There was never any plan to own a Mini, though I did lust after a Cooper S, or maybe an MGB when I was learning to drive in my mother’s Morris 1100. Decades later, my cousins were over for Christmas, a family function, and they saw my brother Craig’s completed 1967 Camaro restoration.
Elsa, Gary’s wife said, “We’ve got a car for you. It’s annoying me, it’s under the house.” Gary added, “Come and get it, you blokes can do it up.”
Gary added that he didn’t think he’d get it restored, so he was happy to see it move on. It had been sitting under the house for 25 years. He said, “Right, give me $1000 bucks.” It was on the basis it was done up and kept in the family.
He bought the car in 1974 – it was 18 months old at the time and had come over from Western Australia. It had only done 14,000 miles when Gary bought it. By the time it was pulled out from under the house, it showed 44,812 miles – a great find.
Minis were assembled in Australia, at the Zetland plant.
Leyland Australia was struggling financially when this car was made, thanks to the P76 project. When it came to the Mini, the story goes they couldn’t afford to pay John Cooper the royalty for the enhanced versions, so they had to call it something else.
They had 600 Cooper S engines and gearboxes left, so they were used for 600 GTs. This car is body number 600 and the car is build number 1098 – the numbering started at 500. They made another 600 after this, using a different block,
aka the utility block.
A number of the Clubman GTs with the Cooper driveline were later converted by owners in to round-nose cars – something to watch for if you’re in the market for one.
I knew nothing about Minis when I got it. Gary and the family reckoned I needed a classic, and with Craig’s guidance we could do it up.
Craig is the one with the shed, so that’s where we did it up. I started off with not a lot of knowledge as I’d only played around with motorbikes.
We pulled it to bits and worked out the body was solid. There was one bit of rust, about the size of a 10-cent piece, at the bottom of the right front guard.
We took it back to bare metal. I had the colour code, and it had a beige sunroof fitted by the dealer, Dave Johnson Motors in WA. There are 156 screws holding that sunroof in, by the way! Not that I was counting …
Craig worked as a carpenter and myself a bank manager so it is easy to understand why I became the labourer and floor sweeper. Craig being a Chevy man and having a passion for drag racing found the Mini a very different beast and is convinced there is an easy way to do things and an English way to do things.
We stripped the car and spent several months getting the body straight. I travelled to Craig’s place every weekend to work on the car, clocking up over 9000km, riding my motorbike rain, hail or shine most weekends to Mount Cotton.
There was one area that gave us trouble – the driver-side back quarter. It took us a month of Sundays, as it had been damaged and had a poor repair that was full of bog.
We wanted to go for the original colour, but when we approached the paint shop we discovered they couldn’t make it the same as it had a high lead content. Once we were faced with having to pick a new colour, we went with Cadiz Orange, which is a VW/Audi tint. I like it because it’s brighter and more cheerful than the original colour, which was a bit muddy.
We went through a few samples before we decided on it. We actually spotted it on a ute that belonged to a panel beater – we rang them and they told us what it was.
Most parts were labelled when removed, but a funny thing is that Nikko pen rubs off plastic press-and-seal bags over an 18-month period, so at times I was left scratching my head trying to locate the correct part and then link the new bolts necessary to instal it.
The paint was done in the backyard early one morning before the wind picked up, and thankfully there were not too many bugs about. We did mostly everything. Well, Craig did most things and I performed basic tasks and most of the dirty crappy jobs – after all it was to be my car.
Once the body was painted we had it rebuilt by October and on the road running well by November. The first shakedown run in early November was from Brisbane to Yamba, while ambitious, we thought what could possibly go wrong!
Gary popped over from time to time to lend his wisdom and Steve Austin, the former president of the Mini Owners Club of Queensland, provided advice and sold me some useful parts.
Those parts included some suspension components, as unfortunately the hydrolastic suspension was in very poor condition. A decision was made to instal Japanese springs and KYB gas shocks.
Craig knew an upholsterer (Barry) who did the hood lining and recovered the Webasto roof which has a wooden frame.
Another friend, Dave Page, freshened up the motor with a very modest Graham Russell 266 cam, while still running the original one-and-a-quarter inch SU carburettors.
Ken Nelson from Ipswich did the gearbox which is a specialist job and something we amateur restorers lacked knowledge in.
We actually lacked knowledge in many things and so YouTube became our friend!
Leyland’s Clubman GT had different steel wheels to the standard Clubman. They were taken off at the dealership and replaced with ROH Contessa rims, which I still have, while the current wheels are Minators.
end result.
Braking is old-style – probably good for a couple of hard stops before you need them to cool off. They’re 7-inch front discs with drum rears.
The car is as close to original as the budget, and considerations about long-term reliability, would allow. Even the dealer sticker is the original 1972 item, as is the Webasto roof tag.
So how do a couple of brothers manage a resto? There were some tense moments, but they knew when to quietly walk away. Perhaps the most difficult is described by Craig: “We had one of the doors done and sitting on a trestle. Mark picked it up and dropped it – we had typical brother conversations!” These things happen.
The Australian-built GT Mini is rarer than a Cooper S, but it just does not receive the interest of a car with Cooper in its name. My GT is very much treasured and so are the people who made this restoration possible.