1959 BMC Race Transporter

Lot details
Registration No: 168 UXS
Chassis No: 5K1774-147447
Mot Expiry: None

There was a time when BMC, as it was called then, had some money and some ideas and it was in those days, the late 1950's, that they commissioned approximately twenty of these vehicles as mobile classrooms to train mechanics - great idea - when the Mini and constant velocity joints needed to be shown to dealer mechanics. Some time later two were removed from the fleet with one being used as the Works Competition Department Transporter and the other as the Competition Spares Sales Vehicle. That was this one. They were designed by Pinninfarina and built by Marshall's of Cambridge.
Basil Wales ran this vehicle as a mobile sales unit and remembers it well - well you would wouldn't you! The present owner converted this to, well as near as is humanly possible, a Works Transporter and fitted it with a shower room and kitchen to make those special events, like the Goodwood Festival of Speed or Monaco, even more special.
It was found some 15 years ago by the present owner in an old railway yard near Oswestry. It took several years of persuasion to get it from the then owner who had found it in Manchester vandalised by children who in turn had got it from a stock car racer who had hacked the back out and used it for his car. It was decommissioned by BMC/BL in 1970 and sold off when it was issued with an 'H' registration. It is now registered as a 1959 vehicle and it is free from vehicle excise duty and weighs some 6.200 tonnes.
During the prolonged rebuild the five man crew cab was reupholstered, it had a kitchenette and a shower room fitted, hot and cold water run freely via a Calor heater and there is a 30 gallon stainless steel storage tank. It also had new side windows, a new windscreen, a new alloy rear car deck, a new hydraulic rear door and slide out ramps and a reversing camera fitted and it was rewired with twin batteries. It has a five speed gearbox, two speed rear axles and it will cruise at approximately 60mph and by the time of the auction it may well still need the engine cover, the handbrake gaiter, the spare wheel housing and the wiper motor compartment covers fitting.
This is simply a sensational piece of motoring history and we can only praise the present owner for ensuring its safety. To turn it into a replica of a transporter is entirely logical as it can now be seen doing exactly what it should have done in period. Now you've seen this though how on earth are you going to transport your historic race car to a meeting if not in this?