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Bodgers hall of shame
iank - 11/10/05 at 07:54 AM

To avoid hijacking the roll bar thread with tales of, shall we say, lax judgment at design/assembly time I though it would be interesting to have a thread specifically to point the finger at the terminal numptys.

To kick it off, I read that Neville Trickett (designer of the otherwise rather cool minisprint) used exhaust pipe to fabricate his roll cage to save weight Worse it wasn't descovered until the car went off to Japan - so much for scrutineering.

[put a picture in my photo archive for those that haven't a clue what a minisprint is]

donut - 11/10/05 at 08:19 AM

Ooooh is that one of them Stuart Arden (or summat) mini's? All fiber glass and a bit shorter than std?

Nice!

iank - 11/10/05 at 10:07 AM

quote:
Originally posted by donut
Ooooh is that one of them Stuart Arden (or summat) mini's? All fiber glass and a bit shorter than std?

Nice!


Nearly, Stuart Arden bought the rights to the idea. Hawk cars made the grp ones (called the Stuart Arden?) before BMW got heavy with them, the originals are steel.

Neville went a bit mad and his was very very short.

http://www.statim.co.uk/Minisprint.htm has some history of the early steel bodied ones.

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/flag/ has some more information - he is/was also building his own and has a photo archive showing where to make the cuts, lots of work!

dmottaway - 11/10/05 at 03:15 PM

recent TV show about 4X4 trucks and rock crawling showed an impressive truck. impressive until is was discovered the roll bar was made of black-painted PVC tubing.

at least it looked the part.

Simon - 11/10/05 at 07:01 PM

BMW have a lot to answer for in that respect. We have a local firm that was dealing with the f/g S & A reps and he had to remove all reference to Mini, lkewise so did a lot of Mini specialist at the time.

Just cos they asset stripped Rover group, they think they can do what they like. Arrogant wnkrs

ATB

Simon

steve_gus - 11/10/05 at 07:15 PM

asset stripped rover? werent they losing 600m plus quid a year by the time they pulled out? the new mini was all they got out of the deal.

they even sold the company for a tenner! how is that asset stripping.......

Rover left the experience with the addition of the R75 and the cars they started with (45, 25).



atb

steve

wilkingj - 11/10/05 at 10:28 PM

BMW asset stripped the technology from land Rover as well... then sold it on.. Thats some of what they got.. not just the factories etc.

LR have been doing huge development on suspension, active braking, split torque convertors etc etc.. just look at the sophistication of the new Range rovers and Freelanders.. all those items were developed some years ago.. and BMW had them in their hands.

PS.. I heard that it was Land Rover that Bought BMW not the other way round.,.. Hence the name Birmingham Motor Works

They didnt leave empty handed... The may have lost the war... but are still extracting vengance today.