Coys Auction - The Festival Auction
Incorporating The Excellence of Porsche
Brands Hatch
Kent

Sunday 25th May 2008

Collectors'' Items: 2.30pm
Motor Cars: 4.30pm

Few cars in competition have fuelled the imagination like the giant-killing Mini Cooper, the combination of diminutive size, outstanding roadholding and punchy power often running rings around the opposition. Following the original 997cc Mini Cooper''s launch in July 1961, Pat Moss gave due warning of the car''s potential by winning the 1961 Tulip Rally on only the car''s second outing, and the following year John Love won the British Saloon Car Championship, it was successes like these that prompted BMC to build a much more radical car, an homologation special to take on the world''s best in competition.

Launched in March 1963, the 1,071cc Mini Cooper S was the ultimate Mini, at its heart a much higher specification engine than the plain Cooper''s unit,