FEATURE: 1967 MINI COOPER S MK1

Even if you’re not old enough to have seen it happen in real time, anybody with even a passing interest in Bathurst folklore will be familiar with the crushing performance of the Mini Cooper S at Mount Panorama in 1966.

With Finnish superstar Rauno Aaltonen and homegrown hero Bob Holden at the helm of the winning car, the first nine outright places were filled by Coopers with a who’s-who of race-driver A-listers including Barry Seton, Bob Jane, Fred Gibson, Bruce McPhee, Barry Mullholland, Harry Firth and John French all helping out behind the wheel.

The best finishing non-Mini? A VC Valiant a full six laps down and finishing tenth. That’s dominance like the Great Race has not seen before, since or ever.

The gearstick is in easy reach in the little Mini. Image: Coventry Studios

This particular car is kind of the holy grail of collectible Minis, because it’s a fair dinkum Cooper S Mk 1 and it’s a matching-numbers car from tip to tail. And it’s green. Funny thing, though, is that it’s not British Racing Green (of which there are about six different shades it turns out). Instead, it’s called Lake Green, and the paint on it now was eventually matched by eye. So there.

The Cooper is owned by a bloke called Peter Rosier who has owned the car for an absolute age, having tucked it away in a shed after many years of club-level motor-sport in the wee beast.

But it was Peter’s mate, Michael Holloway (himself a car collector of some stature with no less than five Cooper Ss of his own) who eventually called time on the Mini’s hibernation and convinced Peter that he should either “… restore it, or sell it to somebody who will,” Michael recalls when we tracked him down for a chat. “Then stupid me says: Oh, I’ll help ya.”

The wheels are another highlight of this Mini. Image: Coventry Studios

Eventually, with Peter helping and Michael taking the reins, the pair performed a nut-and-bolt, bare-metal resto of the Mini, and the only thing more amazing than the end result, says Michael, is the originality they were able to retain.

“When I say matching numbers,” Michael told us, “I mean the original gearbox casing, the original engine, even the wiper motor is the one the car was built with. The starter motor even has the correct date-code stamped on it.”

The story continues inside, too. “Most of the seats are original, but I had to retrim the top of the back seat because the upholstery was a bit faded. Which meant the top of the seat was a slightly different colour, so I also retrimmed the parcel tray so that the colours match.

“Of course, the original vinyl wasn’t available by then, so I found a green material from a Holden Commodore that was so close it doesn’t matter. So I bought the last roll of that in existence. The door cards were remade and the carpets are new.”

But even with this devotion to originality, Michael and Peter were careful not to recondition the history out of the car. The engine is a great example of that.

“Instead of the standard carbs, this one has a dual-throat 45mm Weber. And that’s because that’s what it had when Peter was racing it. He’s got the twin SUs tucked away, but this rebuild was all about preserving the car’s heritage, not it’s original brochure specification.”

The rest of the engine, however, is mostly stock apart from a 40-thou overbore (for 1310cc of swept volume) and the cam is a 140-grind that just helps it breathe a bit better. But the crank and con rods are all stock.”

The car been carefully stored by Peter those three decades ago, so it was in remarkably good nick when the covers were pulled off and the paint-stripper applied.

“It had had a hit in the rear quarter, so when we bare-metalled it, we repaired the repair. We also replaced things like the door-hinge pins and every rubber bush on the thing.

Michael reckons it turned out to be a really lovely thing to drive. And even Peter relocating to a new house many suburbs away mid-project didn’t slow them down. In fact, the car was simply moved to Michael’s workshop where the work continued.

“Peter would come up to my place every now and then and spend a day doing little jobs on the thing. I wanted him to be involved in the process, because that’s really important: He’s had the connection with the car for god-knows-how-many years, not me.”

Even so, you can tell Michael’s proud of the work he was able to do for a good mate, and also with the way the car turned out.

“I’ve told Peter he owns the body, but I own the soul.”