Of the 107 Minis that raced at the Mini Festival at Brands Hatch earlier this month, there was one in particular that stood out from the crowd and really inspired. Unlike the variety of ‘saloon’ versions, Nick Paddy’s Mini Van was something completely different.
It was making its race debut at the event and looked resplendent in its ‘tweed grey’ colour scheme. It had turned heads even before it arrived at Brands: the van’s builder, Mini racing supremo Bill Sollis, joked that it had caused chaos on the M25 when travelling to the circuit on an open-sided trailer because motorists were transfixed by it!
For Paddy, the Mini Van is the latest creation inspired by his family’s long history in the motor industry. “Back in the beginning, my grandad had a garage called Paddy’s Garage in Malden,” he recalls. “This was in the 1950s and 1960s. From that, my father was working at Downton Engineering [the legendary Mini tuning company] and he started up Sprite & Midget Centre, which turned into Moss. So petrol and cars have been in the family since day one.”
But Minis have always been a particular obsession of Paddy’s. “I love the saloons, but I’ve always had a passion for pickups and Mini Vans,” he continues. “I did think about doing a pickup but there’s no way – because it’s a race seat, you have to sit it so far back, the bulkhead’s in the way. You can modify it, but it wouldn’t look right.
“People are saying, ‘Why have you done a van?’ Because we can! And I just think it’s fun. Everybody loves a Mini but, when it comes to the commercial vehicles, people do love pickups and vans.”
Having settled on the idea of racing a van, Paddy then set about making his dream a reality. And, although you would not know it from looking at the work of art in the Brands paddock, Paddy’s Mini Van had incredibly humble beginnings. “I had a van which was like a barn find,” he explains. “The only thing on the van was the boot, floor and the sides. Everything else – the roof, the doors, the front – was just rust. It wasn’t there.”
Paddy therefore sought to get various leading figures from the Mini world involved in the project of turning this lump of rust into a machine fit for the track. “I approached Bill and said, ‘Would you be interested in building a van for me?’” says Paddy, who first started racing Minis a decade ago. “He looked at me and had a glint in his eye and he went, ‘Nick, that’s a genius idea!’ Then I obviously know Endaf Owens who pretty much does all the Mini Miglia and historic rollcages, and so I spoke to Endaf and said, ‘Have you ever done a van before?’ He said he hadn’t. So I said, ‘Would you like to put one of your historic cages into the van?’ Basically I gave him a box of bits and all the panel work. He did the floor plan, assembled the cage and bolted everything all around it.”
Next it was over to Iain Andrews of Dusty’s Autos to spray the van before it was time for Sollis to wave his magic wand and convert it into a race machine. Not that he waved it especially fast. “The thing about Nick is he’s really patient, which is helpful because I’m quite slow doing things,” admits double Mini Miglia champion Sollis. “It’s been a slow-burn project, it’s just ticked along quietly.”
Paddy adds: “I told Bill there was no rush. To be honest, from concept it’s got to be five years. I’ve got a Mk1 historic so we were just building it in the background.”
The final element in the equation is a Swiftune 135bhp, 1293cc engine. As exactly the same motor that appears in the other pre-’66 historic Minis, it’s a proven quantity. But, while the powerplant may be familiar, Sollis says there were inevitably a few differences when it came to building the van.
“It doesn’t have a back bulkhead, so while the installation of the rear subframe is still Mini, the way it sits in there causes you to look at it all and think, ‘Oh, it’s a bit different, I’m not sure it’s as stiff in the back end as the saloon is,’” explains Sollis. “The wiring loom has also got an extra bit in the middle to account for the length. But it’s good fun. My workshop is built for Minis and you would be amazed – the van is actually a bit long so it makes a difference in the workshop!”
"From the front into the door, it’s the same as a saloon. But then it’s longer in the wheelbase and it’s longer behind the back wheels, so there’s more weight in the back and it does feel quite like there’s a pendulum swinging around in the back!" Bill Sollis
Once that process was complete, the next task was to make the van look the part and be a true homage to Paddy’s heritage. “My dad somehow kept an original invoice book [from Paddy’s grandad’s garage] and gave it to me,” he says. “It’s got Paddy’s Garage with a logo on the top and then it had all the text filled when they did the MOT or replaced a wheel bearing. So I’ve got a brand new one and also got pictures of the garage as it was back in the day with all the old petrol pumps. I just saw that and thought I want to put that on the van. It’s unfortunate my grandad’s not alive to see it because he would be so chuffed. That’s what it’s all about.”
Apollo Signs completed the artwork, and the stunning creation was then finally ready to hit the track. Paddy contested the Goodwood Spring Sprint in April and was surprised by how competitive the van was straight away. “We won the class in it and then I realised actually this thing is damn quick,” enthuses Paddy. “That’s the thing, it doesn’t look fast.”
Despite that result, achieved with what Sollis describes as “an old nail of an engine”, expectations were firmly in check heading to Brands for the van’s race debut – especially since the duo are still learning more about it all the time, including how it handles compared to a regular Mini.
“A lot of people ask if the sides obscure your vision when you’re in it,” says Paddy. “But, honestly, if I shut my eyes, I could be in my Mk1 because, when you’ve got your helmet on, you don’t see the rear. You could be in a Mk1 Mini apart from the handling being slightly different. At Goodwood, they’re quite long, sweeping corners so it does feel like it’s a little bit more stable. But at Brands, because it’s quite twisty and you’re having to try to get the rotation, we need to work on the set-up.”
Sollis adds: “From the front into the door, it’s the same as a saloon. But then it’s longer in the wheelbase and it’s longer behind the back wheels, so there’s more weight in the back and it does feel quite like there’s a pendulum swinging around in the back! We shook it down at Castle Combe on Thursday [before Brands] and that was the first time I had driven it in the dry. We’re right at the beginning of understanding what to do with it.”
Nevertheless, Sollis was able to qualify fourth for the second Sanwa Trophy pre-’66 Mini race. Paddy tackled the opener but retired to the pits after seven laps, feeling that tweaks they had made to the suspension were not quite right and it was too risky to continue. Further adjustments were then applied for race two and Sollis was in the thick of the action – the sight of him charging slightly sideways into Paddock Hill Bend was certainly a memorable one. He had a terrific scrap with Owens for much of the contest, including the pair braving it side by side into Surtees, but Sollis ultimately lost out on sixth place on the final tour to another key figure in the van’s creation.
“In my dreams, I was going to stay with that front pack, but that wasn’t happening,” admits Sollis, who was a little disappointed with his own performance, ranking his efforts as a mere four out of 10! “I started like an absolute amateur, which is really annoying! We didn’t throw any tyres at it this weekend and I’ve killed the brakes. It’s got great potential but, like all of the stuff we do, it’s about having fun and just enjoying ourselves and trying to bring it back mint. It’s great fun to drive – thoroughly enjoyable!”
Despite Sollis’s disappointment, results are not especially important at this stage. Instead, it was all about having fun, and Paddy was amazed by the reaction the van drew. “I love the fact everybody likes it and people can relate to it,” he says. “I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, ‘Ah, I used to have one of them and I used to sit in the back and my dad would take us down to the shops’ or whatever. It’s just quirky, isn’t it?”
And there is one particular goal that Paddy has in mind for the future. “I would love to be able to race that at Goodwood,” he concludes. “I think it would just fit in with the Goodwood retro period, but we shall have to wait and see.”
That, however, is an ambition for another day. In the meantime, wherever it may next race – and options are a bit limited in the historic world because it’s not a homologated car – you can’t help but smile at a machine that is certainly unlike any other.
