French fellow-writer and Mini-man Enguerrand Lecesne pumps out his books at a considerable higher rate than I do! And I was both surprised as I was thrilled to find his latest work in the post this week. It's called 'La Mini De Mon Père', which makes it the latest volume in the French '... De Mon Père'-series. This series has proved to be a big hit in France for years now, starting with Citroëns, Renaults and Peugeots, but now expanding to non-French vehicles also.
It's not the first and most definitely not the last book covering the Mini's story from conception to the end of production in 2000 and using stock photography mostly. But at least Lecesne is trying to focus on the French market when he can, illustrating his words here and there with a picture of Alain Delon behind the wheel of a Moke or French singer Christophe (real name Daniel Bevilacqua) looking ever so cool leaning casually on his Paris-registered Cooper 'S' - this one really should have been on the book's cover!
It's when he focuses on France when things get interesting, I think. There's a spread on Taka-Hira's creations as there is one on the wacky Hrubon Phaeton / Schmitt and one on the Quasar Unipower. The derivatives chapter is not too long, focussing on the Mini Marcos, Broadspeed GT, Unipower GT, Mini Jem, MiniSprint and aforementioned Quasar, but it has some lovely photos of Marcoses and a Jem raced and rallied by Frenchmen which make it worth the purchase. 120 pages and you can find it here.
