Nieuwenhuis - the Dutch racing Special

Regular supplier of images Roald Rakers came up with a grand full colour shot of the Nieuwenhuis Special, taken prior to the Trophy of the Dunes races at Zandvoort in 1968. As a Dutchman this particular car haunted me for ages (click here) and eventually I found out it was built by Henk Nieuwenhuis of Geldrop in The Netherlands, who moved to the isle of Crete later on. I interviewed him back in 2013, when he told me he built the car in 1967 in the attic of his parental house. He said: “You could either watch other people race, or build something yourself on a shoestring. I decided to do the latter and started making some drawings. It was all pretty simple, I just wanted to race. Since I had some Mini engines lying around, one of them a Cooper, I simply had to use that. I was a graphical designer by trade and so wanted it to look nice, too. At first it was a roadster, later I closed the body with gullwing doors."

Unfortunately the car does not survive since Nieuwenhuis re-used most parts to built up other cars and ultimately binned the car's chassis frame, or so he told me. But perhaps somebody has more photographs of it? I have never seen any of it in roadster form, as Nieuwenhuis didn't have these either. He did send me a few, though, of it with its gullwing doors, some of which I have added below. Roald ads: "On one of the pictures you can also see the Fiat 600D of N.P. van Leersum and the Renault Dauphine Gordini of Paul Huis-in-'t-Veld. But to who belongs the yellow Mini? Rob Petersen?" I have no idea about that, but feel free to add more information, dear reader.