Lilly the Pink

Progressing swiftly from Norfolk cruisers to International 14 racing boats - the aquatic equivalent of Group B rally cars - James Hoseason steadied his sea legs and embarked on new adventures in motorised madness. James has made quite a name for himself in rallying since then, and built around him a vety dedicated and professional team of largely volunteer helpers.He also has the pinkist Mini in the world. We like superlatives at Mini Spares (remember the fastest road-legal Mini in the world),so this one fits in vety nicely. How about 'The fastest rally Mini in the world'? (any arguments to the usual place).
A useful by-product for us in this particular car is that,after ttying and failing with other gearboxes, James has become hooked on the Mini Spares/Tran-X heavy duty 5-Speed gearbox. He explains later. The Pink paintwork may burn holes in your retina at twenty paces, but this is a genuine world class rally Mini,using a world beating 5 - speed gearbox. Or in the words of the song - 'most efficacious,in evety case'. James Hoseason tells it his way ...
Many people ask me what a man whose surname is synonymous with boating holidays is doing rallying a radical fluorescent pink mini? The answer is I haven't got a clue! Having spent 3 years codriving in an assortment of Peugeots. Escorts and a Lotus Sunbeam. I decided it was time for a
change when my driver retired and headed off to be a lawyer in Jersey.
Having always wanted a small car with giant killing power. A mini was the obvious choice. I considered various ideas for a power source but none of them really appealed. However. a small ad for a little known company called KAD led me to visit some sheds in Kent. Convinced that here was the potential for something special, I committed to a project with KAD.
The donor car was bought for £30 from an Italian student. The car took the best part of a year to build. Purely a tarmac car, it's light. stiff and low. The suspension on the front is standard MiniSpares Hi-Lo's, but on the rear, something special hangs down. A Speedex beam-support was strengthened and triangulated. and mounted in place of the rear subframe. Extensive work was done on the beam to make it strong enough. Standard rear trailing arms are then modified to take Spax coil-over shocks. These are mounted onto special large bolts tapped into the inside of
the stub axle.
The car's first event was the awesome Imber Plains Stages on Salisbury Plains' Military roads. This is one of the fastest rallies in the country. In pouring wet conditions, and on night stages, we set times faster than various Metro 6R4s and Escort Cosworths. However, on the way back to our overnight halt the hotel, Lilly (The Pink) was hit by a drunk driver in a Ford Capri. That was the end of our debut event, and the end of the season too. Extensive damage meant a long and exhaustive rebuild.
The basic KAD set-up has been extensively reworked by John Powell at Power motive Engineering. John is a mini enthusiast himself, and the team's official engine builder. John has made many modifications to the head, and the engine really does give a genuine 185 bhp, and just a shade over 130 ft/lb of torque. As such itwould be an understatement to say the car is lively! It is a very physical car to drive, and is very very quick.
During the car's post Imber rebuild, Rob Low, the team's engineer began dealing with MiniSpares. Previously we had just bought gear from one of any number of different mail-order houses. Then one day Rob told me that he'd found some bloke who "really knew what he was talking about ". From then on we dealt exclusively with Keith Calver at MiniSpares. It might sound corny but they were the only company that (A). Knew exactly what they were talking about &.. (B). Delivered stuff on time. At first Keith didn't believe that a team with a car that colour could be serious - but he soon
changed his mind !
After a lot of hard work and help from the teams many sponsors we were ready. The team went out and began to compete again. However, as predicted reliability was a big problem. Just about everything that could break, broke. And some things broke again and again. It got very depressing. We'd set some storming stage times and then something would break - back to square one. People told us that it would never work, that it was too powerful, and that if we fixed one bit, the problem would move elsewhere. Those pundits were right. We fixed all the problems bar one : The gearbox. It was a constant problem. The car was using a crown wheel and pinion per rally. Not good and Not cheap. Then, after securing some bigger sponsorship, the team entered the FAST tyres National Tarmac Stages Championship.
The opening round was the Heart of England Stages at Morton- in-the-Marsh Fire Training School and Cornbury Park stately home. The team see-sawed between first and second in class all day long. Then, on the penultimate stage our gearbox let go. On further investigation, it was apparent
that the case had actually split in half. It just wasn't up to the job. Thoroughly dejected we took stock of the situation. We were already running what was supposed to be state of the art box: the JKD 4 speed dog. And that had just blown itself in half (another aircraft quality job eh?-G.A.) What
to do? Keith. Calver to the rescue. He and another MiniSpares aficionado Bill Sollis both recommended we spoke to a company called Tran-X.
With Keith Calver as mediator a deal was struck with MiniSpares. TranX would develop a gearbox up to the job, and Lilly would become the MiniSpares Transmission test car.After all if it lived on Lilly it would live on anything! Four months and many hundreds of hours later Tran-X have come up with the goods, and the results have been nothing short of astounding. .. The goods .. in question were a five speed dog box. Bullet Proof was the request and that's what we got. Dave Hirons at Tran-X designed and manufactures the original MiniSpares five speed. And now he's made a super-strongcompetition five speed.
We put it in the car, put 200 road test miles on it and then took it to RAF Sculthorpe for the 1994 Natwest Midsummer stages. Penalised for twin cams we were running in the 1600 - 2000cc class. We set fastest time in class on stage one, and never looked back. It gave us the class win, with the nearest car to us being a 1900cc 205 Gti with a 5 minute cushion. We put the car into the top ten overall. With two exceptions every other car in the top ten was an Escort Cosworth !
But what of the gearbox? Well, I have to say it's Incredible, just Incredible! It's the most positive change we've ever had, and it feels so strong. You've got to have faith in the box to be able to commit properly. We give it 6000 rpm off the line and take it all the way up to 9000. It's just got to be strong. After the event we stripped the engine box. The result: No problems.
This is because Tran-X and MiniSpares are fanatical about quality. Dave wouldn't let me have the box until he was absolutely 100% certain that it was right. Dave and I spent hours talking about ratios and he persuaded me to bring the top speed down from 1 18 to just 87 mph. The reason for this is that you get up to your top speed much quicker, and your acceleration out of corners is fantastic! Our 0 - 60 time is now just 4.5 seconds. So, what's next. Well, the box has gone back to Tran-X for evaluation. They are going to fit a MiniSpares plate-type diff and are now working on the MiniSpares Six Speed. BUT it will be something quite quite special : Watch this space!

James Hoseason

Importation rules regarding vehicles are very specific: Only those over 25 years in age may be brought in to the USA without compilance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).