Wood & Picket Info

[surfblue63]

That is not a Wood and Pickett. Looking at the number plate I would guess that the car is from Malaysia, probably built by the gent standing next to it.

[UHR850]

Oke not an W&P conversion but it shure looks like one and maybe is still around somewhere ?

[surfblue63]

London WC2

[mab01uk]

TOK 125N
✗ Untaxed
Tax due: 1 December 1989
Vehicle make AUSTIN
Date of first registration August 1974
Year of manufacture 1974
Cylinder capacity 1275 cc
Export marker No
Vehicle status Untaxed
Vehicle colour BLUE
Date of last V5C (logbook) issued 24 March 1983

[WMU 211G]

Marianne Faithful with Jagger's Mk1 W&P in June '67, at 55secs in...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuv1eCnEi0g&t=57s

[surfblue63]

Margrave in a London showroom, 1980

[WPWERKS]

Margrave in a London showroom, 1980

What a great photo from the passenger seat of a GT outside the Berkeley Square showroom.

Thought the mini on the right could have been 'Magic' Alex Marda’s Innocenti saloon but can see this car has a rear gutter chop.

[surfblue63]

Was this a one off?

[Peter Laidler]

University motors did some of those oblong headlight conversions and odd looking rear light conversions to their stocks of unsold MGC's and GT's My friend Keith had one in VW signal orange. A dire colour, even in the 70's

[surfblue63]

I was thinking about the rear lights, initially I thought they might be from the Lancia Flavia. Then I had a light bulb moment and have realised that they have grafted the rear lights and wing top shape off of the Vanden Plas 4-Litre.

[surfblue63]

Up for auction with Historics this weekend, at what seems a low estimate for a Wood and Pickett and an early 2-door Range Rover, is this piece of 1970s glam. It's been parked up for a while, but on the surface, it looks to be in fairly solid condition. Obviously you will need deep pockets to restore it, but it is probably unique. I have a feeling this might double its low estimate of £10,000 and could go for a lot more.

https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auct ... id=1&pid=1

[Pete]

Linda McCartney’s bench seat in KON 500P

[surfblue63]

Well I was wrong about the W&P Range Rover. It did not sell, so I guess if anyone wants a cheap early 2-door they should contact Historics to see if it is still available.

[mab01uk]

Sporting Minis:-
"Formerly the property of The Beatles manager Brian Epstein this Austin Cooper S was recorded as being sent to Hooper Motor Services for modification and a repaint in black in late 1966 before being registered to Brian in January 1967. The car was purchased through Brian’s own car dealer business Brydor Cars, as most of the Beatles’ cars were, featured Cox front seats with built in seat belts amongst other unusual features and was registered on the same day as Mick Jagger’s OGO 668E, another black Austin Cooper S by Wood & Pickett so did they also do the work on this one? Brian Epstein had little chance to use the car as tragically he died in the August of 1967 and the car passed to second owner George Ciancimino the London based furniture designer in February 1968, George had a shop in Chelsea. The car was repainted gold at some point and eventually ended up in Hawaii via Los Angeles with its current owner Mike who was such a fan of the Beatles he built a private Beatles museum around this car in his basement! The car is still in Hawaii and currently for sale."
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=515 ... 8768042528

"Housed in a Museum in Kauai, Hawaii since 1998 this antique, in mint condition Austin Mini Cooper S belonging to the pop group "The Beatles" is now offered for sale!"
https://www.beatlescollectionforsale.com/lennons-mini


Mick Jagger’s on the right , registered the same day

[mab01uk]

Wood & Pickett - Coachbuilders in the modern idiom (Motor Sport magazine - February 1980)

When Bill Wood and Les Pickett formed their first official working partnership as Wood and Pickett Ltd. in 1947, their first major order was to convert three large ambulances on Daimler limousine chassis into luxury display vehicles for the Motor Show.

Their premises at Becketts Yard, Willesden were nominally rented from Park Ward in return for priority on coachwork for that famous name. Today, after trials and tribulations that included a major fire in 1961, they are settling into premises at Victoria Road, South Ruslip, acquired in June last year.

Messrs. Wood and Pickett are still with their company, Les proudly showing off his craftsmanship with hides that are not quite what they used to be in size. Today management is in the hands of affable former Radford employee Eddie Collins. He joined the company in the 1965/66 winter as a salesman, but soon climbed to managing director as a new lifeline appeared for some practitioners of the coachbuilding trade in the sixties.

The mechanical saviour of this concern, and a helpful machine to many small motor businesses of the period, was the Mini. Cheap enough for many to own, everyone seemed to want their own interpretation of the Issigonis design. Those at the top naturally wanted to set themselves apart, so for nearly fifteen years now the Mini has provided an excellent source of revenue for Wood & Pickett. However, it would be wrong to imply that they were the only coachworks to make an impact in this field.

By 1966 the company had produced Minis for Hayley Mills, the first of their customers for such work. The former child film actress was followed by Laurence Harvey and an average of one customer a month for these carefully painted and trimmed Minis. In those days the luxury conversions cost about £1,000; today Wood and Pickett produce a seven page list of work and equipment they can supply for Leyland’s smallest car, so you could doubles, spend £10,000.

However, though I drive a typical W&P converted Mini and will return to the subject later in this article, the point of visting the company today was to emphasise that the Mini business is not the company’s primary activity. In fact, since 1976 the most popular subject for W & P expertise has been the Range Rover, in which they have invested considerable time and money, producing everything from simple add-on-items to complete vehicles tailored to the tastes of overseas politicians. The latter apparently have need of Range Rovers that can pursue game or fight for the life of the occupants via armoury mounted on the roof and armoured cabs!

