Mini
November 2nd, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
The biggest prize in motor rallying will be won in the UK in less than two weeks time when France’s Sebastien Loeb and Finland’s Mikko Hirvonen go head-to-head for the FIA World Rally Championship crown in one of the 
most challenging events of the year – the season finale, Wales Rally GB, from 10-13 November.
Loeb, competing for Citroen Total World Rally Team, has emerged as the most successful rally driver in history with seven consecutive World crowns in the past decade. But Hirvonen, who drives for the UK-based factory Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team, could be about to end the seemingly invincible Loeb’s reign at the top.
The Frenchman will arrive in Wales with a slender eight-point lead over the Finn – but with 25 available for a win the game is very much still on. Furthermore, an increasing number of rival crews – including those from iconic British manufacturer MINI – will be challenging for victory on some of the world’s most daunting forest stages. There is no doubt the WRC season is all set for a highly dramatic and unpredictable finish. Read the rest of this entry »
June 24th, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
Just days after showing the production version of its new two-seater Coupe, Mini has now revealed the John Cooper Works Coupe Endurance car.
This little beast is ready to duke it out with the supercars at this weekend’s Nürburgring 24 hour endurance race. The Mini will harass the field in the SP 3T class.
A full days racing at the ‘Green Hell’ is a big ask for the little Mini on debut but it has been given the virtues to possibly make it through. Under the bonnet is a tuned version of the stock N14 4-cylinder, 1.6-litre engine that uses twin-scroll turbocharging as well as direct injection. Power has been increased to 185kW with 330Nm of max torque on tap this will enable the Mini to hit a top speed of 240km/h whenever it can reach it. While exact performance times haven’t been announced, expect the 965kg enduro car to accelerate with gusto.
Keeping the special Coupe stuck to the tarmac is the same adjustable race suspension system used in the Mini Challenge race car. There’s also a race-tuned Dynamic Stability Control system and ABS braking. Keeping it safe is a full roll cage, racing seat, 6-point seatbelt and HANS system. Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
Fifty years ago Coopers were storming Formula One Grand Prix racing. Jack Brabham had won the 1959 world championship for the small Cooper team and would repeat the feat in 1960, backed by his team-mate Bruce McLaren.
In January 1961 team boss John Cooper, on his first and only trip to New Zealand, oversaw a campaign that included Jack and Bruce finishing first and second in the Ardmore Grand Prix.
The summer of 1961 also featured the first ever racing appearance of the Mini at a New Zealand Grand Prix meeting. Seven of them were entered in the saloon car race for cars up to 1.5 litres, including Neil Johns from Whangarei who is still involved in local motor sport. None of the drivers pedalling the modestly-powered 848cc Minis on the Ardmore airfield circuit could have imagined a still-secret sports version of the little car was under development.
Nine months later the Mini Cooper was launched and the model proved to be a master stroke, even though British Motor Corporation never realised it at the time. Not only was it a much better all round car than the basic model, the Mini Cooper was also a huge image booster.
Keeping the Name Alive
The Cooper is still the mainstay of Mini as well as keeping the Cooper racing name alive, and spawning a host of high performance variants. There was always going to be an element of nostalgia and magic about the John Cooper Works version of the Cooper S, a car that is inevitably a classic in its own time. Read the rest of this entry »
April 13th, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
Mini’s re-entry on to the international rallying scene has now reached fever pitch with the official launch of the team less than a month ahead of its first WRC event, the Rally d’Italia Sardegna (May 5 – 8). In an event held at the company’s plant in Oxford, England, the all-new Mini WRC Team unveiled its two Countryman-based Mini John Cooper Works WRC cars, and introduced its drivers/co-drivers for 2011.
Using the Countryman as a base, the MINI WRC car was a team effort between Prodrive and BMW Motorsport. BMW sorted out the 1.6-litre turbo engine, which was built to comply with FIA Super 2000 regulations, including the World Touring Car Championship. Prodrive will run the MINI works team on a daily basis and will also supply customer cars to other teams, in both WRC or S2000 guise.
Mini’s main objective in its debut season is to gain experience and prepare to take on a full 2012 season. This year the team will compete in six events: Rally Italy (May 5 – 8), Rally Finland (July 28 – 31), Rally Germany (August 18 – 21), Rally France (September 29 – October 2), Rally Spain (October 20 – 23) and Rally Great Britain (November 10 – 13).
The wheel men controlling the two cars will be Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo, with co-drivers Paul Nagle and Carlos Del Barrio respectively. Read the rest of this entry »
March 24th, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
The wait is almost over for Mini’s much-anticipated return to the international motorsport stage. This rally season, the new Mini WRC Team will compete at selected rounds in the FIA World Rally Championship. The initial aim is to gain valuable experience, in order to be perfectly prepared for the complete 2012 World Championship season. The Mini John Cooper Works WRC has been developed by Prodrive, based on the Mini Countryman. It’s equipped with a 1.6-litre turbo engine derived from the Mini production models, which was developed by BMW Motorsport for use in a series run 
according to FIA Super2000 regulations, including the World Touring Car Championship. Beside its works involvement with the Mini John Cooper Works WRC, Prodrive is also supplying customer cars to private rally teams.
