About seven years ago I wrote about the mad Mini engines built by Graham Cooper (click here). In an old baptist chapel in Sedgley, West Midlands, Cooper (no relation) built some truly overbore engines with 1400; 1450; 1465; 1500; 1520 and even a 1556cc version, based on a 970 'S' block, using 170 thou thin-ring sand cast pistons and a unique Laystall Engineering crank. According to Car & Car Conversions magazine it was even reliable! There was also a much-modified Mini with a chopped, deseamed, lowered and much-raked body and I thought I'd never find out more about that.
Wrong. I was lucky to finally get in touch recently with Graham, now in his mid-80s. Although he owned dozens of Minis, he does remember that particular car: "I was building the engine for myself, just to see what could be done. A chap named William Cole came in and just said: how much is that gonna be? I want it and I'm gonna pay for it. He did the body that you have seen on that picture. The engine was dead reliable, we only kept on changing the head gaskets because they blew out at 8,000rpm. When Car & Car Conversions wrote about me, that was good, but we couldn't cope with the work. I was a one-man band, you see, with just my wife doing the accounts."
I also found that Graham had raced both an early Mini Marcos as well as an Ogle himself at Mallory Park in 1966! Unfortunately he doesn't remember much about the Ogle. Or actually: the Ogles, as he owned two of them: "I was buying and selling the odd car at the time and had two Ogles. They just went to people who wanted something else. But I don't even remember what colours they had." And the Marcos? "Well, that got out of control and ended upside down. There was no roll cage and it had pushed a round hole just above my head."
Thank you never the less Graham!
