ESAS = Eli's South African S

[MiniSumner]

Several years ago I was lucky enough to acquire a very original South African 1964/5 – 1071 Austin Cooper S, which was sent to SA from the UK as CKD kit in 1964 but not registered until 01-01-1965.

This car as it’s very unusual compared to my other rather standard UK Cooper’s. For a start its very low mileage at only 28,000, which I believe to be correct and the fact that it has not been totally messed about with since the late 60’s early 70’s.

I say messed about with as my car use to belong to a gentleman called Dennis Nathan, who use to work for BMC Blackheath in the mid-sixties. My understanding from talking too Dennis is he bought the car off the factory (Blackheath) in the late sixties, probably at a very reasonable price, as the 1071 was quite old hat by 1967/8. Dennis then commandeered the help of Mr Ralf Clark who was then the HOD for engineering at Blackheath at this time. Between the two of them they hatched a plan to build a circuit race car with a 1275 S engine to compete in the very competitive SA endurance series. Its believe Ralf Clark might have used his BMC UK connections and sourced most of the full race S engine parts!

This car then went on to compete in the late 1960’s early 70’s Castrol 8/9 hour endurance series in SA.

When I bought the car off the late Mr Greave’s who it must be said was a true gentleman, he had quite literally just brought the car back into the UK after repatriating from SA. Unfortunately due to ill health Mr Greaves had to sell the car and I agreed to buy the car off him with the understanding that I would rebuild the engine to how it was when the car last raced in the late 60s early 70s.

When I acquired the car the engine had already been taken out by the well-known mini specialist Rod Taylor at (Southam Mini Metro Centre) SMMC, I worked with SMMC to strip the engine fully down but it was obvious straight from the start, even before we even stated on the engine that this was a very special little motor car, as it was quite literally covered in special tuning parts, which just continued when we took the engine to bits. Some of these parts had been painstakingly fabricated/modified by hand for racing, others were quite literally like opening a parts book from ST at Abingdon, which was all the more remarkable as this car has come all the way back from SA.
It was not so easy to get a hold of this information but I knew the car was a special car and I was fortunate enough to be able to talk to both Dennis Nathan and Ryno Verster. I believe Ryno even talk to Ralf Clark on my behalf, who confirmed that he knew of this car as it was initially a factory engineering development car for a few years and was used by the then CEO a Mr Reece Oakes, before he either got bored with it or Dennis saw an opportunity to race a cooper S with some tentative factory support.
Anyway what’s been interesting is trying to piece this all together made all the more interesting with me being in Old Blighty.
For the eagle eyed amongst you they are silver band displacers on my racer, which again have been fully set up for track use with ST comp bump stops. Interestingly after talking too Dennis about the displacers, he confirmed that displacers on my car were and still are all totally independent from one another and not interconnected front to back as a road Cooper S would be. I have done a bit of research on this and apparently this was quite a common mod for hydro race cars, as it gave a much stiffer road holding dynamic and elevated the pitching effect of a hydro road car.

I am also led to believe that hydro cars when set up properly with the correct S displacers and comp bump-stops, can be every bit as good if not even better than dry cars.

With regards to the square grey box in the corner of the bulkhead, this is a really interesting bit of kit. Basically my little cooper S has what can only be best described as a very early form of electronic ignition. The dizzy has been completely modified to be bespoke for this system and has some strange PCB with capacitors and resistors etc. all over it, then instead of a rotor arm it has very accurately machined metal disc which has been made to fit on top of the dizzy spindle, this disc has four small holes in which a hall sensor (mounted above) picks up the pulse from. As mentioned this is really usual stuff and I have never seen anything like it before. I can only assume that this was used in preference of using mechanical points because if your endurance racing this would remain constant and more robust over the duration of a race but this is pure speculation on my behalf.

The gear box is a STD Cooper S 12G333 box and is in amazingly good condition. Again this has just finished being rebuilt by Rod Taylor from SMMC and the only real damage to talk of was on 3rd gear and the lay gear and lay shaft. Rod seems to think this damage could be consistent with a car that has been used in circuit racing, as he has seen gearboxes like this where there is no real damage to the 1st and 2nd gears but damage to 3rd and 4th gear. The strange thing is that it does not have any straight cut gears or drop gears. The diff is a 3.44 which is a good all round diff and it did have the yellow rubber couplings on it but I have just changed these to Hardy Spicer.

The cylinder head is an AEG163 but has defiantly had a lot of work done to it. Again it has some very unusual stamping marks on it and Dennis mentioned along with the rest of the kit of engine parts these were all ordered and came from Abingdon Competition department in the mid 60’s. One thing is for sure it’s a piece of automotive art and looks like you could not get any bigger valves in there even if you wanted too. I have enclosed some pictures so you can see what I mean.

The crank is an AEG 480 cross drilled lightened and balanced competition crank and is fortunately standard / standard on the big and little ends The block is an thin flange S block but is usual in that it has been sleeved with some very strange sleeves, which again I have never seen before, anyway this is now at +40. Another noteworthy point is the block has strange numbers on it and the engine number has been machined into the block again please see photos for more info.

Another unusual element to the block is that it has shot pinning marks around all the core plugs, which Rod thought this could have been extra security to help hold the core plugs in i.e. belt and braces!

