Part seven in our countdown to MINI's 60th anniversary on August 26
- Mini Wildgoose
- MINI Paceman Pikes Peak
- De Tomaso Innocenti Mini
- Pininfarina ADO-34 and ADO-35
- Mini Marcos
- UniPower GT
- Mini Hustler
- Stimson Safari Six
- Buckle Monaco
- Nine-second drag car
While the MINI hasn’t deviated too far from its roots as an affordable and economical city-car, plenty of others were inspired to take it in a completely different direction.
With more than 120 registered kit cars, and MINIs modified to compete in almost every form of motorsport, here’s just a small collection of some of the wildest, weirdest interpretations of the classic British brick.
Mini Wildgoose
The last thing you’d think a Mini was capable of becoming was a camper van, but check out the Wildgoose.
Based on the classic long-wheelbase Mini van, a British conversion company called Wildgoose created this camper van kit that featured a pop-top cabin that housed an extra pair of seats, a dining table, cupboards and a double bed.
MINI Paceman Pikes Peak
If it wasn’t for nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb blowing the competition into the weeds with a record run in the 2013 Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, another Frenchman might have gained a little more attention.
In between winning back-to-back Andros Ice Trophy championships with a MINI Countryman, Jean-Phillipe Dayraut took a specially-built Paceman — complete with a 670kW mid-mounted twin-turbo V6 from a Nissan GT-R — to finish third in The Race to the Clouds.
De Tomaso Innocenti Mini
Innocenti — an Italian-owned division of the British Leyland Motor Corporation — built a series of small cars in the 1970s that were rebodied and styled by Bertone and, while much squarer in design, were more practical as they featured a hatch back configuration.
When De Tomaso bought Innocenti in 1976, it revealed a sportier version that featured moulded plastic bumpers with integrated fog lights and wider wheel-arches, a bonnet scoop and alloy wheels.
Pininfarina ADO-34 and ADO-35
Bertone wasn’t the only Italian style house to work directly with Mini, as Pinanfarina — famous for designing almost every Ferrari between 1951 and 2012 — worked with Issigonis’ team on two interesting projects.
The ADO-34 was a two-seat roadster while ADO-35 was a smart-looking four-seat coupe that together were being lined-up as replacements for the MG Midget. Running prototypes were made of each, but neither made it into production.
Mini Marcos
Probably one of the most recognised kit cars based on the MINI is the MINI Marcos GT — a sleek two-door coupe with a fibreglass body.
More than 1300 were reportedly built between 1965 and 1995, with 10 examples constructed in Australia under license.
UniPower GT
Like Marcos, UniPower (a kit car division of trucking company Universal Power Drives) had a vision for a sportier coupe based on the Mini.
But its GT — first shown in 1966 — was built around a spaceframe chassis with a mid-mounted engine layout and a wind-cheating fibreglass body that was reportedly penned by a designer from the Ford GT program as a secret project.
Mini Hustler
Looking something like a futuristic golf cart at the time (or made from life-size pieces of Lego) was the Hustler, a range of kit cars based on the Mini and created by Aston Martin Lagonda’s designer William Towns.
The Hustler 4 was the most conventional while a Hustler 6 used two rear subframes from the Mini to create a six-wheel vehicle.
There was also a Hustler Hellcat (a stripped-down Jeep-ish off-roader), the Hustler Sport (a two-seat convertible), the Hustler Sprint (a two-seat coupe), the Hustler Holiday (a Mini people-mover) and the Hustler in Wood (built from marine-grade plywood- of course!).
Stimson Safari Six
For some reason, six-wheeled cars were all the rage in the 1970s — from the Tyrell P34 Formula 1 car to the Amphicat made famous by the Banana Splits.
And then there was the Stimson Safari Six — an open-topped fibreglass kit car designed by Barry Stimson and sold by Design Developments in the UK in 1972, featuring just two seats but two rear axles. Reportedly, 20 cars were produced before the company went bust in 1974.
Buckle Monaco
Australia wasn’t immune to the Mini kit car craze either, with Sydney car dealer Buckle Motors creating its own, sleek-roofed Monaco coupe.
Buckle, which also built the infamous Goggomobil under licence in Australia, replaced the original roof with a lighter and lower fibreglass unit that shortened the overall length of the Mini by (a not unsubstantial) 100mm.
It is reported that Buckle produced around 30 Mini Monaco coupes in 1966 and 1967, the majority based on the Australian-built Cooper S.
Nine-second drag car
The wildest classic Mini has to be this; a 1965 Cooper that can clock nine-second quarter-mile passes.
How? Well, a smash repair shop in New Jersey built this monster machine by replacing the MINI’s original engine with a modern 2.0-litre Honda four cylinder mounted in the rear, and then turbocharged it to produce enough grunt to warrant a wheelie bar and result in consistent sub-10sec passes.
More Mini magic: Top five Mini in the movies Top five Mini world records Top 10 famous people who owned a Mini Top 10 giant-killing Mini motorsport achievements Top 10 things you didn’t know about Mini
Top 10 Mini’s – 60th anniversary
Keyword: Top 10 craziest MINIs