The Sprint was built in some relatively large numbers in the mid-60's, and involved both chopping the roof and sectioning the body. Total height reduction was somewhere around 5 inches; many were raced as aerodynamically the Mini is somewhat akin to a shoebox. Rob Walker famously had one, and there is a great picture (click here) of Stirling Moss and two other blokes pondering getting in and out of it.
Fortunately there is a photo showing one just about dead square from the side. It was easy enough to find a picture of a standard Mini and to use the wheelbase to scale them to the same size. From the wheelbase of 80 5/32", I was further able to scale the whole picture to 1:24 when printed on my ink jet.
This clearly shows that the roof was retained, and that the rear roof pillar was tilted forward, possibly with a cut going as low as the bumper. The A-pillars would also have been tilted back, by a small amount. Period references say the chop and the section were of equal depth (about 2 1/2 inches each) but this comparison implies a deeper section and a shallower chop; there were also a number of Minis that were chopped but not sectioned.
There is also a website (click here) documenting a recent build of a Mini Sprint by a fellow in the States. Very cool stuff, and one photo shows the cutlines just above the floor pan. I may have to cut a little higher in order to maintain some semblance of structural integrity. Working around the headlights may be the trickiest part. Finally there is a French chat site documenting building of one of these from the Revell kit; apparently Neville Trickett was making furniture in France in 2015. So lots of documentation.
Get out the saw!
No comments:
Post a Comment