1979 Maguire Mini Twin-Cam TS.79.DH

It’s certainly very rare that a John Maguire Mini comes to the market, especially one as original as this, and with a very interesting back story. It was built at John Maguire Racing in Coventry by Tom Shepherd (TS in the chassis number) for its first owner, Dave Horsley (the DH in the chassis number). He couldn't get on with it and very quickly sold it to Peter Wartenburg, from Munchengladbach. He had a company called PW Racing and he ran the car in Germany for a few years with a normal five-port race engine. Photographs are in the electronic archive that accompanies the car of the Mini on pole at the Nurburgring and with the ‘P1’ board after victory! It comprehensively beat everything over there and was banned from the series so Peter used to come over the channel and race in the Wendy Wools series alongside Peter Baldwin and Doc Enderby. The car wasn't quick enough over here so Peter got involved with an ex-Weslake employee called Gary Oldfield, who had designed a 16-valve cylinder head for the A-Series along the lines of the BDH, and made all the casting patterns. Peter and Gary machined and built-up the first head which was duly installed into the Maguire and launched to the German press in 1989. Peter did considerable testing here and in Germany, ironing out many of the bugs, most of which centred around reliable valve springs. In 1993, he built the final version of the engine, however personal matters meant that he wasn't able to devote the time to further development. Coincidentally, at the same time, the rights to the head design had been acquired by Kent Automotive Developments.

The story continues in our vendor’s words; 'The car, prepped and all ready to go went into a storage container until 2020 when Peter decided to put it up for sale. I had been looking for a Maguire mini for some time, and when the word came to me it was for sale, I contacted Peter and made him an offer. During our discussions I explained that Tom Shepherd (the cars builder) was my cousin, and unbeknown to me Peter knew him well and contacted him to vet me. I met Tom at Autosport that January, and he walked up and said 'Congratulations on buying Peters car' It was the first I heard that Peter had decided to sell it to me.'

'Later that year we put the car on SH Engineering’s dyno, where it recorded 167bhp, and Tom Shepherd recommissioned the car (the company being GT Services) and prepared it for the first Prescott Mini Festival, in May 2021. I discovered during this process that Tom had never driven one of his Maguire creations, so I asked him if he would like to run it instead of me. At Prescott, Tom, having never driven there either, came 2nd overall from an 80-car entry, posting a 47 second run. I then took it to the inaugural York Motor festival Wolfstone Hillclimb where we came second overall again, missing FTD by 0.1 of a second.'

Full specification:

Bore 73.5 x stroke 76 giving 1,298 cc, Ivey steel crank and rods, forged pistons, light steel flywheel assembly, 16v twin-cam cylinder head with 260 duration cams, twin 45 DCOEs with some Norman Seeney internals, 5-speed Jack Knight involute dog gearbox with LSD. The gearbox is unusual because, at the time of development, Rover cast some special gearbox casings for Jack Knight Developments with the JKD logo in the front, especially for the 5-speed conversion. Very few exist.

The car has GP4 AP four-pot brake calipers, vented discs, coil-over spring/shock absorbers, new seat and harness (old seat is with the car), internal side-exit exhaust and weighs around 450kg so is about 370bhp per tonne. It has current Avon intermediates on solid Revolution 8”x13” and a set of magnesium-centred Revolutions 10” and 9”x13” for slicks (not current). It also has Motorsport UK logbook.

Not surprisingly, this dramatic, innovative, 370bhp/tonne evolution of the humble ADO15 features in Chris Harvey’s book Mighty Mini. Only approximately half of the original 25 or so of Maguire Minis still exist, with very few in this unrestored condition, and consequently this is a special opportunity to acquire a fantastic piece of 1970s, home-spun Midlands' motorsport history.