IT’S AKIN TO RED BULL RACING TAKING A HUMBLE hatchback, instructing the genius of Adrian Newey to make suitable modifications, painting it satin dark blue with yellow and red graphics, then destroying the opposition in the BTCC and beyond. Not a marketing exercise but a road-going homologation special, designed in the same workshops at Milton Keynes that build Max’s cars, that becomes an unstoppable force on the track. As impossibly cute and cuddly as the little green Mini sitting expectantly in front of me is, I’m reminded that’s exactly what happened all those years ago, when the then F1 world champions really did take our national car maker’s people’s car and forge it into a formidable competition machine.
All of which must make this 1965 Mini Cooper S more authentic and -appropriate than almost any other, for it carries the Cooper family’s stamp of approval in its bloodline: this is the Cooper Car Company 75, designed and built to celebrate both the 75th