Some 65 per cent of this West London company’s business is now in the export market, much of it in Range Rovers carrying different frontal styling and superbly executed leather-trimmed passenger compartments. There are now 45 employees within premises that would be big enough to house a small production line the size of the one used to produce those Escort Mexicos and RS2000s in the days of Ford Advanced Vehicle Operations.

Diversification is a popular word amongst company chairmen seeking to distract their main business, but for W&P the word is an important clue to their future. Currently they have the Recaro seat concession in Britain and a wide range of accessories. These range from steering wheels to beautifully made cocktail cabinets with opulently polished and finished wooden exteriors.
The real interest lies in the workshops where the versatility and flexibility of the company is well displayed. In one area I found Les Pickett and a selection of hides that matched not only the rainbow but quite a few frankly hideous shades that nature does not inflict on us. The staff nodded sagely and mutely agreed that customer taste often was eccentric, but they are in business to satisfy wealthy individual whims, not deny them.
The majority of W&P seat output will be trimmed in leather, but they still sell a large number of cloth finished expensive seats (up to £410 each) through the Recaro range.
Not far away from the seat and trimming area lay an Alfasud, a Golf and a silver Mini in various states of completion. MD Collins expected the Golf GTi to inherit the Mini mantle as a chic car for the rich and sees a lot of scope in replacing the traditionally stark German trim for the luxury British wood and leather finish. A German concern has become involved in the idea of selling a limited production run and the impetus to upgrade the Alfasud has come from the same country.
The silver Mini? That is part of a 50 car run based on either the 1275 GT or Clubman automatic. AT some £5,500 complete it is comparatively cheap by W&P standards and it really does not look too different at a casual glance to the recent Leyland run of be-spatted Minis. Doubtless most customers will soon alter that state of affairs.
Obviously there were a lot of Range Rovers on hand, even one six-wheeler, but I must admit I am not really enthused about these converted vehicles. I think the standard one is built to do a job with a well-balanced specification. Items like turbocharging and white leather trim seem rather excessive and better suited to catalogue than actual use. W&P do the leather trim beautifully in the cabin. On the mechanical side even they seemed a little worried about turbo temperatures in hot climates at slow speeds. A different matter is the kind of tailor-made game/light armoured useful pick-up of great mobility and visual appeal. That obviously was built for more than posing!
The company still take in a number of vehicles for complete restoration work. The interesting selection at the time of my visit included a Rolls-Royce Corniche that had been used as a taxi in Haiti for a luxury hotel; Mercedes 300SL gullwing another Rolls, but dating from the thirties, and a Jaguar XK. Eddie Collins told us that they deliberately keep their restoration work at a low key, preferring to fill in workshop time with such activities, rather than try and run it as a main business. I should say that the restoration work undertaken is of body and trim, rather than mechanical.
On the way out of the works to drive one of the company’s Margrave converted Minis I noticed that Peter Sellers had shifted his affections from modified Mini to a luxury Autobianchi A112, the cheekly little Italian car making the perfect base for yet another twist to the individual small car theme.
The Mini I drove probably cost the customer another £6,000 on top of the 1275 GT’s purchase price. AS the W&P MD frankly told me, “we inform customers that, no matter how much they spend on a Mini, they will not get a soft riding, quiet car like a Jaguar.” At first the truth of that statement put me off a bit. You can still hear the gearbox whining and the car joggled over suburban bumps nearly as jauntily as its cheaper cousins.
After a few miles the irritation of the full-length fabric sunroof flapping wore off, to be replaced by an enjoyment of the open air roof position and the comfort of the seating. The smell of leather when you first get in is almost worth the extra money on its own, and the polished wooden dashboard, together with various detail changes, soon conspire you make you forget the car’s origins. I finished the run, over the kind of town going in which such a car is normally used, with a much clearer idea of why such modified Minis have proved popular.
I can also understand how customers, who vary from celebrities like Linda McCartney to working housewives, enjoy shopping through the W&P list of changes they can make. Here they can balance the merits of everything from a £5 leather gear lever knob to the 31,395 Margrave interior in Connolly hide. Seats are tailored to the customer and equipped with electric seat rake adjustment, plus air cushions.
I also enjoyed a ride as passenger in a rather flashy Rover SD1 that they are working on: the potential for a better interior has only been partially realised by Leyland with the S derivative. I could only agree with Wood & Pickett’s management as to the potential from their viewpoint in a better finished Rover.
On such future projects depends the continuing employment of another generation of craftsmen in leather, wood, coachwork and paint. It is not the “good old days” of creating complete individual bodies upon a separate chassis, but it does show that, so long as man and motor cars exist, there will always be a demand for something exclusive, and somebody will always be prepared to pay the price for such work –J. W.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... cba1185463

[hanlminiman]

I think Steve owned the Epstein car in the distant past?

[mab01uk]

The Humberstone Mini.
Jeroen Booij of the 'Maximum Mini' books and weblog is also now a MiniWorld contributor with the first of his 'From the Archives' articles on significant and unusual Minis (above) appearing in the recent January 2023 issue. The first article focuses on the Humberstone Design Mini Clubman. One of these Minis was supposedly commissioned for Julie Andrews by husband Blake Edwards. An intriguing 8-page story in MiniWorld with lots of photos about a 'what could have been' challenger to the W&P Margrave...
https://maximummini.blogspot.com/search ... one%20Mini

[Pete]

This went cheap!

https://auctions.hampsonauctions.com/au ... 85K-Bsx-Jg

[mab01uk]

This went cheap!

https://auctions.hampsonauctions.com/au ... 85K-Bsx-Jg

For a W&P 1275GT it seems a bargain @ £9833...

[minimk1man]

That's what I thought. I saw it advertised yesterday on either ebay or Car & Classic for £12995 with a dealer. Just tried to find the ad but it seems to have gone now