Wendy Wools spaceframe Mini

[BigWig]

I have recently bought a space frame Mini that I'm trying to trace the history of. It ran in the Wendy Wools Championship until 1982 and it has been in the garage below ever since, still wearing its race numbers and period livery. I bought it from Bill Halder who raced it in period.

He originally purchased it from another Mini racer, Robin Bastable, but I have no idea who built the car originally as I don't have any contact information for Robin.

To try and find out more I went to Brands Hatch today for the FMITW event. Bill Halder, the previous owner said it could possibly be a Reg Ward space frame, as it was very similar to Peter Baldwin's car which is now in Japan (the two are photographed together below). However, having spoken to Peter he informs me his car was the only one produced by Reg Ward, other than another shell that was heavily crashed.

Drawing a blank I then spoke to Bill Richards as there was a possibility it could have been a Dave Forster built car, but Bill informed me Dave's builds came after Maguire, therefore this car was produced before his time... He then mentioned it could have been a Tony Chamings build, but having looked at the CCC feature of Tony's first build, the cage work looks more sophisticated in his car.

If anyone has any information that might be useful that would be much appreciated. I will post some more images below.

[BigWig]

Images below...

[BigWig]

And some more...

[BigWig]

Period imagery is copyright to Chris Wells who has also been really helpful with information on the car.

FMITW organiser Nigel Death was also really helpful today and tells me tomorrow's racing can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x0ai21loZo

[InnoCooperExport]

If you're on Facebook, try getting in touch with Roald Rakers, he is the guy behind the FMITW race at Brands tomorrow. Sadly due to travel restrictions he's unable to attend but I I know he has been digging up the history of a few of these space frame cars and is building his own with one of the Dutch Mini racers (Carst Span of MiniMinded).

He also has a website for his photography business racemini.nl so you can try getting in touch with him through that.

[251 ENG]

Hello

Great car , what engine is in it ?

If your on Facebook the spaceframe minis group is a great spoof information

[BigWig]

Thanks for the replies, I am not on Facebook but I will take a look at those pages.

It ran different setups in its time, including a five port and an eight port. The last engine was a short stroke turbo motor, but I bought it as a rolling shell albeit with the gearbox. A 4AGE or K20 engine etc will be more reliable / powerful, but I plan to keep it a-series as it's a period car.

[Quinny1293]

This is such a cool car to get! Will definitely be keeping a eye on this thread.

Good luck with the info and good luck with the build, looking forward to updates

[davidnutland]

The drivers door seems to have some green paint on the inside, if so it could be the Wardspeed car as Reg used the Longman club Mini racers alloy doors on the car.

[BigWig]

Thanks Quinny, and David that’s interesting thanks for your input. I don’t suppose you know if Reg Ward is still around to confirm how many cars he built?

Apparently it was very similar in construction to Peter Baldwin’s car, which is now in Japan. But as below after speaking to Peter it seems his was the only surviving Wardspeed car.

According to John Baggott’s Racing Mini’s book Reg Ward got into scuba diving after racing.

[r.tec]

May it be that the black Maguire-Mini was refitted with an A-Series engine and was sold to German Peter Wartenberg from Mönchengladbach? He ran the car in Group H here.
Group H was created by the German motorsports authority to give cars that had run out of homologation a chance to race. The year before the group was introduced as "hobby cars" and was loosely based on group 5 regulations. Peter had some problems with scrutineering on this his first outing as group 5 stipulated that the bonnet could be changed to the original one. For the following race he somehow managed to squeeze the engine unter a flat bonnet.
He told me at that race that the car had run in the Wendy Wools Special Saloons championship in England before.
By the way: the year was 1981

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[BigWig]

That looks a lovely example, but the black car in my first post was a Reg Ward build raced by Peter Baldwin, and now lives in Japan.