Summer saw the completion of our mini van that had steadily been built over the last 18 months. It is a particularly special van, with as many original parts used.

Its engine is quite special though, with a bored 1310 block and a specially matched cylinder head, cam and carburettor set up. Its never failed to impress, and been directly responsible for three special engine building commissions.

It started out as a rather rusty mini van. Here it is shown stripped out and with the front-end removed. It nearly got sold to a customer for rebuilding, but at the last minute, they changed their mind and instead had a custom cabriolet built (see the gallery article on it).

The body needed extensive work on it, in particular the front end and the rear doors (which are becoming more and more difficult to source). The picture here shows the magic metal work that Chippy has done to restore them. The floor had to be repaired too, so we developed another attachment for our spit, which has been put to good use since.

The front-end was put on: we put a saloon front panel on to give it a more classic look. It was the all rubbed down and prepared for painting. This respray took the longest to do as it went in as a "background" job, which meant it only got done in February 2003. It wasn't helped by us changing our mind about the colour. Dad's decision held sway, and it was done in tartan red with a white roof, which meant we had to think carefully about the colour scheme for the minimaster logo.

As Dad's baby, he insisted on putting it together. Here, he is putting the wiring loom back in having put the subframes and pedal box in. His particularly favourite part was putting the engine together. The spec of it he is keeping secret, but it is a culmination of much development work on the rolling road, balancing carburrettor, cam shaft, cylinder head and exhaust.

The pressure was on to get it finished for MITP, at the same time the MOT bay was being put in. I had £20 riding on it not being finished, but my dad was determined. And this was despite the nightmare we were having putting the MOT bay in, as the floor had to be dug up to put the pit in for the MOT ramp. This meant that everything had to be packed up and covered over (see our article on the MOT bay installation).

I lost my £20, and dad got the mini van ready in time. It had its debut at the MITP 2003, and attracted quite a bit of attention. Since then, the engine has been further developed, and helped to attract three commissions for engine preparations based on it. At the danger of sounding biased, it really is a thrill to drive and I've test driven quite a few minis.

I'll be updating this page with some more pictures that we have of the mini van, but sadly don't have with me at the time of updating this site.