The next issue of MINUTIA is in the mail

Another issue of MINUTIA is back from the printer and should be hitting your mailbox soon.
This issue has some terrific articles – featuring part one of a two-part story about the racing exploits of a team of Fiat-Abarths in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Team Roosevelt demonstrated the performance and reliability of these little sedans, and supported Roosevelt’s sales efforts. Other articles include reviews of a couple of shows, part three of the “Mud and Glory” series, and a piece on Austin Sevens tackling a challenging trial hill in England’s Lake District.
And the issue includes regular features such as Mystery Minicar, Ten Years Ago, Events and Classifieds. If you are a member of the Microcar & Minicar Club you can expect to receive your issue soon. If you aren’t yet a member, download the membership form to join.

Austin 7 Racer

While most people's inclination would be to preserve a pre-war Austin 7, there are folks in the UK who make their own version of an Austin 7 "Hot Rod", tweeking the engine, transmission, suspension, and pretty much everything else, to make it a real "go fast" car.
This Austin 7 racer is an example of that kind of work. The car is described as:
This well developed Mk11, styled on the lines of a 1925 Austin Works racer, is one of Tim Myall’s well known Pigsty series of Austin 7 racing specials and incapsulates his years of experience building competitive racing cars which use semi-monocoque construction whereby the chassis and floor are riveted together with a very rigid aluminium. The 1930 crankcase has a 1.5 inch Phoenix crankshaft with Renault pistons and rods and a lightened flywheel with an aluminium clutch. The ported and gas flowed block has a Pigsty full race camshaft and followers and the high compression Austin head is dry-decked for extra integrity. Fuel is fed by a 1.25 inch HS2 SU carburettor, the ignition is fired by Lumenition electronics and the exhaust is Pigsty’s own multi-branch design. The car has a 4 speed close ratio synchromesh gearbox and power is transmitted to the 5.25 back axle by a Hardy Spicer u/j’d prop shaft. The back axle is suspended on lowering brackets and the front axle and spring have been inverted to reduce the frontal area and overall height. The ride is controlled at the front by twin front Hartford type dampers made by Tim Myall. The car is stopped by Morris Minor hydraulic brakes. The engine is reasonably estimated to give 38 bhp at the flywheel and the whole car probably weighs just over 300 kilos (660 lbs) so you get a very good BHP per Ton ratio. This is a real racing car for really competitive drivers. It has successfully competed for over five years in Triple Challenge and Bert Hadley Championship events amongst others. It has had a VSCC buff form showing it as a 1929/37 Special (all major components were dated as pre 1930 apart from the back axle) so it would be eligible for their events if the current electronic ignition was replaced with a conventional system. It is a well developed and proven competition car which offers fast and competitive motor sport for a small financial outlay!
And there is even proof on YouTube that this car can move.

Hop to it - Remembering the Frogster

The Frogster was a little green machine from Opal. A cute concept that
would be fun to cruise by the swamp on a summer night.

South America here I come

Small old truck on the streets of Uruguay

Suzuki sleeper

The little Suzuki X90 was only imported here for a couple of years. I guess
the 1.6 powerplant is a bit big for our club, but the size is about right. It never
made the grade in the sales department, but with 4 wheel drive and 95hp you
would think it's populartiy would have been better.

Was that a Goggomobil in "The Reader"

Since this is Oscar season -- I want to post a question. At the beginning of The Reader (set in 1958) a car drives by in the rain. You can't see all of it, but the rear fender looks an awful lot like a Goggomobil Limo.

And there were several cars driving by at other times that looked like they could be Goliath's or Lloyds. I don't know those cars well enough to be able to tell -- and since the movie isn't in video yet, I'll have to wait.

Do you know?

Happy Morgan Racers at the 1st International Cycle Car Race (Detroit, Michigan ― July 4-5, 1914)

Have you ever seen a happier pair? The Morgan mechanic doesn't appear to be looking forward to the race. (Maybe he knows something about his driver's skills that we don't.)

And get a load of the official in black, standing between the two cars. I think his job is to keep our mechanic from heading for the hills before the race begins.

In all seriousness...this photo, found on a German Morgan site, shows a close-up of two of the 16 cars competing in the 1st International Cycle Car Race held in Detroit in 1914. More images and some questions about the outcome of the race can be found on the site.