Le Mans Mini Marcos: roll cage goes in

I cannot praise my body shell restorer enough. After all the troubles he went through in order to restore the car's floors to their original state, with balsa wood moulded in between two layers - one of which was cut out - he has now started reproducing the car's roll cage. There was not much left of the original cage as it had been cut out by someone at some stage for some reason. All that was left of it were the four feet of the cage moulded into the body shell. He cut these out and started from there, together with a series of photographs that I took last year from the similar roll cage in Gary Marlow's Mk1 Mini Marcos. And he did a superb job. The cage is exactly reproduced and ready to be moulded in soon now.

Look, no roll cage! Original cage was cut out of the Le Mans racer for some reason

And another plus a front one, seen top right here

This is the similar cage in Gary Marlow's Mk1 Mini Marcos. I photographed every detail of it last year in order to replicate it. Note that it is also attached to the roof

And there we go. The newly made roll cage for the Le Mans car, exactly how it was, ready to go in

Cut out rear foot on the left, newly made one from pressed tube of the actual cage on the right

Original front feet were cut out of the body and re-used to weld the roll cage on. The whole of it is to be moulded in once again soon

Here is the cage put in front of the car. It's diameter is very thin. It won't pass FIA rules today but it is exactly what it was like in 1966

And here it is placed on its place into the car. The fit is excellent

Timber farme was made already to be able to put the car upside down soon