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Among the parts I inherited when my dad passed away was a rather beat up alloy bonnet. I originally thought it came from Australia or NZ but after some sleuthing. it turned out that he had picked it up in the UK. And some further digging here on the forum led me to the folks at Mini Se7en, particularly Richard Williamson, who recognized it pretty quickly since he once drove the car! Turned out it was Rob Selby's car from 95-96.

Richard speculated it may have originated a bit earlier than that. He believed it possible that the bonnet may also have been on Rob’s 1985 car #18, and in 1994 too. It may well have originated from Richard Tomlin’s 1992 car, numbered #98. But I never got confirmation from Rob on that. I suppose if someone knows John or how to contact him, he could confirm. I hear he still helps out at his son's shop now and then.

Rob won 4 or 5 races that year and Richard thinks the car was in a crash shortly after the picture below was taken. Rob said the car was flatted and buffed after painting and the finish was amazing, crazy for a race car but that was how John did things! He still had one John's alloy boot lids fitted to his last race car. And mentioned that the matching boot lid for the bonnet I have was made smooth without the number plate recess.

Richard wrote an article run by MiniWorld magazine back in 1996, showing the Mini 7 of Rob Selby alongside a road-going Mini John Tomlin had built to highlight his panelcraft work.

I never did get to meet Rob, but emailed a few times and had a quick phone chat with him. He seemed a rally nice guy. Busy, too, so he never quite got around to sending some more pictures of the car and the trophies he won that year.

The bonnet today:



Rob's 96 car (copyright Ferret Fotographics)


Rob's 95 car (copyright Ferret Fotographics)


Richard Tomlin's 92 car (courtesy of Mini Se7en)


Richard Williamson's Miniworld article (courtesy Miniworld http://www.miniworld.co.uk.)

As I mentioned in another post on another forum, both the bootlid and bonnet were illegal as they were flat with no centre rib on the bonnet and no number plate recess on the boot.
Mike Garton was the Mini Seven Club scrutineer at the time and he got increasing wound up as Rob turned up meeting-after-meeting, after having promised "I'll get it sorted", having not got it sorted at all

The Maroon souped up road car was the heaviest Mini, I've ever witnessed being built and it really needed ALL the horsepower it could get out of Rob's motor

All metalwork, no fiberglass, I am guessing that would not end up too light!

Hi guys hope your well, So i ended up buying the road going version off a friend that had bought it vandalised from down south he put it in his garage and never touched it, When i finally got the car off him i spent a years restoring the car back to its former glory that the car had been built costing £1000s And the only thing i changed on the car was to extend the painted lines on the door continuing them onto the front wings and to put a standard grill on it instead of the flat piece of metal because i want a massive fan, i will try to dig some photos out of the condition i received the car in ! after restoration i put it into a motor museum on a loan basis for other people to enjoy, unfortunately The car was damaged in the museum by a school children that visited it had Coca Cola spilt on the bodywork and it burnt right through the paint which ended up with a front end paint respray luckily i had a few Ltrs of paint left over and it was perfect again, after that the car was put into my garage in a bubble all covered up safe and sound well that's what i thought, One day i went to work when i arrived home the garage door was slightly open on one corner and it was all twisted and i felt sick to the bone ! so i opened the door and the bubble had been taken off the car and the covers where on the floor and the car was gone i was heartbroken ! believe it or not it was found but unfortunately it had been stripped to a shell and the only reason it was found was because the engine had no numbers on it, well it did but they where bore and engine size numbers because it was a race engine and that's when the guy who had bought the running gear reported it back to the police and they went back to the seller and he still had the shell and other bits, they took pictures of the car and when i saw it i was so upset at the state of it and that was the end of the Selby mini I'm sorry to say,