BAD 942 B Austin Mini Cooper S C-A2S7/55****

[BAD942B]

BAD 942 B, my car, a 1275 Austin Mini Cooper S Mk1, was built on the 27/05/64 despatched on the 29/05/64 to the BMC dealer Car Mart Ltd, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (i assume from the Heritage Certificate) then on to the selling agent ? A.R.Taylor Garages, Shipston on Stour, even though they were Morris agents (now it gets confusing) who sold it to A.R.Chares Garages Ltd, Church Road, Shipston on Stour (a few hundred yards from A.R.Taylors) on the 03/06/64 who then drove it roughly 20,000 miles in 4 years & brought it back to Richard Taylor in Shipston & bought a Mk2 S, Richard never registered it for the road but may have just filled in the dealers form on the green log book
Richard Taylor kept the car back & converted it to a sprint car, he used it various venues over the next few years, Richard hit a straw bale at a Silverstone Sprint on the 26/10/74, after that the front end was cut off leaving the inner flitch panels undamaged & a hinged fibreglass front end fitted.
Fast forward to early 1981 when I bought it from Richard Taylor where I also met Richard's brother in law, Cecil Sandford, motorcycle racer from the 50s, they couldn't keep a big end in it in the end, it had 28484 miles on the clock
I took all of the suspension ST parts off it, the 45 DCOE & put it back on a thin flange S block, the big end problem was just a bung missing, I had a 12g940 head ported at Autosprint in Birmingham, we put it on forged, dished STD pistons.
I took the 649 cam out & put a 731 cam in it not knowing they were rubbish. We put a steel front end on the car, took the fibreglass arches off & braised the screw holes up, gave the car a quick flat including flatting off the door white squares, and painted it in a couple of coats of cellulose paint. The roof is the original paint.
The suspension was set up properly by Ian Cornick, who worked with me & had helped me with the bodywork, & myself, Ian was later my business partner.
I kept it at the garage were I worked, couldn't take it home as my old man would have gone spare.
I then registered it in my name on the 22/05/81, not thinking my old man would dare open my post.
He went spare.
My 1st trip with the new engine was to Goodwood race circuit & back to run it in. After that we tried very hard to get it to run properly, the 731 cam went 1st, then the head was despatched to James Prochowski of Birmingham Race & Rally to be re-ported, James found the inlet ports to be OK but the exhaust ports were in dire need of opening up.
Put back together it was a different car.
More later, Chris

[BAD942B]

So its only a 2 owner car in the log book but in reality a 3 owner car with less than 50k miles on the shell, you can still polish the paint on the sills, but the roof gutter at the rear is rusty & there are rust 'stars' on the body now.

Can anyone tell me more about it ?

[BAD942B]

when new it came with a single tank & 3.5J wheels, I fitted the 2nd tank & the 4.5J wheels.
When I took the Weber off I put on twin H4s, it had about 84 bhp at the wheels on Aldons rolling road at the Butts in Worcester.

[Costafortune]

Blimey!

Garry Dickens (occasionally on here) had a beautiful ultra low mileage red/black 1965 Austin 1275S for sale in 1981, up for £2500.

How everyone laughed.

I remember seeing it. It really was as new. I'd love to see it again.

[Old English White]

What a fascinating story of long ownership. To put prices into perspective, I sold my first "S" - which was a 1275 Mk2, not much before that at the end of the 1970s, and was very pleased to get £350.00 for it at the time

[BAD942B]

Blimey!

Garry Dickens (occasionally on here) had a beautiful ultra low mileage red/black 1965 Austin 1275S for sale in 1981, up for £2500.

How everyone laughed.

I remember seeing it. It really was as new. I'd love to see it again.

I used to meet Gary at Wiscombe

[BAD942B]

What a fascinating story of long ownership. To put prices into perspective, I sold my first "S" - which was a 1275 Mk2, not much before that at the end of the 1970s, and was very pleased to get £350.00 for it at the time

Thanks, I realise after all these years how lucky I was with the car, before I bought it Ian Cornick & I had been all over England looking at cars, most of them rubbish, then a mate came in to see us & said there is an Ex Sprint car for sale less than 10 miles away so we went & looked at the car, I bought it on the spot, it came with lots of race spares which I eventually sold.
I paid a lowish price for the car looking back.
AR Taylor Garages was a Velocette dealer in the late 40s, and Arthur Taylor used to prepare Cecil Sandford's bikes, I assume before he moved on to AJS, MV Augusta, Moto Guzzi, Mondial & I thought Gilera, winning world championships. I hadn't a clue then who I was introduced to but might go & see both of them (Richard & Cecil) before they get too old to remember anything.

[BAD942B]

it was seriously quick car & to insure it I had to push a cheque through a letterbox on the Parade in Leamington Spa. Lots of modern hot hatches are much faster now but then it used to eat Golf GTIs, 205s, Astra's, etc for breakfast & lots of bike riders couldn't cope with a Min glued to them.