Seymour and I got together in October 1994. At that time he was still a standard 1000cc Mayfair. His body work was in pretty good condition but he lacked street cred so it was decided that a make over was required.

The first addition was a set of 7x13 Minilights with group 5 arches to give him that aggressive stance. The chrome work was next, grill, bumpers e.t.c. He was starting to look the part by now.


In January 1995 I decided that we would take part in The Italian Job, a charity run from Brighton to Italy, loosely based on the film of the same name. The purpose of which is to raise money for underprivileged kids while having a lot of fun in the process.

More power was going to be needed!

A lucky conversation scored a 1380cc engine with MG metro head and a race cam. This was duly fitted and run in with a 90 mile a day round trip to work. A rolling road session later measured 85bhp at the wheels....now we were moving!


Lady Luck continued to smile when I got a set of tan Recaros from the people we parked next to at Herts 95'. They matched the rest of the interior perfectly.

The final addition was a rear roll cage, just in case, as we were stopping off at the Nurburgring for a few laps on the way home.

A friend went on The Job the year before and rolled his car, mind you he did have his leg in a full plastercast when he was driving, but that's another story......

In true Mini fashion the problems didn't start until the heat was on. After 2 months of faultless running Seymour decided to play up as soon as we got off the ferry in France. Despite this we made it to Italy and back, covering a fair bit of Europe on the way. As soon as we landed back in England Seymour decided to start running perfectly again!

In 1996 I made the decision to emigrate to Auckland, New Zealand. Naturally Seymour would have to come to, so he was duly loaded into a container for a 3 month boat ride to NZ.

He was pressed into service as soon as we arrived and was used as daily transport until November 2000 when a combination of rust and poor servicing lead to a failed WOF (Same as MOT). I decided this was the time to pull him apart and give the body a thorough restoration. This process took 18 months in total, progress pictures can be seen on the restoration page.

As things stand now Seymour is used as fun car and comes out regularly on fine days and for club events.