How a Mini Moke fan from Bootle became Britain's newest car manufacturer

A BOOTLE man has become Britain's newest motoring manufacturer after he put a cult classic car from the 1960s back into production.

Charles Andersen said that he has been able to start remanufacturing the AMC Cub, an open-top fun car modelled closely on the original Mini Moke, for the first time in 20 years after he secured a new supply of parts.

He told Life On Cars: “As far as I know nobody else in the country in the country is making anything else like this - all the other firms who were building Mokes like these shut down years ago, so it's something that's completely unique.

"The reaction you get people when you drive it is incredible - everybody smiles and waves at you, and you get people beeping their horns at you as you go past. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's a lot of fun."

Mr Andersen's firm, Andersen Motor Company, originally produced the Cub in the 1980s using parts from the Mini, but was forced to end production a decade later when the supply of parts for the cars dried up. It is only now, thanks to new parts being produced for the original Mini that he is able to put his car, similar to the Mini Mokes used in the hit ITV show The Prisoner, back into production.

He added that while other Mokes were available from Chinese firms, he added that his is the only one made in Britain and the only one to pass Individual Type Approval tests, including fully-tested seatbelts for both the front and rear seats. The car also uses the same engine as the Mini - a 1.3 litre A-Series engine, in this case lifted from an MG Metro - but just like the original Mini Mokes of the 1960s is not fitted with doors, windows or a roof.

 

A car fully built at Mr Andersen's Bootle factory will set you back around £12,000 - less than the cost of a brand new MINI - but aspiring engineers can build themselves one for as little as £4,000, using parts from an original Mini used as a donor car.

For more information about the AMC Cub, visit the Andersen Motor Company website online at www.amcgb.com or give Charles a call on 07903 573050.

Keep an eye on Life On Cars over the next few weeks for motoring correspondent David Simister's thoughts on what the Cub is like to drive. 

Ormskirk MotorFest 2012 preparations move up a gear

PREPARATIONS are well under way for a motorsport spectacular later this month - and you're invited to join the action.

With less than three weeks to go before the Ormskirk MotorFest rolls into town in Sunday, August 26, the borough council and organisers Aintree Circuit Club are making final calls for volunteers to act as marshals and for owners of racing machines from the 1950s and 1960s to bring their vehicles to the event.

Councillor Martin Forshaw, the council's portfolio holder for planning and development, said: “We are all getting very excited about this year’s Ormskirk MotorFest. Make sure you put the event’s date in your diary and don’t miss a thoroughly enjoyable event.”

Last year's MotorFest helped Ormskirk enjoy its busiest ever trading day, with more than 10,000 visitors packing into the town centre, and this year the council, Aintree Circuit Club and main sponsors The Belfry Group are determined the event will be even bigger.

Among those who have already offered to help are members of residents' group New Way Tenants and Residents Association, who told Life On Cars that they would be volunteering as marshals to the positive impact the car and bike spectacular has on Ormskirk.

Group member Jane Thompson said: “The MotorFest is an excellent day out and I am in full support.

"This is an excellent event which puts Ormskirk on the map. Members of NWTRA are volunteering to help promote Ormskirk market town."

Organisers Aintree Circuit Club have also launched their new Friends of Ormskirk MotorFest scheme this week, which for a membership cost of £5 gets visitors a collector's badge, a specially-produced event brochure - and the chance to get a ride in one of the event's more exotic entrants around the streets of Ormskirk.

Signed up to appear are supercars and competition motorcycles, including one ridden by the late Joey Dunlop, a former world motorcycling champion. There will also be MG racing and rally cars, Metro 6R4, Group B rally cars and racing motorcycles, and the Santa Pod Raceway Top Fuel Dragster. Some of the vehicles will take part in parade laps around the town, and static displays will be on Moor Street, Aughton Street and Coronation Park.

If you have a competition car you'd like to enter, would like to volunteer as a marshal or would simply like more information about the event, visit the official Ormskirk MotorFest website at www.ormskirkmotorfest.com

Why can't karting be an Olympic sport?

AT LEAST one of the Simister clan's spent the weekend in Weymouth watching Team GB set sail in their quest for medals.

It's just a shame I don't share their enthusiasm; I'm not militantly anti-Olympics by any means, just relatively indifferent in much the same way I am with any global sporting spectacular that doesn't involve engines. The only horsepower at London 2012 is the sort Zara Phillips enjoys.

