The classics you love, drive and restore
‘Italian Job trips are great fun – I’ve been on ten of them’
1998 Mini Cooper Sport LE John Thew, Esher
This is a really rare special edition. They made 50 in this Brooklands Green and 50 in black and then only three of them went to John Cooper’s Sussex garage to have the 90bhp upgrade. So, it has a few more horses. When we do the Italian job it keeps going in the Alps as the other Minis begin to fade. I bought it in 2018 and, because it is the LE and it had the ‘S’ works upgrade conversion, I call it Les. Most Minis have a name. I did the first Italian Job to Trento in 1990 after seeing an ad in a magazine. I thought, I fancy a bit of that... I didn’t have a Mini but I borrowed one to do it in, a glassfibre one from Domino, because I was into kit cars back then. I wrote an article for Kit Cars International and the run was so good, I decided to do it again. The following year I was going to borrow a Cooper but that fell through, so a girl at work offered me her 1979 1000 for £300.
If it went wrong it would stay where it broke. It didn’t break, but I did scrap the shell when I got home as it was so rusty. I then had a family and missed The Italian Job until 2013. I’ve done ten in total, it’s great fun.
‘It lived in a barn for 25 years and drives like new’
1972 Toyota Crown 2600 Delux Wayne Rose, Christchurch
With just two owners from new, this is as good underneath as it is on top and it’s all original. Everything works on it and it drives absolutely beautifully. It was stored for 25 years in a barn, then extracted and recommissioned. It was purchased brand new in 1972 for £2303 and enjoyed a leisurely, well-kept life in the care of Percy and Ethel. It’s said that the car was garage-kept and rarely exceeded 30 miles per hour when being casually paraded around the Surrey Hills – and that story is supported by a dealer-supplied ‘running in’ sticker that still sits in the rear window. It’s done just over 60,000 miles, plus it also has a mechanically self-seeking radio. I fell in love with it and just had to have it. Most of them have dissolved, sadly.
