One of our bigger jobs in 2003 was the building of Nick Roberts' Mini Cooper. Having dropped his 1.3i car off some time to fix one of many niggling problems he had with it, he went out in the Mini Van and almost immediately decided he wanted to return to a carburrettor mini.

However, we needed to use his mini as a donor car. So we used one of our old minis as a base so we could put in the carburrettor engine in based on the spec of the one in our van, and reconstructed his mini to his own custom specification.

This turned out to be quite an exciting job, as by the end practically everything was new! However, it was critical to keep some key parts of his original mini as it had significant sentimental value: he had bought it new, and was loved by him and his son! It has travelled with him all around the world during his career in the Army.

The donor body work needed quite a considerable amount of work on it, including a new front end, repairs to inner panels and bulkhead, the floor and the boot. The doors also needed new skins. Once done, the body was prepared for painting, and it went for a full respray.

In the meantime, Nick and Dad worked out the final details of the interior and engine spec, and work was started on preparing and rebuilding an engine. It was bored to 1330, and together with the 1¾" SU, the torquey road cam, polished head and the inlet/exhaust manifold and split centre exhaust, it was carefully assembled ready to go into the bright red mini, with the painted red, white and blue stripes (no transfers allowed!).

Once the car returned from the paint shop, it was waxoiled and reassembled. Hi-los were added to the rebuilt suspension, and New Ultralight 5.5x12 alloy wheels with Falkens were fitted.

The interior was put in, which included top and bottom creame leather rail bars (similar to what we have in our S-Works), a Bird's Eye dash, and plush red carpets. The seats, door cards and side cards were specially commissioned from Newton Commercial in the same creame leather. A centre console was added, and then practically every other interior accessory was put in including window winders, handles, peddles, gear lever... The end result was absolutely fantastic!

The exterior accessories were added, the engine put in and the exhaust system fitted. It was then given final checks and MOT'd. At this point it was only given a simple tune as the engine needed to be run in before it could be put on the rolling road and properly set up.

The Big Day came when it was to be collected. By now, it had been polished up and prepared for delivery. Balloons were attached and the photo album assembled. Nick was over the moon! and immediately drove it out up the road to shake it down. Apparently the seats were that comfortable that Nick's new wife fell fast asleep for almost all the journey back.

It wasn't long before Nick had done the 500 miles, and returned to have it set up on the rolling road. It now pumps out 65 bhp at 5500 rpm at the wheels¹ (the mini van is 67 bhp and the S-Works is 61 bhp), and there is more to come. The engine needs more running in, and some more tweaking when its done a few thousand miles. Nick's really happy with it: he regularly tells us of people that have stopped to talk to him about it. I know I fancy putting one together now that's just like it!