Which got me thinking; why can't motorsport feature in the Olympics in future? If you count the first modern Olympic Games as the IOC's efforts in Athens in 1896, then the games aren't even as the old as the car itself, a chap called Karl Benz having invented his first runabout a decade earlier. Almost as soon as Karl had finished did someone suggest it'd be sporting to race one of these newfangled horseless carriages against another, and as a result motorsport has generally been regarded as a proper form of competition for more than a century.

It's about time motorsport finally featured in the Games and I've got just the thing lined up; karting. Because it's the stepping stone to almost every other form of automotive competition, it's the fairest and purest form of motorsport, giving everyone from the ballsy beginner to the hardened Le Mans veteran a fair crack at the whip.

All sorts of Olympic sports involve some sort of technology by their very nature, from Bradley Wiggins' bike to Rebecca Adlington's swimsuit, both of which I'm sure are more sophisticated and scientifically developed for speed than their supermarket equivalents. Karting, I know from personal experience, puts everyone on a level playing field and sorts out the wannabes from the truly quick - and there's no room for racing driver excuses.

It'd also finally answer one of motorsport's trickiest questions - who, truly, is the fastest? It's hard to argue Michael Schumacher is undisputably the best driver of modern times if his string of championship wins were backed up by the might of Ferrari married to the technical genius of Ross Brawn (we'll gloss over Michael's ‘difficult third album' drives for Mercedes). But if he beat Ken Block, Sebastian Loeb, Lewis Hamilton (pictured) and The Stig in identical karts to take the Olympic Karting gold medal, we'd know for sure. Providing there's no doping involved, of course.

I know you're probably thinking it's a sport that involves more machine than man but if you gave the cream of the world's drivers identical karts and set them off on an identical London 2012 track, it'd be fair game. And - to me at least - even more watchable than the beach volleyball.

Burning rubber at the Jaguar Land Rover factory

IT’S NOT every day one of Britain's biggest car companies lends you an enormous factory car park to play with.

Yet that’s exactly what Jaguar Land Rover did when they lent Aintree Circuit Club the use of part of their Halewood factory – home of the Range Rover Evoque – for an AutoSolo event earlier today, as part of the club’s calendar of motorsport events.

AutoSolo is a great form of entry-level motorsport and a bit of a petrolhead thrill in its own right, because you can enter in pretty much anything in have and blast. The inaugural event at the Jaguar Land Rover factory attracted a pretty eclectic entry list, with everything from cheap ‘n’ cheerful Micras and Corsas, hot hatch classics like the Peugeot 205 GTI and the Golf GTI, and rear wheel drive roadsters like the Caterham Seven and the Mazda MX-5.

The event, held in the factory’s 50th anniversary year, saw an expansive car park converted into a twisty course, which more than thirty cars took a crack at trying to complete.

The competitors made the best of the changeable conditions and used the damp course to get some of the more colourful entries seriously sideways – for me, the highlight of the day was watching one driver drifting his diminutive Suzuki Whizzkid!

If you’d like to find out more about AutoSolo events in the near future, visit the Aintree Circuit Club website for details of forthcoming fixtures.

Aintree Circuit Club are also organising this year's Ormskirk MotorFest, which takes place on August 26. Keep an eye on Life On Cars over the coming weeks for special coverage of the event...

The Haynes manual enters the iPad generation

THAT enduring mechanic's companion - the Haynes manual - has been just given a 21st century makeover to help it appeal to iPad addicts and web whizzes.

Haynes said this week that they are now offering 50 of their car and bike workshop manuals in electronic form for the first time, called ManualsOnline, with sections designed with tablets (iPads, in plain English) and mobile phones in mind.

A spokesperson for Haynes Publishing told Life On Cars: "With over 150 million manuals sold worldwide, renowned motoring experts Haynes have been helping motorists perform essential maintenance on their cars for over 50 years. This new digital platform will make Haynes manuals available to a much wider international audience.

"ManualsOnline includes all the content from the printed Manuals with the additional benefits of a glossary of terms, searchable menus, quick links and ‘how-to’ videos. Online Manual content is also optimised for viewing on tablet or mobile device, so for the first time motorists will have access relevant tutorials, diagrams and technical information on the move."

Subscriptions to the fifty manuals, which includes everything from the Ford Fiesta and the Peugeot 306 to the classic Mini and the Land Rover Defender, cost just £25 per manual for a year, or £30 for lifetime access. Fifty more manuals will be uploaded onto the service over the coming months, with scope for more as time goes on.