“The FIA World Rally Championship is the pinnacle of rallying, making it the ideal platform for demonstrating the competitive spirit of our brand,” says Ian Robertson, Member of the Board of Management, Sales and Marketing BMW Group. “Experience is a very important factor in motorsport. For that reason it is essential we learn as much as possible within a very short time, in order to make up ground on our rivals. The new regulations mean the gap to the top is smaller than it would have been at another time. We want to annoy the opposition as soon as possible.”
The Mini WRC Team will be putting its faith in experienced drivers when it faces up to the challenge of the WRC for the first time in 2011. Kris Meeke (GB) and his co-driver Paul Nagle (IR) have proven their ability in impressive style, listing the 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) title as just one of their achievements. Daniel “Dani” Sordo (ES), who will compete alongside his new co-driver Carlos del Barrio (ES) in 2011, has many years of World Championship experience. Twenty nine podium finishes from 84 starts in the WRC just go to show the former Citroën works driver has what it takes to battle it out at the top. Read the rest of this entry »
March 15th, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
If you’re planning a trip over to the UK in the coming months then it might pay to add the National Motor Museum into your itinerary because a new exhibit has just been unveiled.
The National Motor Museum latest exhibition, Feats of Endurance, features vehicles that have stretched the boundaries of motoring endurance both in extreme conditions and on challenging terrain.
Throughout history mankind has felt the need to explore and discover. With the invention of mechanised road transport, new challenges became possible and motorists and motorcyclists were soon pushing both themselves and their machines to perform new feats of endurance. Long journeys have tested drivers and machines from the earliest days of motoring, one of the earliest being the 1907, 9,000 mile, Peking to Paris Rally.
Adventures have often taken vehicles where few thought it possible; penetrating the jungles of Asia and the rain forests of South America, enduring the frozen expanses of the Arctic and the vast arid deserts of Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. Many adventurous journeys have also been undertaken on bicycles with continents crossed and mountains climbed.
The vehicles on display in the exhibition illustrate all these motivations, from the Austin Westminster that completed a 17,500 mile drive from Norway’s North Cape to Cape Town, South Africa in 1955, to the British team driven Land Rover 110 Turbo Diesel that won the Camel Trophy in 1989 and the 1978 Mini 1275GT and trailer that has twice driven round the world for charity. Read the rest of this entry »
February 3rd, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
Mini has returned to Monte Carlo and this time it’s the original iconic version that won the famous rally in the sixties meeting up with the latest Mini WRC version.
Rauno Aaltonen has been driving the 1960s Mini in the recent Rallye Monte Carlo Historique and was met at the race’s conclusion in the early hours of the 2nd February by Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo, the drivers who will revive the brand’s rallying tradition this year.
For Meeke and Sordo this is a stop on what is a busy schedule leading up to the first appearance of the Mini WRC on selected FIA 
World Rally Championship events in 2011, prior to a full assault on the championship in 2012. Then on the 13th April comes the official launch of the Mini WRC Team at the plant in Cowley, Oxford where Mini models are produced.
Aaltonen, who won the 1967 Monte Carlo Rally in a works Mini, covered 4,101 kilometres on this year’s Rallye Monte Carlo Historique that took him and his co-driver, Helmut Artacker, from the start in Marrakech on the 26th January to the principality’s harbour for the finish in the early hours of the 2nd February.
His comments on the event were: “It has taken us a long time to get here and it was a good trip. In the old days a Mini in rallying form was rather uncomfortable, but in this Mini we had modern shock absorbers and it was so comfortable that after over 4,000 kilometres I am not tired at all. There was snow in places, but we were not told about this so we did not have the appropriate tyres and so lost over a hundred places. It was really busy on this last leg, we were really fighting hard and it was a great atmosphere.” Read the rest of this entry »
February 2nd, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
To celebrate the 50th year of the first Mini Cooper production, the Cooper Car Club and Register is celebrating with a display at the annual NZCC Intermarque Concours d’elegance Show at Ellerslie Racecourse on this Sunday, February 13th.
The Austin and Morris Cooper cars, sports versions of the Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor and developed by John Cooper of Formula 1 racing fame, rolled off the BMC production line in 1961. The initial version was a tuned 997cc version, followed in 1963 by the legendary 1071cc Cooper S which went on to win the Monte Carlo Rallye, the 998cc and the 970cc and 1275cc versions in 1964. Production of Coopers’ paused in 1971 until re-started by Rover in 1991 and continued until the last Mini Cooper S rolled off the Oxford assembly line in 2000 driven by 60’s popstar Lulu MacLachlan. The Cooper name was inherited by BMW Group and was the first new generation Mini model introduced in 2001.
As well as capturing many Rally titles including three Monte Carlo Rallye victories in 1964, 65, and 67, Cooper cars were dominant in 1960/70’s World saloon car racing, including the famous win in the Australian Bathurst 500 in 1966 where Cooper S cars filled the first 6 placings.
The Cooper Car Club will display early Mini Cooper models as well as the current Mini Cooper models now made at BMW’s Mini Plant in Oxford.
One of the feature cars on display, will be a 2010 Mini John Cooper Works F1 50 courtesy of Mini Garage, a limited production model where only 500 were made worldwide. This limited production model celebrated the Cooper Car Company’s first F1 Grand Prix win in 1959, and will sit alongside its Grand-father model cars. Read the rest of this entry »
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