"NEW" Works Car Discovered.

[mk1]

Some of you may have failed to notice (like I did), this brilliant story in the Historic Motorsport section

The story goes like this;

When we wrote this post over a week ago we forwarded it on to a few respected people with recognised knowledge in the Mini fraternity just to make sure that all the historical facts we were using were correct. To our surprise a couple of these people were very insistent that in their opinion some of this information should not be released, in their words “the car should stay as an anonymous works car with unknown identity”.
Martin and I we're amazed at this response, we didn’t expect it and couldn’t understand it. A week on after thinking hard and considering all points of views, we think telling the complete story is the right thing to do as we know now most enthusiasts will want to hear it.
We'd like to say sorry to the people who didn’t want all the information made public, we respect you and understand your concerns but hope even though you don’t agree with our decision, you understand that we listened to you but took opinions of others as well into consideration when making our decision.

Myself and fellow Mini enthusiast Martin Price recently sold some parts to a chap called Paul who claimed he had an ex-works S in one of his farm out buildings that he's owned for over thirty years and is still sat unrestored as he bought it along side an unrestored 1071 S and a one off 1930's four wheel drive Brooklands race car once owned by John Pertwee. Even though the chap seemed decent and plausible we obviously dismissed the idea of an ex-works car sitting un-discovered just down the road from us because Martin and I have been interested in Mini's for getting on for 30 years each so surely we'd have known about it! We tried to put it out of our minds but about three months after selling the parts we came across Paul's phone number and agreed that we should give him a ring and try to call round and take a look what he'd got.
We made the call and arranged to meet at Paul’s farm and just in case he had something interesting, we asked a local chap called Dave Beswick to come along as he's got a vast knowledge of ex-works cars and we knew if this car was anything he'd probably recognise it. Dave explained to us on the way the first things he'd be looking for was the asbestos heat shield on the bulkhead and the hydrolastic pipes running inside the car through neat grommets in the bulkhead and down the inner wheel arches with inline coupling/restrictors fitted. We knew the car was bought by Paul with a 970S engine but this was out the car so the pipes/heat shield should be clearly visible.
When we arrived at the farm Paul took us to the building where the cars were. What we were greeted with was a rough old red Mini with a white roof, right colours but not an obvious ex-works car, this was until we opened the bonnet . . . . . . . . . . . .

to read the entire discussion go to viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8858

Or alternatively you can read it on Paul Curotto's brilliant site http://mountgreen.co.uk like I did.

What a Plonker I am

Mark F

[RTJ]

Cheers for the link Mark.

Yes it is a great story and such an important find. There is without doubt only one GRX309D rally car and this is it. To suggest otherwise is complete folly and everyone knows it. For all true enthusiast who care more about the cars and there history than there value, this car I'm sure will get the support it deserves.

[mk1]

Hear, Hear!

[fridgeman]

Hi i,am mark bates pauls brother and just to put some background to it all so theres some credibility to the story thus far,Paul was racing mini,s as hot rods and grass trackers in the 70,/80,s when a lot of these sort of cars could be bought for one sort of motorsport or another,my passion is escorts mk1/2 and i have a broadspeed twin cam that pauls body shop has restored so he we know a bit about our cars. The mini in question was bought from birmingham way as a COMPLETE CAR with the engine in bits as in the picture and not touched since because i was with him when we fetched it !.

Unlike a lot of us paul has the room to store his cars hence this and 3-4 others have been stored for this length of time,i must say neither of us had any idea of its true background but paul had that letter of provenience giving it its rallying history.Its a 100% honest car and owner .

[LMM76C]

Cheers for the link Mark.

Yes it is a great story and such an important find. There is without doubt only one GRX309D rally car and this is it. To suggest otherwise is complete folly and everyone knows it. For all true enthusiast who care more about the cars and there history than there value, this car I'm sure will get the support it deserves.

Perhaps I am misreading the above (and it all depends on one's definition of a car anyway).
As I have written variously on the original thread, it cannot be completely ruled out that 4 different shells carried that reg no as works rally cars on 1966 International rallies alone. It is more likely to have been 3, there is a strong possibility it was 2 and it could even have been just 1.
If the point is that only an original shell can be called an original car, I totally agree, as I (from extensive involvement in works Cortina and Escort history) am not from the school of thought that considers re-shelling to be no different from changing the engine, nor am I of the view that re-shelling by the factory team counts as one original car but later re-shelling by a private owner does not. However, a re-shelled car is still a works rally car, just not the first/original one carrying the reg no.

