Austin Cars
- The company that owns the rights to the Austin name has built two new 1959-spec Minis.
- The cars are prepped for racing but are true to the original small-displacement cars.
- Both will compete at this year’s Goodwood Revival.
Launched in 1959 under the Austin and Morris brands, the original Mini achieved a cultural impact inverse to its tiny footprint. It was cool beyond social classes, extremely practical and thrifty, and also surprisingly turned out to be quite a good race car. Now, just in time for the Goodwood Revival, the original is back. (Asterisk: in limited quantities. Very limited.)Austin CarsIt was built especially for the Goodwood’s St. Mary’s Trophy historic touring car race. The company that owns the rights to the Austin name has commissioned two cars in the original 1959 specification. The St. Mary’s Trophy is restricted to pre-1960s cars, and since most of the more successful racing Minis, the Coopers and so forth, are more a mid-1960s phenomenon, they’re not usually allowed.These two cars, constructed by specialist Owens Fabrication in Wales, were carefully constructed to 1959 specifications. They needed roll cages and some other safety improvements, but every effort was made to keep them as much as possible like the production road car from the Mini’s debut year.The four-cylinder engines were supplied by Swifttune Engineering, a U.K.-based expert in British Leyland’s A-series motors. They displace just 850 cc and have a single carburetor. The Minis that won rallies and races all through the 1960s had a bit more punch, so getting the best out of these two cars will require a bit of skill. To that end, one of the two drivers for the St. Mary’s race is a former Formula 1 racer and the other a factory Aston Martin racing driver. Austin CarsPaddy Hopkirk, probably the most famous driver to win for Mini, described seeing the original Mini as just an ordinary runabout until he had a crack behind the wheel of a Cooper variant. These two cars are supposed to evoke that same spirit, like some speed-obsessed teenager has just borrowed the family car and taken it racing without asking permission. Usually They Bring Pedal CarsAustin is a frequent attendee at Goodwood, though not in the way you might expect. The brand, a subsidiary of the Burlen auto parts company, makes the Austin Pedal Cars J40. These are eligible for probably the cutest race on the planet, the Goodwood Revival Settrington Cup, which sees youngsters up to the age of 10 battling it out on the circuit in pedal cars, with a historic Le Mans–style start and everything.There’s something truly fitting about a couple of original Minis being put out by a company that makes pedal cars. It’s just further proof that the many fans of the original Mini are dedicated to making sure it never really dies. From the C/D Archive
- What Makes the Goodwood Revival the Best Automotive Event in the World
- Name That Shifter, No. 141: 1959 Austin 850 (Mini)
- The Greatest Cars of All Time: The Sixties
Brendan McAleerContributing EditorBrendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
Source: caranddriver.com
