MITP - MINI In The Park Show August 12th 2018
Written on 13 August 2018 by R Hill
Yesterday saw the MINI YREGister represented at MITP at Santa Pod in Northamptonshire. The forecast had been changeable all week and we were expecting the worst. But whilst the fantastic summer we've been having was replaced by a more traditional British summer grey day the rain did mainly hold off!
The YREGister was represented on the stand by the following cars and owners:
- Blue MINI One Y102 CGC Chassis number 097 Owner; Steven
- Red MINI Cooper Y157 OBL Chassis number 122 Owner; Martyn
- Blue MINI One Y522 EAN Chassis number 194 Owner; Jerry
- Red MINI Cooper Y539 OBL Chassis number 105 Owner; Paul
- Blue MINI One Y931 OBL Chassis number 081 Owner; Richard
- Yellow MINI Cooper Works G8 UFC Cooper Works Car #8 Owner; Mark
With Andy and his daughter in her 51 plate at the show with their local MINI club.
The great thing about Santa Pod is no matter where you come from the last few miles are on some twisty b roads! I personally didn't have far to go and made the most of local knowledge traveling the 15 miles or so exclusively on such roads. Which until I got stuck behind a JCW Coupe 2 Seater was great! I ended up dropping back and catching him twice just so I could enjoy the corners!
Having only been to the Gaydon2018 show before I was immediately shocked at how "modern" MITP was in comparison. Sure, classics were still very well represented with some great examples on display as you would hope and expect but there was a vast quantity of MINIs of all ages at the event. I think a lot of this will have to do with the fact many of them wanted the opportunity of timing themselves down the Santa Pod drag strip.
We had a great location at the stand right next to the time and speed display and just across from the Mini World stand.
Of the modern MINIs on display I would say that the general theme was modified Cooper S or high end JCW. Of the "Cooper S" there we did spot a number of TCxxxxx chassis numbers though! Modifying your R50 to look like an R53 definitely seems to be popular. Ours were in the main the "purist" MINIs there.
I went armed with the huge piece of foam I had left over from replacing my scuttle vents, along with a pattern and pair of scissors for anyone that wanted some!
In all 3 MINIs had a little TLC given to them.
We all agreed that Jerry's original foam was definitely thinner than the replacement I'd sourced but that having something gives a much better look than nothing and does tidy up the overall look and give protection.
Steven was the only one brave or stupid enough to take his MINI down the strip, despite his car having its MOT due the very next day and a questionable bit of play in one of his front wheels! He did it in an "impressive" 19.7 seconds. 70mph across the line. Worried about age of engine so he didn't rev it over 5000 rpm!
We had a few visitors to the stand whilst we were there and not looking at everything else on display. One of them an ex BMW service engineer spent time chatting to us and talking about his memories of being trained on early R50 prototypes. He knew exactly how to identify the press launch cars. One piece of information he left us with was a new early feature to look out for on the ABS pump. Some of which have an old fashioned MINI logo on them.
Amongst the chat we discovered the oldest R53 at the show a respectable TC60454, UK car 187
My favorite photo of the day though is of the oldest modern Mini and classic MINI side by side. which is how I would sum up MITP. It's not a choice between the 2, they're both special in their own way and deserve to be enjoyed by all.