[minimans]

Cheers for the link Mark.

Yes it is a great story and such an important find. There is without doubt only one GRX309D rally car and this is it. To suggest otherwise is complete folly and everyone knows it. For all true enthusiast who care more about the cars and there history than there value, this car I'm sure will get the support it deserves.

Perhaps I am misreading the above (and it all depends on one's definition of a car anyway).
As I have written variously on the original thread, it cannot be completely ruled out that 4 different shells carried that reg no as works rally cars on 1966 International rallies alone. It is more likely to have been 3, there is a strong possibility it was 2 and it could even have been just 1.
If the point is that only an original shell can be called an original car, I totally agree, as I (from extensive involvement in works Cortina and Escort history) am not from the school of thought that considers re-shelling to be no different from changing the engine, nor am I of the view that re-shelling by the factory team counts as one original car but later re-shelling by a private owner does not. However, a re-shelled car is still a works rally car, just not the first/original one carrying the reg no.

+1 I believe that all three Poss 4 Cars are genuine ex works cars!! they just appear with the same Reg. number, to say that any car built after the 1st shell is not a genuine car is nonsense! each car will have it's own history in the time period it was used and raced but all will be forever joined by a common history, doesnt make one any more important than the other in my view but oh! to get them all in a row now there would be a picture worth taking!!

[Pete]

it cannot be completely ruled out that 4 different shells carried that reg no as works rally cars on 1966 International rallies alone. It is more likely to have been 3, there is a strong possibility it was 2 and it could even have been just 1.

In my humble opinion the Flowers , RAC Rally and Sebring cars were all completely different cars at least , quite strong evidence for that. The recently disovered car though is the first ,the one Abingdon officially registered as GRX 309D and the only one with it's corresponding factory welded body number on. Which car's entitled to wear the reg is a whole other conversation and bound to go round in ever decreasing circles but it's up to any individual owner to establish what he has, and with such cars that's quite rare to see. In this case it's been refreshingly transparent.

[Pandora]

[In essence the others were just competition cars with a number plate on , albeit genuine Abingdon competition cars.

Rarely have such complex, pointless arguments been summed up so succinctly.

There ARE shades of grey in these things, but the problems come in when people insist they have 'The' rather than accepting they have 'a' certain car.

I'm sure noboby at Abingdon gave a shit at the time, and would have laughed at the attitudes of owners 20-30-40 odd years later had they known.

I still think of the Judge who looked down at 2 wealthy owners of 2 seperate jaguar engined cars (listers, I think), who were both claiming the 'entire' history of the identity, and said "I don't see anything in this case that couldn't have been settled over a decent lunch!"

Or the 2 ex Ecurie Ecosse cars sitting in the paddock at Goodwood, both wearing identical registration numbers. One a tojeiro, one a D type. Both wore it in period, and both were 'real'?!?

Al

[LMM76C]

To minimans: it is not nonsense (it is, on most legal precedent, the law). You have not read correctly what I wrote. I did not say any of these incarnations are not "genuine" or correctly described as "ex-works". What I said was that the first is the only ORIGINAL car - regardless of what reg no it carries - and I have no opinion on which should have the reg no now.
I believe the GRX309D reg no could have appeared on as many as 5 different shells in works hands but probably was on 3......or 4. Everyone talks of re-shelling works Minis and it is now better understood that works big Healeys were "re-chassis'd" too. I do not believe the full extent of no plate swapping (ie. between existing cars) at Abingdon has yet emerged.
After moving from Lincoln Cars to Boreham, Ford re-shelled its "DOO" reg works rally Mk1 Cortina GTs so often it gets ridiculous. Its Mk2 Lotus Cortinas rarely survived more than one full major rally (maybe just the first car did). Evidence suggests the (strenghtened on the production line) Mk1 Lotus Cortinas averaged no more than 3 major rallies and were not re-shelled but had the ("KPU" and "NVW") plates swapped around. For works Escorts, re-shelling returned. In the period we are discussing - 1966 - Ford were always short of practice cars but BMC seemed to have it in hand.
Pre-unitary construction, competition car or otherwise, the chassis is, under established legal precedent, the defining factor in what is the original car. There seems to be no exactly similar major legal precedent for unitary construction cars....yet...but its only a matter of time (and we can all think of a good big money example that should be so tested in law).
Pandora has mentioned the one car that doesn't easily fit the pattern : the Jaguar D type, which is a mixture of frame chassis and monocoque and at least one car now exists as two because each has one part of it.
It's interesting also that so-called one make club experts have made totally wrong decisions on originality by scraping the paint off one repaired section, rather than establishing the totality (on a Ford, not a Mini, I hasten to add!).
Let's concentrate on researching 1966 and 309D. I have now ruled out Motorsport as offering any help, despite its Polish report probably being from Atis K.

