British Vita Racing Cooper S.

[mk1]

Simon had BCR I don't know if he still does though. I also know of at least 1other bvrt car but am sworn to secrecy. M

[Pluto]

Oh yes, the Liz Jones 's BCR! It is in Belgium now.

[Jack of all trades]

I also know of at least 1other bvrt car but am sworn to secrecy. M

I'm sure there are more, in the years past i heard about KDK319F resurfacing.

MC58 was mentioned as an Alexander car "being around".

GPH5C and BOP242C or whats left of it reputed to be aswell.

But remember like the red and white cars, most of them are like Tiggers broom. Even back then engines didn't last a lifetime, Gearboxes and diffs broke, body's got shunted and replaced, wheels changed all the time and rules changed. So the evolved ancestors could be around (or what is left of that) and when is genuine really genuine?

If i had a penny for every story

[Pete]

And as with other fakers the odd authentic jem was also sent to Japan to make the whole operation seem credible. Lots of great authentic historic Minis went to Japan in the late 80s and 90s that's for sure but no doubt there were quite a few "ex Jokespeed" race and rally cars!

The Trigger's broom thing applies to any old car in reality, and lots of old knocked about competition cars used to get sold off sans engine, wheels etc in the 60s and 70s but there's a world of difference between those and the newly restored ones (especially in the UK) that were/are just imagined up from fresh air and a few old photos. I suppose it's no different with road cars though.

[Jack of all trades]

Well continuous history and "before and after" pictures are the thing to set the "thin air and whishes" ones apart from the genuine.

But as most ex-racecars (or parts of them) ended up as rallyecross hacks(and then the scrapper) or directly scrap, the ones that escape that fait are few and far between.

Like for instance the Longman GT can't be faulted as it wasn't messed about because the series just ended en the owner didn't need the room so left it.

Cars like that are the ones that are the really survivors and there are some like that about nowhere near "Tiggers broom" but largely still complete (as your Unipower Pete, and you know that getting the history of a survivor is a job on it's own that takes almost more time than the "recommissioning" it selve ) but will need TLC to bring back to driving condition as no car that hasn't been used for umpteen years is drivable "out of the barn"

[Pete]

I agree on the Longman GT, what also helped is the fact that it was such a late car to start with, 60's cars just didn't survive in one piece. I bought a '63 997 Cooper rally car this year and it's already on it's 3rd shell having been rebooted into a '65 S shell 2nd time around. The Jack Davies car looks like it survived purely because it was kept in the family but as you say so many 60's comp cars were smashed up, especially rally cars, left to rot or were turned into something else like autocross/rallycross cars (and then smashed up anyway! ). It's not reasonable to expect surviving comp cars to be too original, but there again it's not reasonable to build a car from nothing to decieve the Japanese or anyone else!

I remember Nobby from BVRT telling me they repainted an ex Britax car to send to Spain for someone. Can't remember the full story (it was a long time ago). I presume those cars were the previous '68 season cars (including the Mk1). I know someone who bought an early ex Team Broadspeed car to race (pre the BOPs) and still has the remnants. Broadspeed did send one to Sebring which is where I presume it stayed and I have a strong suspicion there's at least one ex CCC car in the U.S.

GH did send me a photo of "KDK 319F" years ago, restored of course and it didn't look anything like. I also had a Japanese guy send me a photo of a so called Broadspeed car which he'd bought as such and it was nowhere near. The Japs were perfect customers for all that crap because of the huge language barrier, their eagerness to buy, to trust people they shouldn't have and the fact that to the relief of the fakers they were unlikely to be bringing the car back to complain! Some of the paperwork (sometimes genuine) was sometimes left behind in the UK of course to make another copy: like that Ian Walker Racing 1071 that appeared on Ebay a few years ago, despite having been exported already 25 years ago!

[Nevsmini]

How many CCC cars were built?

[Pete]

How many CCC cars were built?

