You may remember a recent Blog Post about Paul Swifts Autotest Mini of which visited Mini Sport a few weeks ago in preparation for the Ken Wharton Memorial Autotest. We built and fitted a new engine before tuning it on our Rolling Road.

The international event is named after the Formula 1 driver who was tragically killed during a race in 1957, has been running over 50 years and includes A & B teams from all home nations Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and of course England who Paul was asked to drive for.

The teams were comprised of 4 drivers in different classes of car.

England A Team

Richard Pinkney (Crook) – Caterham 7

Lee Valentine (Newcastle) – Vauxhall Nova

Paul Swift  (Darlington) – Mini Saloon

Dave Evans (Shropshire) – Blitz Special

 

England finished 3rd behind Republic of Ireland (Paddy Power/Simon Echlin/Chris Grimes/David Thompson) and the eventual winners Northern Ireland (Steven Ferguson/Ashley Lamont/Sam Bowden/Mark King).

Results are as follows:

1st Northern Ireland 2112.7

2nd Republic of Ireland 2144.4

3rd England 2324.8

4th Wales  2449.5

You can find a gallery of this event here

 

Here is a video of Paul performing a few stunts in the Mini too: