In the last issue we heard about Martin Davidson’s early Mini racing success in 1961 and 1962 and how he bounced back from a racing accident.
Inadvertently, Martin became part of the 1960s Mini tuning scene that sprang up as a result of Mini’s successes in motorsport. “Somehow or other, someone organised a lock-up in Lancaster Mews to put my Mini bits in and then Jack [Wheeler] got involved. We knew everybody from John Sprinzel’s at Lancaster Mews; he was god.
“We then found a double garage in Brook Mews North. We rented this for the Mini and people were coming to us and saying: ‘Can you tune our Mini for us?’ Jack and I were both working and we thought we’d set it up as a little partnership company. Jack came up with the name with Alpha being the first letter of the Greek alphabet and something else to do with mathematics and we called it Alpha Power Developments. Then Graham White told us about this garage in Netherhall Gardens with a flat above it, near Finchley Road station. Graham White and Jack and I all moved in there. I think there were five people: John Watson and John Brown, the rally navigator for Eric Carlsson - the best British navigator in the world – was in there at one point.”
APD hired a mechanic. “He did the work for us and we did people’s cars. I remember doing the Saatchi brothers’ Minis;
