1966 Janspeed Unipower GT

[Pete]

Thanks James, only the beginning really, apart from a multitude of fettling and detailing I've the small matter of the suspension to work on once I get some miles on it. The car's seen some action over the years to put it mildly and shows it in various places. The rear clam for instance no longer has it's perfect factory fit shut lines but I didn't want to take the option of producing a perfect sterile reproduction of how it was when it was new. The wonky shut lines are apart of it's history and to reverse all that would mean major surgery to both the clam and the forward body anyway. I kind of like the car showing it's 'experience', and though I've more work to do on the clam mounting brackets (which will improve the fit) it's never going to be 'as new'. Same with the perspex, having looked at it again I'm sure the majority is original to the car (though it had wind-ups for the first few months of it's life as all the very early cars did). The road cars had the same sliding window catches as the Mini but looking at the old photos shows mine only had the rear ones in place with no holes for the forward catches, and that's still the case. I may well see if I can clean it up in order to try and keep it on the car.

[rich@minispares.com]

pete

did it ever have sterile perfect shut lines though?

it was a low volume (dare I say it, kitcar ) so the mould lines where probably not that good from day one and would have probably changed as each kit was made.

as an example the body work on early coxes was terrible, really thick and not enough resin mixed in with the matt and the gaps are terrible, it was only when they remade the moulds correctly in the mid 1990s that they got the quality better (and the front is still 3/4" longer at one side!)

[Pete]

pete

did it ever have sterile perfect shut lines though?

it was a low volume (dare I say it, kitcar ) so the mould lines where probably not that good from day one and would have probably changed as each kit was made.

Kit???!!! How very dare you!



I'm no expert on this (Gerry!...) but actually despite a late attempt by Forrester to market them as a kit I've not seen much, if any evidence from anyone that they were sold as such. From my information they were all made at the factory to order. And as for shut lines and body quality, no disrespect to GTM owners but if you look at all the old photos of these cars the shut lines were fantastic , I think that's a good part of the reason these cars took so long to get off the ground in the first place and why they cost sooo much to produce (and sold so slowly I suspect!). The aim from the start was to produce a body in GRP that looked like it was ali or steel, Specialised Mouldings who made the bodies were the best in their field! As far as I know cars were delivered slightly incomplete (e.g minus wheels) to avoid tax implications. Kit car??? Pish !!!

[rich@minispares.com]

Kit???!!! How very dare you!

hehe


out of interest, what did the price of a unipower compare to that of a similar 'tax dodger' car like a lotus & how much money could you save by going down this route - it always seemed like a bit of a fiddle to me

[rpb203]

Pete,

I'm pleased that you jumped in on the 'Kit Car', I once said that about the Unipower and got ripped to shreds by a good few people.

You could buy a complete car, but had to pay purchase tax, one option, as was the case with my car, is that it was supplied without carbs or wheels and tyres, you fitted your own carbs, wheels etc., or whatever you chose not to be fitted to the car.
In a lot of cases the delivery person finished the car by bolting on the offending items.

The build quality was far in excess of any of the other 'kit cars' that I am aware of.
For interest my car was £1053. 14.11 as a standard 998cc car in June 1967.

Regards
Gary

[rich@minispares.com]

I'm pleased that you jumped in on the 'Kit Car', I once said that about the Unipower and got ripped to shreds by a good few people.

gary

this was meant in somewhat in jest, as an owner of many vile mini based kit cars im just trying to get some of the 'unipower glamour' to stick to some of my hopeless heaps

[rpb203]

Know exactly what you mean, and the reply wasn't meant to be a 'dig' if it came across that way.

I did put my Mk1 Marcos in the same garage as the Unipower for a couple of weeks to see what would happen and surprise surprise it still looked like a 'plastic toad' when I opened the door again, the Marcos that is!
Cheers

[mk1]

'plastic toad'

[251 ENG]

Gary , your marcos is a fantastic bit of kit

[Pete]

Gary , your marcos is a fantastic bit of kit

It is indeed, with race history! (bring it to Blyton!) And his Unipower GT came out the factory with some interesting extras : ARB, Minilites and CR65s, etc.
By the way Gary my car has it's engine steady bar on the clutch side (Unipowers had a modded Mini tie bar fixed to the rear frame) but I need one to the thermostat side which I'll need to sort, it can just be seen here :

[Ghul]

Hi Pete,
Car is looking very good. Ref your comment about the steady support to the thermostat side of the engine in the picture, I might be missing something, but has the water temp sender with capillary tube on the lower front of the thermostat casting of the head been mistaken for a steady bar ?. My race car has a bespoke steady bar going from the top three studs of the thermostat housing to the top rear chassis tube behind the engine. It's also adjustable. Very few cars have this, but this is usually where it is fitted.
Is the picture an early picture of your car ?. Certainly it's an early car as the engine mounts have yet to be changed to tilt the engine forwards to reduce vibration.
Regards,
Gerry Hulford

[Pete]

Yup another blonde moment from me (of many!) Even with my shocking eyesight that's obviously not a steady bar. Any comp engine should have a bar there though I reckon, I'll see if I can do the same. Brian Harvey did comment that the lump did tend to move around when he had the car, understandably . Yes that's a shot of my car from Castle Combe Gerry in Aug '67, so were the frames altered to enable forward tilting? ( I presume to get the driveshafts more inline?)

