Like so many of us, Brian Lidgard’s first car was a Mini: “I bought it in 1989 and I’ve owned lots more over the years. Minis are special to me as it was the first car that I remember my mum and dad having. And my brother Mark and I grew up watching Minis rallycrossing on TV in the 1970s.”
Restoring that first Mini helped Brian to get his first job, setting him off on a career path in the automotive industry. “I spent a month as a university graduate working on the assembly line for the original Mini and Metro,” he recalls, “and then from 1993 to ’95 I worked on the R3-gen Rover 200 from concept to launch at Longbridge.” Next came work on development of the new MINI, from concept to running prototypes, including time working in Munich: “I was lead engineer on the R50 MINI, working on
