129 LNP - 1071 Race Car Restoration

[Pete]

Nice little surprise for you Rachel, here's your car for sale in the back of Autosport Oct 29th 1965 :



(thanks to Paul C)

[Matt_Tupman]

Aluminium mini shell?? Didn't realise these were ever made

[Flygirl]

Pete,

That is brilliant! Interesting the car is advertised as "Group II"?

Steve has since confirmed that he sold the car to Fred Opert Racing, so this advert ties in nicely on the timeline with the final race results for 129 LNP in September of 1965, the arrival of Steve's new race car, and Fred Opert's usual fall trip to the UK to purchase race cars.

Thanks for posting this Pete, and to Paul C for the find!

[rich@minispares.com]

Aluminium mini shell?? Didn't realise these were ever made

they didn't make many of them, they where used in 850 racing I think, but became a bit of a liability when 1275s motors where put into them.

I wonder if any still exist, ive only ever heard of one been used in hill climbing, the guy rolled it and it was quickly scooped up onto a trailer and taken away......

[Matt_Tupman]

Aluminium mini shell?? Didn't realise these were ever made

they didn't make many of them, they where used in 850 racing I think, but became a bit of a liability when 1275s motors where put into them.

I wonder if any still exist, ive only ever heard of one been used in hill climbing, the guy rolled it and it was quickly scooped up onto a trailer and taken away......

Very interesting. You may be seeing another in a couple years.

[rich@minispares.com]

Very interesting. You may be seeing another in a couple years.

I know, you told me at the IMM

[mk1]

The Downton Social Club guys had at least one of these shells, but as Rich says they tended to crack due to vibration very badly & were al fairly short lived.

[Pete]

Is it my eyesight (and it's not great!) or is 129 LNP on 'S' Cosmics in that photo? I wonder if there's an outside chance that these were said rims?


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cosmic-Mk1-Wh ... _958wt_958

Might be worth asking the seller what racer he took them off Rachel?

[rich@minispares.com]

by the looks of things, the car decided its self that it didn't like the wheels!!

I wonder how far the driver had to walk to collect the missing one.....


....from my experience, its amazing how far wheels will go once they have liberated themselves

[Flygirl]

Hi Pete,

Interesting thought! I will follow up with the seller, you never know.

Since 129 LNP arrived in the US via Fred Opert Racing, and Fred was a Cosmic dealer, he very likely put the Cosmics on for Chuck Dietrich. Here is a link to one of the period adverts:

[Johnny]

Not sure if you have this or not.
This is from the November 1967 issue of the SCCA magazine Sports Car.
It is the final results for the 67 season in Chuck's region.
The top 3 cars went to the ARRC.







Chuck would have earned probably 6 points from his 2nd place at Cumberland, which was out of his home Division. So he must have run a couple other races, most likely at Mid-Ohio.

John

[Flygirl]

Thanks for that Johnny.

Chuck certainly raced extensively, and he had many fine cars to choose from including a McLaren Formula B and the Elva BMW. Interestingly, I have found a few articles indicating Suzy Dietrich also raced the Mini at some of the same events Chuck was racing at. However, I have yet to find actual race results for Suzy racing the Mini! So much research still to do......

Here is a link to a selection of articles from local newspaper reports (sorry it is a PDF): http://www.arperformance.citymax.com/f/ ... record.pdf

In other news, Steve Neal contacted me recently to say that Norman Parrish (his co-driver on the 1965 Monte) has sadly passed away. Apparently Norman was over 6' tall, and Steve (who is also 6' +) said that the two of them were rather cozy in 129 LNP during the rally.