Never sat down and tried to work that out but it's alot! If you look at the '68 season alone they had 6 cars (inc two Mk1s) in the pool, of which at least three got badly bent. From '62 to '69 it'll add up to quite a number and I can't remember ever seeing any advertised for sale ex works in the press but do have a few images of written off cars. Some time ago we had a discussion on here about a Mk1 one Jack had identified that went to Scandanavia(?) , even down to the unusual bonnet strap. If someone looked into it I suspect there'd be one or two in the U.S, considering the market for ex UK race cars (like 129 LNP, GRX 309D etc) I'm even surprised GPH 1C was brought back from Sebring, which it was. GPH 1C was a white car originally, like most CCC racers. The late Paul Lips was possibly on the trail of 231 VPK and had done some research on that car.

[graham.codling]

What colour is chris cramers mini just aquired a 1960 mk I could be an idea to do a replica.

[graham.codling]

I meant is it a bmc /leyland colour sorry about going off topic .

[Jack of all trades]

That Jack would have been me Pete, the car went to Holland.

The Broadspeed car you're referring must be COE and that was not pre but during BOP as the BOP cars were used internationally the other cars were used national.

But numberplates were used at the tuners convenience as who doesn't remember CMC77;
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimages/ ... ge0-99.jpg
So what is the real car.

An other one then, BOP242C suffered a terminal shunt at Oulton in 1965;
http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.u ... ce%202.jpg
But was "rebuild" and in January 1966 both BOP's were bought by SRT Holland.
242C was raced even as late as 1969 but by then was an ultra lightweight formule libre racer still with a 999cc engine and largely the same car Broadspeed sold in '66 (it was only used as the group 2 999cc car in 1966)
http://racemini.nl/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 80x294.jpg

[Pete]

The Broadspeed car you're referring must be COE

No Jack, I' was referring to one of the 'FOC' cars. The Sebring Broadspeed car I can't remember as having a reg number on.

[Johnny]

This looks like a Broadspeed Car at Sebring 4 Hour 1966. Seems that it was in the 850-1000cc Class.

https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/nq643bh1879

Also GPH 1C at work at same race. Retired early though.

https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/zm240mq0922

John

[Pete]

Yes that's the one Johnny, I've a couple of close ups I'll try and post later. There's also a colour shot of it.

[Jack of all trades]

Getting very far from topic now and maybe should start an other but

That's one of the cars George Oulton got via Dennis Prophet (who supposedly got 4 teamcars in '65).

So potentially there are 4 ex-Broadspeed cars to be found in Northern America (wasnt Rachel i.e. Flygirl on the search for info on that??)

Makes you wonder how many team car we can name for Team Broadspeed

[Pete]

and then there's the eight port car that was sent to France

Just want to clarify what I said above as the following car has come up for sale in France :








As is well documented BVRT sold an eight port car wearing the reg number HDK 443E to Herve Le Guellec in France in 1969 which by all accounts was all but destroyed on a hillclimb soon after and apparently never had any paperwork. A mate told me about the car above about twenty five years ago but I've never seen photos of it until now. It's worth noting to anyone interested in spending 40K Euros on the French car pictured above that HDK 443E still exists in the UK, in an 'as found' state (like KDK 320F) with ID plates intact and registered with DVLA!

[swifty]

How do these people get away with it ! .... Ken

[Pete]

The seller will no doubt think that it's HDK in Trigger's Broom form, he may well not know that forty odd years down the line that it was sent to France without paperwork in the first place, it may well have just been a 'replica' that Vita sold of the original car and the seller may well also not know that the original car was retained and still exists as it's existence has not been well publicised. It doesn't look any more a Vita Mini than the replica I built in the 90s! It could well make a good replica though?!

[Austin Costin]

Fantastic knowledge Pete

[Pete]

If you look at this contemporary Castrol ad the writer does describe five blue Minis in the workshop, not three but I think the hillclimb and club racer were probably being counted.