The Cam is an AEG 648 with twin pickups one for the dizzy as normal and the other I am assuming is either for a mechanical taco or for fuel injection? Anyway the cam shaft like the rest of the engine was in excellent condition so has gone back in.

All the engine plates like the tappet covers and timing chain cover have all been reinforced and brazed, which must have taken hours and are beautifully done, certainly Rod Taylor thought they are highly unusual and again something that would have been done for a race engine to try to get reliability and performance.


The exhaust system is now a period bespoke Maniflow competition system. Maniflow came from and worked with Janspeed, Longman and Downton, and still has the original patterns for the 1960’s LCB systems. In fact I even went as far as to talk to the MD of Maniflow David Dorrington, who started out at the innovative Downton Engineering Company in 1962. David made me up an exact exhaust system for a 1968 competition circuit racer, so that is now all plumed in and ready to go.


I have already registered my car with Ryno Verster and chased up the CKD records here in BHM at Gaydon, where it was confirmed that my 1964 1071 S was in the last batch of six 1071 Cooper S to leave the UK for SA. The chassis numbers also tallied up with Ryno’s register numbers.

One thing I can say is that the boys in SA really knew how to screw their cars together; the difference between the build quality of my SA car is considerably better compared to my UK cars but this only in my learned opinion.

Personally I think this little SA car is every bit as interesting as some of the UK comp cars that were produced and campaigned in this country. I have little doubt that this little Gem, that Dennis bought from the factory which was initially used as demo/Eng. development car, then latterly late 60’s/70s was turned into an endurance circuit race car by Dennis with Ralf Clark help is the original thing and quite unique.

Some of the creative engineering on a lot of the parts on ESAS (Eli’s South African S) are really quite beautiful and really artisan in there construction. Unfortunately I did not take photos of the brazed cover parts and they are all now screwed back on the engine and back in the car and therefore almost impossible to photograph. However I have managed to enclose the shot peening on the block around the core plugs. The skill and time this must have taken really is something to admire and as I previously mentioned Rod Taylor at SMMC who builds race engines has never seen the likes of it, so I think this is testament inside its self to the skill of the guys who put the car together in SA.

[MiniSumner]

A Few more pictures of ESAS because as they say " A picture speaks a thousand words"

[MiniSumner]

A Few more pictures of ESAS because as they say " A picture speaks a thousand words"

[Pete]

Personally I think this little SA car is every bit as interesting as some of the UK comp cars that were produced and campaigned in this country.

I tend to agree, and thanks for a really interesting post. I've always wondered why the UK built cars got the most basic trim, numerous overseas built models/CKDs like yours got better!

There was a similar car to this on the hill at Shelsley last year.

[rich@minispares.com]

when I saw the newtune car years ago, when it had just been dragged out of long term storage, it had a similar early electronic ignition system, but from memory the control box was inside.

I wonder if the current owner still has it.

it also had a choke cable connected to the dizzy, so the driver could manually move the dizzy to help start it, then rotate it round to help with the pinking!

[MiniSumner]

Thanks for the information and your kind comments gents.

So a bit more information on this elec dizzy. Currently my car does not as such have any chokes on the carbs or any kind of manual advance on the dizzy. However what it does have is a strange type of “dump solenoid” which is screwed directly into the inlet manifold, Please see the enclosed photos look for the yellow thing between the carbs on the inlet manifold. Effectively when you come to start the car you need to press a small electronic switch several times, which is mounted on the dash, then turn her over. Now truth be known I have not tried this as yet, as I am still finisher her rebuild off but I am sure that it worked well in South Africa, where it was nice and warm, however back here in old Blighty might be another thing altogether. I will let you know how I get on with this in the next few week.

Another couple of interesting points that I am sure most of you have already spotted, is the Morris grill on an Austin! (After talking too Dennis he tells me this was something he and many others did to help with cooling) which I suppose must have been an interesting challenge with a heavily modified A series in the Africa heat

Then there was the standard fitment is the front and rear reflectors, which apparently was a legal requirement for all SA vehicles of the period.

Lastly, I have put several requests out to try to locate some good silver band S displacers for this car, as unfortunately the ones on her are leaking, so if anyone can help me locate some good condition ones I would be eternally grateful.

Thank you.

[251 ENG]

Rich

This car and the newtune car , both with SMMC engine,s

[Bart Smith]

Diggin the Landar valve cover.

[newtune]

when I saw the newtune car years ago, when it had just been dragged out of long term storage, it had a similar early electronic ignition system, but from memory the control box was inside.

I wonder if the current owner still has it.

it also had a choke cable connected to the dizzy, so the driver could manually move the dizzy to help start it, then rotate it round to help with the pinking!

It was a hand throttle from a atco lawnmower, yeah still have it

[MiniSumner]

So for the first time in a long time my South African Cooper S circuit racer is now back on the road. She now has a UK MOT and I am pleased to say decent oil pressure! I took her out on her maiden voyage last weekend and wow is she going to be a belter when she is run in. The combination on the 649 Cam on the 1293 S engine, with the ST 163 Cylinder head is going to be great fun

The only slightly disappointing aspect is that with only one week to go before M2M 2014 I have decided that the risk is too high to take her, as there are still any number of niggles that I need to sort out, so put simply I have just run out of time. Fortunately I can take my other Cooper S.

Anyway I have enclosed a few photos for you guys to hopefully enjoy.