[minimans]

Sorry I could have worded that better! I was in the main part agreeing with what you say, I was trying to make the point that each car will have it's own history as a 'Factory car' as distinct from a post works put together replica. To me each phase of the car is important rather than the Reg number. legally your right I think, but when it comes down to it the only people that care/have a stake in the legal side are the owners/keepers of these cars. the average enthusiast just loves the story and the cars.............
PS the D type you mention is perhaps the one that due to an enthusiastic owner is now two distict cars the original now having been rebuilt using all of the 'original' parts that were separated to produce two?

[1071 S]

Maybe the time has come to stop identifying cars as, say, 33EJB and refer to them as the "64 Monte No 37". If we accept that the "body" (shell) of a unitary construction vehicle embodies its "soul" then there can only be one contender for genuiness.... I use the term contender because even then the question arises as to exactly how many panels you can replace before the genuine shell is no longer genuine...

The number plate identity is pretty much a British thing as far as I know. Most other jurisdictions swap plates quite regularly...

I know of a certain British prototype with LM history owned by a guy who bought it when it was just another dead old racer (albeit with unimpeachable provenance - he worked in the factory). Subsequently a spare chassis was sold and built up (decades later) as said vehicle. The owner of the "real" racer has been threatened with dire consequences both legal and not should he ever try to publicise the identity of his car.....

Its sat in his garage for many years while he'd pondered his options (and played with his other - less contentious cars....

Cheers, Ian

[LMM76C]

Yes, there will always be a grey area in how much of an original shell could be replaced and still be an "original" unit. We would probably all roughly agree on how much/which bits on a Mini when asked. Even old type chassis can have major bits replaced. I'm currently still trying to identify whether an original chassis on an F3 Ensign was scrapped or subsequently straightened/had parts replaced, making two cars with the new chassis for the "original" car.
When they refer to a "chassis" change on a big Healey it means the floorpan/bulkhead unit. A Mini could be much the same. With my own Escort, when replacing a roof etc. you can always see the join so there is no possibility of confusion. If you can get away with the standard panel joints (eg. roof panel on a Mini) its not so clear cut (pun intended...).

When I donated my works rally Cortina research to the LotusCortinaInfo web site, I insisted on inclusion of a "health warning" and I normally now refer to "the car carrying reg no ******* " on a particular rally.

Interesting how the internet has exposed the reality. The Robson "Works Escort" "bible" has recently been relaced by a completely new book, solely because discussion on the equivalent Escort forum to this one had begun to create a detailed record of re-shells that rendered the original book a nonsense. With the greatest of respect to both, the Browning and Price BMC/Mini books really fall into the same category now - for the same reason ie. it was just not cricket then to expose exactly what went on.
No, I'm not volunteering to try and write a relacement Mini book "The Works Minis - The Definite Story of Re-shells and Number Plate Switches"
Sad thing is the missed opportunities. In Finland in 74 for the 1000 Lakes, Brian Moylan sat opposite me at meals in the student hostel we all stayed in for the best part of 2 weeks - and I don't recall once asking a relevant question about works Mini building...

[Pete]

Interesting how the internet has exposed the reality

Not something that's welcomed by all. Yes maybe it's true that the internet's littered with misinformation and unwelcome opinion (but then so are books and magazines) but I do wonder just how many fake race and rally cars would have been knocked up in the 90's had the internet been around for people to share information. Not so many I'd guess.
I remember once being offered a restored historic rally car that I wasn't really interested in , only to see the exact same car (virtually unaltered) featured in a colour spread in Mini World a short time later wearing a works registration number, with works car history attached and carrying a price tag no doubt four times the original. This sort of thing won't be news to most and isn't something that hasn't carried on even in recent times but the internet certainly hasn't made life easy for fakers.