Words and photography by Zoe Harrison
published in mini magazine, June 2000
Trevor himself has owned all manner of Minis in the past, both here in the UK, and over in Canada where he has lived for many years. "I used to race Minis on the ice over there," he reveals. "My first car was a Mini, and to me it's the only fun car you can have."
Getting this Mini Cooper into its present immaculate condition took 18 months of hard work. To begin with, although he'd been assured by the dealer that the car was complete, it was actually without an engine and gearbox.
"When I got there it was a case of well, there's an engine block over there, and choose one of those cranks from over there," he recalls. "What you don't get is all those little nuts and bolts."
Nevertheless, after numerous trips backwards and forwards, Trevor managed to obtain a reasonable 1275cc cylinder block, which he's bored out by .060 inches and fitted new pistons to suit. "Finding a standard block is very rare and expensive," he adds. The block also had to be drilled to take a modern four-bolt oil pump.
To this set-up, Trevor has fitted a Piper cam, which turned out to be a cheaper option than re-grinding the original. "I put a Duplex vernier timing chain on, because I wanted to dial the cam in properly, and roller rockers, because 1.3 roller rockers are exactly 1.3, where old S rockers are only approximate," he comments.
Trevor had the twin SU carbs restored by Burlen Fuel Systems, who also tracked down a fuel pump for him, and he's very impressed with the service. He's equally pleased with the new cylinder head from Racespec Engineering.
"What I was aiming for was to get the horsepower a little better than the original S," he declares. "The S was only 58-59 bhp at the wheels, and this was dyno'd at 64 bhp, so I did exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to use the original 1.25 in carbs and if you go much over 65 bhp you're wasting your time because the engine can't breathe that fast with those carbs. I developed the engine to be compatible with that horsepower."
The gearbox and diff has all been rebuilt as well, although the first 'box Trevor had for the Mini went back because of a repair to the casing. He had initial teething trouble with the diff too, which had a slight oil leak. Trevor stripped the unit down again, and re-shimmed and re-sealed it to cure the problem.
Apart from this, the Mini Cooper was in very good condition mechanically. "When I took the subframe apart it even still had MOWOG stencilled onto it," he recalls. "Even the hydrolastic units were in pristine condition, still with the blue band on." Many of the bits such as the subframes and the twin fuel tanks were powdercoated to preserve them.
The body itself needed a lot of work to bring it up to scratch, much of which was carried out by Mini Machine in Darlington. Trevor was anxious that MkI Cooper details were retained. "On the 1967 S all the boot board brackets and the cross brace on the front were pop-riveted in rather than spot-welded, because the Mini was still being developed," he reports. "I've had it seam-sealed properly, which wasn't done when it was made, and Waxoyled it heavily in all the cavities you can't see."
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