A trip down memory lane...

I though this might make some folk smile...


Andrew Preston on the GRV rollers, circa 1996(?)

Back in the 1990's I was as obsessed with old Mini's as much as I am today with small French hot hatchbacks. Like many of us in the flush of youthful exuberance and the excitement of those first years of motoring, the thing I probably liked most about my new found freedom was trying to make things go faster. My 1st car was an innocent looking 998cc Mini City E, in blue with a couple of holes in the sills, I spent a bit of money on fixing that, then started to throw myself into modifying it, gently at first with some bright yellow Spax dampers...

After about a year of ownership, things had escalated somewhat, the car still had the aesthetics of innocence but that was far from the case. Along the way, I'd had the great fortune to discover an outfit (to call it a 'garage' would be heresy) not far from where I grew up. By this time it was called 'GRV Developments' and was run by a quiet, self effacing character called Jeff Goodliff. His former right hand man, Harry Ratcliffe had more or less retired by the time I showed up, but still was often on the premises in his signature cagoule with bright yellow Lotus Elan parked in the car park. In the 60's & 70's, in the guise of B.V.R.T their racing arm had had more than a little success in touring cars, initially in BMC stuff - particularly Mini's, then by the late 60's into the 70's in Fords.

It was, an amazing place, and I feel incredibly lucky now when I look back to have experienced it, the characters, the fun, the sheer level of engineering expertise. These guys were instrumental in the creation of the engine for the Ford Sierra Coswoth for example... They knew their stuff. And none more so in my opinion than the chap in the photo when it came to tuning a car on their old dyno, Andrew was an absolute master of his craft and when I was at Uni, I tried to spend as much time avoiding my studies by studying the rolling road instead. I learnt so much about the art of tuning older cars and engines, and am eternally grateful.

The creation in the pic above was a rig someone had made to run up and test their Mini race engines before fitting to the race cars, the chopped down tub of a Mk1 Mini, it never failed to cause some sort of amusement whenever it was rolled out.

Amazing times. I've got loads of old tales, but I'll keep it to that for now.

Amazing story Ed.

I'm sure the power/weight ratio was quite favourable, especially in the state it was in on the rolling road

The engine certainly wasn't going to be in any danger, lacking fresh air anyway

I would guess that places like that are becoming a lot less common these days,
the ones left are no doubt very cherished by those still running those sorts of cars today.

Titan said:

Amazing story Ed.

I'm sure the power/weight ratio was quite favourable, especially in the state it was in on the rolling road

The engine certainly wasn't going to be in any danger, lacking fresh air anyway

I would guess that places like that are becoming a lot less common these days,
the ones left are no doubt very cherished by those still running those sorts of cars today.

Click to expand...

Thanks Francis.

I can't think of anywhere like that now sadly, it was very unique, even 30+ years ago. The level of knowledge & experience was off the chart, but they were quite shy about their achievements over the years.

One of my personal favourites of their creations was the Minisprint Jeff had built and subsequently won the British Hillclimb Championship with in 1968 - (they also won the European Touring Car Championship in the same year...).




A beautifully bonkers machine, a 1293 supercharged putting out 180bhp, geared to pull 105mph in 2nd gear, Jeff used to describe it as ' a real vicious little brute'! Understandably perhaps!
The mechanics name on the front wing is that of 'big' Ron Whitam, a real larger than life character. I still have the 1070 engine Ron built for my hillclimber that never made it, in one of the sheds...

Thats class Ed.

I've never seen a Mini like that before, must have been utterly bonkers to
see one like that back then, even now it would stop a lot of people I'd say.
That is serious power, and sounds like its driver was a hell of a character

Looks like they chopped the roof as well?

Unreal that you have a 1070 engine as well Ed, they are out of the very rare S
from the time?

Titan said:

Thats class Ed.

I've never seen a Mini like that before, must have been utterly bonkers to
see one like that back then, even now it would stop a lot of people I'd say.
That is serious power, and sounds like its driver was a hell of a character

Looks like they chopped the roof as well?

Unreal that you have a 1070 engine as well Ed, they are out of the very rare S
from the time?

Click to expand...

The Minisprint bodywork idea was first created by a chap called Neville Trickett in the mid '60's for his race car, and was an elaborate way of improving the aerodynamics of the flying brick. Anyone who's built quick Mini's knows how much horsepower is needed to get them to do more that about 120mph as they seem to just hit an aerodynamic brick wall at that speed.

The Minisprint not only had the roof chop and windscreen angle tweaked, the even cleverer part was it also had a couple of inches chopped from the body below the waistline too... with some serious metalwork skills needed to achieve this to a good standard.

The resulting improvements in top end performance were tangiable, but it was a hell of a lot of work to achieve!, with various packaging problems for engine components, hence why the fuel-injection system fitted to Jeff's car is sticking out of the bonnet to achieve the correct angle of intake flow in the 8 port head.




Neville Trickett's Minisprint Racer, circa mid '60's.

The resulting car does look a little odd, with more success on some cars than others, the original proportions of a Mini being quite nice in standard form, the Sprint always runs the gauntlet of looking too squished. For a brief time a road going version was offered by a company called G.T Equipment, but I think for most folk was a prohibitively expensive proposition.


The contrast in height / profile of Sprint vs standard can be seen quite clearly in the promo shot of the time. They are a real rarity, we saw a beautiful original one in smoke grey at Harewood Hillclimb a couple of years ago, it was a lovely machine.

My Ron Whitham engine isn't a conventional 1070 'S' engine, as that used the same large bore block as the 1275, mine is based on the small bore 998 block. It's a nice thing and with the right bits bolted to it would probably make about 90 to 100bhp, which isn't bad for a little A-series. The engine I've always wanted to try was the short stroke 970 'S' engine, they can really rev if they're built correctly, they do lack torque though by all accounts.

That's a very impressive bit of Mini encyclopedic knowledge Ed.

I know what you mean about the Mini and it's less than perfect aerodynamics.
I remember coming back from Dublin last year on the M1 and getting much past 80/85mph, you'd feel the thing starting to struggle

It seems around 55/60mph is its happy place, but expecting to get a high top speed considering the power etc. will always be a bit ambitious.