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About a month back, I got a message through from an old friend back in Abingdon. Back in the day we all had Minis, but this mate had one a little nicer than ours, as his Dad and Uncle worked at Abingdon, and it was bursting with little gems liberated from the works dept!
Anyway back to the message. Steve, my friend in Abingdon, had seen I had been prepping my MK3 for the Winter rally in Switzerland, and asked if I new anybody who might be interested in a roof rack from the works! The story is, late '66 when the works cars were to carry all their spare wheels for the '67 Monte, the Comps dept ordered a batch of roof racks, which were to be modified to carry two wheels. This rack was "borrowed" before being modified, and then became the annual holiday lugger when starpped to the family Clubby estate!
To say I was interested, would be trifle understating it, but I made arrangements to collect as soon as I could. I decided to run the MK3 up on a "running in" trip, stop over in Abingdon for the night and head back the next day. An early start, saw me arrive at Steves for about midday (very slow running in from Cornwall), where we had a good old natter and catch up as it had been 10 years since meeting up before. Then he said "right, got to work this afternoon, so we better sort this stuff". Out to his garage and there was this beastie!



"There is also this box of stuff if you want it?" he proclaimed. Just scanning though it quick I found a NOS Lucas 576 back mount lamp. I had been wanting one of these for the car and excitidly accepted his offer of the box! At that he said" I have something else you might like. Had it years, but I've got load of old helmets. The Works used this one whilst testing! Supposidly Paddy's!"





Speechless!

Fantastic, love the helmet!

brill , love stories like that, makes me wonder how much stuff is still kicking around in peoples garages in general, let alone in the abingdon area !

Must be loads of it about. When I still lived in Abingdon, I built a works rep, and I collected loads of stuff that had come out of the back door of the factory. To many it was just old mini stuff from work. I was lucky, in that my Dad worked on the line at MGs (did a short stint in comps during his apprenticeship, but obviously didn't make the grade), then became a Paramedic, and just knew everyone! When anybody heard I had Minis (and Marinas - Genuine ST coupe!!) I would often get the "there is some old bits in the shed".
Perhaps I shouldn't have moved away!

Must be loads of it about. When I still lived in Abingdon, I built a works rep, and I collected loads of stuff that had come out of the back door of the factory. To many it was just old mini stuff from work. I was lucky, in that my Dad worked on the line at MGs (did a short stint in comps during his apprenticeship, but obviously didn't make the grade), then became a Paramedic, and just knew everyone! When anybody heard I had Minis (and Marinas - Genuine ST coupe!!) I would often get the "there is some old bits in the shed".

Nice bits you got there

If the helmet was used by PH, you should take it, and get him to sign it that would be something.

he might have a story to add.

Yeah, might be a nice idea, that. The date seems to coincide with his company starting up, and I know some of the other drivers used differing brands, and I'm sure Padddy would have used one of his own branded lids.

What a brilliant find. It's good to hear that enthusiasts are still digging stuff like this up.

M