By Jeff Glucker
The 77th Goodwood Member’s Meeting is this April. To get you excited for vintage race car action, the Goodwood YouTube channel is doling out some on-track excitement. We’re starting small here, but sometimes smaller is better. Especially when that bit of small is a real Mini race car.
Some of you may associate three-wheel motion with the lowrider set. That’s fine. That’s a different type of fun. But the original Mini is a tiny titan of three-wheel action. Set its nose into a fast corner, and that inside rear wheel is bound to rise to the occasion.
A 1979 Mini 1275 GT is the subject of the camera lens here. Click play on the video above to see what I’m talking about.
This car rips. It’s blasting around the Goodwood circuit at one hell of a pace during its practice laps. Larger cars appear, are passed, and disappear in that one tiny fender mirror. This Mini is out to make people take notice. This is the car equivalent of the new fish in prison. Rather than accept ones fate of being a potential target, this Mini smacks around some larger fools and sets everyone straight.
Don’t miss with a vintage racing Mini. It doesn’t even need all four of its wheels to kick your ass.
Looks like crazy fun. A Honda VTEC (yo) engine in a classic Mini would be another of my Powerball projects.
Instead of the Honda how about upgrading the original A-series to DOHC 16V using a BMW K1100 cylinder head? I saw a write-up for this conversion in Mini World several years ago.
Sounds fun, or maybe a whole Hayabusa engine in the back seat!
Don’t know about originators, it happens any time you have one end of the car stiff and the other soft. Jim Clark and the Lotus Cortina is firmly associated with 3-wheeling. In Australian motorsport this shot of Pete Geoghegan’s Mustang is pretty iconic too. I read an interview with the photographer who said he was lucky to get the shot, after this he went into the pits and adjusted the suspension and it didn’t lift a wheel any more.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cfc3d26c1dcae2be1948a2a71f3ae4eb0539c21093e2333482e124e65c4f482.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9c2375758156a6c8ed6c0adc1ec8263d80ff1d287b29c2da8a1e1bf4906abc3.jpg
Russ I presume you have 3-wheeled an Imp? Not very hard really, once I experienced the swing axle jacking effect on a skidpan and that was dramatic! The inside front wheel was about a foot off the deck apparently.
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That Mustang photo is insane
The car sold for Aud$320k I think in 2005, and the new owner (Des Wall RIP) took it racing. In the support races for the first Bathurst 12 Hour he won the first two, then started at the back in the last race to make it more interesting. Just amazing
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See, short swing axles are not helpful in this situation!