Gold Star hill-climbs and sprints · Marlborough to Otago · 1974-1977The car
Built for 1975-76
Lyn had raced a Mini Cooper S since 1970. For the 1975-76 Gold Star season he built something lighter: "a rebuilt Mini with aluminium panels for lightness and a 1300 cc Cooper S motor with a special head for power". It was called his "Mini Special", "Mini Clubman", "Cooper S Sprint" and "Middle Park Mini Clubman" in the reports, and the South Otago club's entry list called it an Arden Minisprint. The photos show a Clubman-style flat nose with wide wheel arches.
By the 1977 national final it was described as "his potent 1293 cc (twin-Webered, 8 port cross-flow headed) Mini-Sprint".
Sources: Marlborough Express, 24 October 1975; Motoraction, 25 March and 6 May 1977
Two liveries
1975-76: Middle Park Motel. Orange-red, with "Middle Park Motel" across the doors and the front spoiler, "Blenheim" on the front wing, and the motel's Middle Renwick Road address and phone number (3329) on the doors. This is the car that won the 1976 title.
From October 1976: Kinross Motors. "Lyn Hatton and his newly-painted red Mini-Sprint were both in top form" at Redwood Pass in October 1976, a fresh coat of paint with the new sponsor. "Kinross Motors" is lettered across the front spoiler. The paper called it red; in colour, and in John Hocken's memory, it was orange.
In pictures
On a gravel climb in Middle Park Motel colours, 1975-76. Where and when aren't recorded. From Lyn's own prints
Redwood Pass, 24 October 1976, newly painted red Photo: Leith Campbell, Marlborough Car Club
Larnach Castle road, Dunedin, February 1977: Lyn adjusts his helmet before the start. Otago Daily Times
Built by Ash McKenzie
From 850 cc special to Gold Star winner
"Built by Ash in Blenheim and finished off in Nelson. He ran the car with the 850 cc before selling the car to Lyn," Brendan McKenzie explains. In Ash's hands it was light blue with a long sloping nose. Paul Kendrick remembers "Ash building the car in Dad's workshop (Thomas & Kendrick)", and an Ash McKenzie was 3rd at Rosedale in a Mini Sprint in August 1974.
A year before Lyn bought it, the car made its own headlines. At the Labour Day Gold Star climb at Redwood Pass in October 1974, where Lyn was racing his Cooper S, Ash broke the course record on the first run in 1:04.38, "roaring through the last hairpin", then went over the foot-deep ruts, "became airborne" and "crunched into the bank, ripping out the right-hand front suspension". "One wondered what would have happened if McKenzie had still been in."
We purchased the Mini from Ash as a rolling shell and fitted a 1293 and Rex Hart's 8-port head, and went on to win all the championship hill-climbs in the South Island except for Queenstown, where we came second to Tulloch's Camaro.Lyn Hatton, South Island Motorsports (Facebook), January 2024
Lyn also changed the nose to a Clubman-style front, Graeme Farr explains "to fit the 8-port head in"; the head came off Rex Hart's 1974 NZ Saloon Car Championship-winning Mini. Lyn on the flat front: "that's what it looked like when it won the championship." The 8-port engine "used to jump sideways on the upshifts" in the standing quarter, Paul Kendrick recalls, and in the flying quarter Lyn "had to lift off at 112 mph so I could keep it on the road; aerodynamics were not good at that speed."
Lyn's two "100 MPH" badges: a gold starburst with a blue enamel centre, and a silver stick pin. The family believes both were earned in the Mini Sprint, which topped 100 mph in the flying quarter (Lyn lifted off at 112). Which meetings they came from isn't recorded. Know more?
Sources: South Island Motorsports Facebook group, post by Adrian Robertson, 5 January 2024 (Brendan McKenzie, Paul Kendrick, Lyn Hatton; photos from Graeme Farr's collection); Nelson Evening Post, 26 August 1974; Maximum Mini, "New Zealand MiniSprint mystery", April 2017 (update by Graeme Farr)
After Lyn
John Hocken's white Mini Sprint
I bought the rolling body from Lyn Hatton. It was orange. I stripped it back and painted it initially in white with the roll cage in yellow, and later added the wide yellow stripe over the bonnet and roof and along the spoiler. I ran it with a 1293 cc with Weber, built by Austin Prattley. Sold it as a rolling chassis to partly fund my first house.John Hocken, South Island Motorsports (Facebook), January 2024
Lyn remembers selling it complete. Brendan McKenzie thinks John sold it because he wasn't comfortable with how it had to be driven: "on gravel you need to drive it with the tail out due to the beam axle in the rear."
Gilbertson, Farr, and home to Ash
"The car then went to Tony Gilbertson and then … Graeme Farr and then back to Ash," says Brendan McKenzie. Graeme Farr found it "just sitting outside a shed at Tony Gilbertson's orchard in the Hawke's Bay. Tony chucked it in with the 8-port engine I bought … It was only when I got it back to my place that I got underneath it and saw it was quite a special thing." Ash "was surprised it was still around"; he paid Graeme "something like two hundy" and Graeme delivered it to Ash's cousin's place in Wellington, where it stayed for a few years.
Angus Fogg remembers it at a gravel hill-climb out the back of Otorohanga.
Today: under restoration, and a Mk 2
Accounts differ: Graeme Farr wrote in 2020 that after he sold the shell back to Ash, Ash "lost track of the car and built a replica", and that Lyn sold it to Tony Gilbertson. Lyn and Brendan McKenzie describe Ash restoring the original. More on where the sources disagree →
"Yes, Ash has got the car and has started the restoration of it," Brendan McKenzie wrote in January 2024. "Will only be a display car as it will be near impossible to make it legal by today's standards." Brendan races a "Mk 2" sister car of the same design in white and yellow, #51, seen here at Manfeild in February 2018.
Lyn has seen the old car at Ash's: "it has no front on it, so I hope Ash puts the front we had on it, because that's what it looked like when it won the championship."
Source: South Island Motorsports Facebook group, 5 January 2024 (Jeff Braid, Brendan McKenzie, Graeme Farr, Ken Douglas, Angus Fogg, Lyn Hatton)
Open questions
- When exactly did Lyn buy it from Ash: before the October 1975 season?
- Is there a photo of it at Otorohanga, or in John Hocken's white-and-yellow stripe?
- Who built the flat nose Lyn fitted?