[rpb203]

Cheers Simon/Pete, for the comments about the Marcos, yes I like it.
Will hopefully be able to grab a couple of days over the Christmas break to get back onto it, only needs the exhaust sorting and a few little odds and sods, (read that as a shed load more than I realise!).
Would love to be able to get it to Blyton, as it was last used in Anger in '69. So would be good to what it was like

It would also be good to compare like for like with the Unipower

Pete I believe the engines were tilted forward to stop the vibration, in doing that the height of the car was also raised by 1 1/2" (37mm). Not sure what chassis number that happened at, maybe Gerry could confirm? Mine has the same mounts as yours.

[Ghul]

Hi Pete,
I think I sent you pictures of my engine bay, so you will see what was done on my 'works' car along with some other developments. It will require you to weld additional brackets to your rear chassis to fit an additional bar, which of course would not have been there in period.
The engine mount plates on the lower chassis were indeed altered in angle to enable the engine to tilt forward a few degrees, without straining the rubber engine mounts on the road cars. The rear steady bar on the clutch side was lengthened accordingly and yes this altered the angle of the drive shafts, not such that they were straighter, but rather that it just seemed to eliminate the vibration. Not sure were Gary got the increased car height from, as this mod did not require any changes to ride height, body, etc. The only issue it caused was that the distributer was even more difficult to get at as it was closer to the felt sound padding on the bulkhead. I would say however that a 'slight' rake to the front on suspension setup is important.

Regards,
Gerry

[Ghul]

Pete,
I reply to your previous comment regarding the Unipower being available as a 'kit', indeed in the latter days, UWF produced a price list that gave the impression that it could be seen as such. However such was the build of the car, that in fact very little of the car could be considered to be built by a customer, such was the quality of the product. So in answer to your question many cars left the factory ordered without engines, wheels, and some of the 'extras' such as heater, oil cooler etc... but all cars were otherwise finished/painted by the factory, except maybe for the last one or two when the factory closed down and they went out the door under dubious circumstances .
The comment about a tax fiddle, is a bit unfair as ALL the low volume cars built at that time used this loophole (Lotus, Marcus etc...) as it was the only way to make the production of what was a very costly car to build, cost effective. Many cars were therefore 'sold and invoiced' as being incomplete, the customer paying a cheque to 'Unipower' and another to Stewart & Arden for an engine and gearbox. I'll not say any more otherwise HMRC might just think they can retrospectively claw back some tax . So in conclusion, the bodies as you say were made by the best fiberglass body production company at that time, a reason for why production of chassis was moved to Arch Motors (again the best in their field at the time), who were across the road from Specialised Mouldings (they now do components for the aerospace industry and the military) and the panel fit when the left the factory was fantastic given the quality of cars built in the mid-1960's. And having owned one of the very last cars, I would confirm that the panel quality all the way down the line was excellent and did not get worse as the cars were made. I have the original body moulds still and many years ago made some new panels from these moulds and they were excellent although I did use an old friend who is one of the best in the business.

Regards,
Gerry

[mk1]

Excellent info Gerry,

It's good to see you back.

[Pete]

when the factory closed down and they went out the door under dubious circumstances

Sounds like Abingdon! Talking of which, I did see a photo of a Unipower GT parked next to one of the Vita Minis at Snetterton (Guards 500) in early '68 with an Abingdon style plate on it, RBL 25F, interesting looking car.
Thanks for the info Gerry, when were the engine mounts changed then, any idea? Pretty sure mine haven't been, I'll ask Gideon Lloyd if he considered that. Also anyone know what the door seals were from and where to get any?

[Ghul]

Hi Pete,
Well I get my rubber mouldings from COH Baines in Tunbridge Wells, East Sussex. Unfortunately I was not able to get the original door moulding any more. They have something very close but not totally right, so unless you can find old stock elsewhere, then you will have to make do as I did on my racer. Given that as a race car, draughts are not considered an issue. They do an online catalogue, although I found going down to them with examples works well when trying to get a close match as they have a huge stock.
Hope this helps.
Gerry

[Pete]

Given that as a race car, draughts are not considered an issue.

No but rattly doors are! My original seals never came back from the painter, still working on that though!!

Thanks for the tip on the supplier..

[Pete]

Well with a few late nights put in last week I managed to get enough done on the car to drag it off to the Autosport Racing Car Show at weekend. Thanks to Keith from Scholar Racing who supplied the graphics I managed to get the badges and logos on the car, I also managed to source the door seals, fit the front grille, make the rear one and fit that, clean the original perspex up (more to do on that) plus a few more jobs (and lots more to do...).

Whilst I was at the NEC I plucked up the courage to persuade the Mrs to recreate the picture of Monika on the bonnet from the '67 show....