To celebrate the launch of ManualsOnline Haynes are also running a prize draw, with four lifetime subscriptions up for grabs. More info on how to enter can be found on the Haynes Manuals Facebook page. More information about the manuals is available at www.haynes.co.uk/manuals-online.

Would you use an iPad or a smartphone in the garage instead of a printed manual? Life On Cars would love to know your thoughts...

Fire up the... Volkswagen Beetle 1.4 TSI 160PS Design

ASPIRING hippies looking for bit of a flower power in the new Beetle are going to be dissapointed. Look as hard as you like but this openly retro Veedub doesn't have a vase.

The old Beetle - by which I mean the cutesy hatchback of 1990s vintage, not the clattery rear-engined original - had a slight notoriety because it was the only new car on sale which offered you a vase rather than an ashtray. It's a novelty that's vanished from the latest version, but don't let that put you off. If you really want somewhere to stick your flowers, go to a garden centre.

What it lacks in floral storage systems the new arrival makes up with having something much better; substance to match the groovy, Sixties-inspired styling. While there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the outgoing Beetle it was trying to compete with the MINI and the Fiat 500 with nothing more than a twelve-year-old shape and Golf mechanicals long past their sell by date to call upon; the new one, on the other hand, is genuinely new and an an awful lot better.

By far and away this Beetle's best bit is the interior, which is not only easier to live with than the last one but genuinely stylish too. The body coloured dashboard, the neatly integrated stereo, and the glovebox seemingly inspired by a SMEG fridge are a joy to behold, and has the same chunky, bombproof feel as everything else the enormous VW Group, Europe's biggest car company, makes.

It's no hot hatch to drive but for something that doesn't pretend to be it's a reassuring companion, with handling that's tidy rather than grin-wideningly fun. That said, the 160bhp petrol version I drove pulled more than quickly enough, and settled down to offer nothing more than an ambient hum on longer runs.

 The new Beetle, however, is all about looks and it's here where I genuinely don't know whether it'll thrive or flop. I like it because it's more sophisticated and less cute than the old car - something I'd happily be seen in - but it loses a little impact in the process.

For nineteen grand it's a genuinely good offering. Perhaps one you'll love a little bit less, but definitely one you'll respect a whole lot more.

Just how far do you go with your classic car?

THE MAN with the exploding E-Type knew how to make an entrance.

Not only had he turned up to Bretherton in a V12 convertible sports car, but thanks to a mechanical malady it came shrouded in a dramatic cloud of steam too. It was luckily, just a blown hose and nothing more major than that, but the spectacular arrival did at least highlight the stunning old Jag, which didn't look a day older than when it left the showroom. A big cat, obviously, which had been properly restored before being allowed to go on the prowl at last weekend's Bank Hall Classic Car Show.

It does, however, bring up the age-old question familiar to most fans of automotive antiques; just how far do you go and how much cash should you splash? Classics, you see, exist in three basic states; unloved wrecks which have weathered badly over a course of decades and are badly in need of a bit of TLC, everyday smokers which have a bit of wear ‘n' tear because they get used regularly by their owners, and the immaculate, big money restorations. The concours winners, basically.

My old MG would never win at concours, which is sort of like an automotive Crufts anyway. You do occasionally get the odd snob pointing out the bits of paintwork where a spot of rust is starting to show through, but that's missing the point. If you want to buy a car that looks pretty and does nothing else then get an Audi TT; I'd much rather be out on the country lanes in my old car, en-route to somewhere nice, using it as its creators intended.

I could lavish thousands on the old girl to bring her up to showroom standard but then it'd be no more useful to me than the watch my late granddad left me. It's a beautiful bit of chronography and one of my most prized possessions, but I'd never actually take it out anywhere because I'd never forgive myself if it got scratched.

I thoroughly admire the work, the love and the care that goes into bringing a 40-year-old car into as-new nick, but I just know I'd turn my own motor into a granddad's watch if I went down the same route. It'd look a million dollars, but it'd no longer be a car I could trust leaving in a supermarket car park, a place where scratches are but a misplaced parallel park away from the pristine bodywork.

Besides; why spend thousands on a classic car when you spend a fraction of that on making a memorable entrance? Man with the exploding E-Type, you've laid down the gauntlet...