cars never used registrations, thus it is very difficult to tell from a photo which car you are looking at. That and the fact that the SCCA at the time was not very good at keeping records of the lesser non-championship races, and photography was mostly focussed on the big names, still very expensive, and there are probably huge numbers of photos in people's collections that will never be posted on line.

There is still a large amount of information that I am searching for:
-Who brought the car over from the UK originally?
-We have a picture of the car racing in what we are certain is August of 1966 at Mid Ohio still in Arden trim, and a photo and race results from Nassau in 1966 confirming Charles (Chuck) Dietrich as the driver. But who was the owner then? Fred Opert from New York (who imported all of Chuck's cars and is still in the import business) told me that Chuck never owned a Mini and that he may well have been racing it for someone else. Was that person Bob Kimes? Bob did purchase the 1964 Morris from Fred in April of 1966...
-Although it appears highly unlikely from the information we have so far, did the car ever go to Sebring in 1966 as per Bob Kimes report to Charlie? Chuck Dietrich was there driving a Mini, but so far there is no proof that it was (or was not) 129 LNP.
-Does the original shell of 129 LNP still exist in some form?
-What other races did 129 LNP do between 1966 and when the log books started in the early 1970's? Bob Kimes sold his Morris to Roger Koch in November of 1968, so perhaps he started using 129 LNP more then?

So as you can see it won't be a dull winter....lots of research left to do!

Cheers,
Rachel

It's difficult for me to help with the U.S history but I'll still try and find out who LNP was sold to in the U.S and of course if anything transpires I'll report back.
Ralph Broad has explained that no Minis were ever given to him by BMC to build his '64/ '65 race cars but actually just loaned and despite his success on the track the deal was that ultimately he had to either buy them or return them, this turned out to be highly expensive (especially when cars were totalled) which is why he went to Ford who offered full race sponsorship. It sounds highly unlikely but I wonder if Jim Whitehouse had this same deal with BMC initially, especially re the new shell for LNP which came from the same place that at least one of Vita's cars came from - Appleyards who obviously had a very close working relationship with BMC at the time , maybe BMC had a hand in LNP's disposal at the end of the '65 season.

Pete wrote: It sounds highly unlikely but I wonder if Jim Whitehouse had this same deal with BMC initially, especially re the new shell for LNP which came from the same place that at least one of Vita's cars came from - Appleyards who obviously had a very close working relationship with BMC at the time , maybe BMC had a hand in LNP's disposal at the end of the '65 season.

Pete, a fascinating thought........I wonder what did happen to the multitude of ex-rally and race Mini shells back then? I should ask Dennis Prophet (BMC comp guy until he moved to Canada in 1963) what if anything he could recall since he sold Broadspeed cars in Canada during that time. I am guessing due to the outright shipping costs none would ever have been returned to the UK damaged or otherwise. He told me about having a bunch of employees dedicated to breaking cars down (not just Minis) and loading up old semi trailers with any good parts for future resale. How many race cars met that fate in his wrecking yard?

Here is a picture of Dennis' Reptune GT, look at all the cars in the yard behind:

ive seen a photo taken around the back of Alan Manns place, its was stacked about four high with crashed mk1 lotus Cortina shells that had met various racing accidents.

I wish I could find it now, it was in an old autosport from memory

In the ongoing search for more details on the history of 129 LNP after it came to the US, we recently visited the Motor Racing Research Center in Watkins Glen, NY. They had on file some great photos and info on the late Chuck Dietrich from his personal document collection. We now think Chuck was the first owner of the car and subsequently sold it to Bob Kimes.

I have attached a few photos of the car below, and the full report of our findings is available here: http://www.toyboxracing.com/129lnp-research.html

Wow, very cool information. You mention a John Trembley. Do you know who he is/was? The name rings a bell with me re a mini that was purchased by someone I know in Los Angles. Just wondering if I can help out a little.

Bart

(Jeroen is frantically typing 'Reptune GT' into the internet)



Al

Yes bit of an oversight there Jeroen, he's slacking!

Here's the lowdown : http://bsccoc.ca/index.php?Req=197

I noticed the rear view mirror was still the same 608 item on LNP when you found it Rachel? Though in earlier UK shots it's an odd black number. I presume the first U.S owner swapped it?

Bart,

We spoke to John Trembley a few months back and he was kind to share those photos with us. He was a young and very successful racer back then, and for Sebring in 1966 he raced Dr. JP Marinelli's second Cooper S, the #58 car. He also co-drove a Mini with Dr. Marinelli at Sebring in 1967. John went on to race many other cars, and as he put it, "I raced anything someone would pay for". He was highly competitive, and had many wins in SCCA over the years. Some of the cars he drove included Volvos, Sunbeams, Corvettes, Datsuns, and Camaros. He may have more photos and info re: Chuck & Suzy, so we are following that up with him, although from what we can tell he only raced with them at Sebring in 1966. Anyway, John Trembley did not own a Mini, so if there is one around that he drove it would likely have been Dr. Marinelli's car. Would be awesome to find either or both of the two cars from Sebring (#54 & #58 pictured below)!


Pete, regarding the rear view mirror, no idea when that was installed on the car. All the photos of it on this side of the pond have the same 608, so it could have been installed after it arrived. As you say, earlier photos of the car in the UK clearly show the mirror as black (1965 Monte for example).

According to Dennis Prophet, who is still alive, there are two of the Reptune GT's still around. I have been meaning to go visit him and hopefully will get some more recent pictures of one of the GT's. He lives a few hours away from us here.

Here is an interesting link to the entry list for an SCCA National Race at Cumberland: http://www.cbenatls.com/archive/1967/en ... 67_pg3.jpg

What's interesting about this entry list is that Chuck Dietrich is driving #52, and Bob Kimes is driving #71, and it also lists Bob's car as a Morris. So this entry list confirms our earlier guess that Bob Kimes was still racing his Morris (as #71) and Chuck was racing 129 LNP in the same event(s). We know Bob sold the Morris in November of 68 to Roger Koch. Also, Jack Baumgardner was entered in this Cumberland event (our Grand Marshal at the Can-Am Mini Challenge Race). Hopefully he has more details - it would be great if Jack still had race results, photos, etc. I have put in a call to him and will update all if he has relevant info.

Here is that earlier photo showing Bob's #71 Morris leading #52/129 LNP:


Thanks to John Hedeen for sending me this great link! It is motivating to find each piece of the puzzle!

Thanks to John Hedeen for finding a link to many excellent photos of the Sebring sedans in 1966, and a newspaper article, we are able to confirm (finally!) the number #51 car at Sebring was NOT 129 LNP. The #51 car was clearly a LHD Cooper S, with what looks to be a ligher colour and a white roof. It is great to finally have an answer to the question of which car Chuck & Suzy drove at Sebring.

Here is a link to the sequence of photos from the Stanley Rosenthall collection: https://revslib.stanford.edu/?page=4&pe ... dan&utf8=✓

And the copy of the newspaper clipping: http://www.arperformance.citymax.com/al ... 097510.htm

Although searching the collection is a bit time consuming, there are some great photos of Paddy driving GPH 1C in this collection!