mod@tech

For a band so popular that fans have seemingly recorded every moment of its members’ lives, it’s odd that a number of mysteries still revolve around the four coachbuilt Mini Coopers built for The Beatles. Most notably, how has the one that belonged to John Lennon seemingly gone so irretrievably missing that it won’t be able to join the other three when they reunite at the London Classic Car Show for the first time in decades?

In fact, it’s not entirely known why the band’s manager, Brian Epstein, decided to gift the cars to the four young men from Liverpool. Some have suggested that Epstein intended the cars as Christmas presents, given that he registered the cars around the holidays in 1966. Beatles fan and collector Michael Hough suggested the Minis could have been bought for Epstein to celebrate the EMI record contract he finalized for the band in January 1967 or possibly as an apology for putting the band in harm’s way when he refused an invite from Imelda Marcos and subsequently caused riots in the Philippines in July 1966. Yet another theory posits that Epstein bought the cars because he was delighted after Queen Elizabeth II appointed all four members of the band to the Order of the British Empire. Or it could be that Epstein didn’t give the cars to the four Beatles after all and that they were actually gifts from EMI.

At least a couple of those theories don’t account for the fact that Epstein ordered the four cars from British coachbuilding firm Harold Radford & Co. of South Kensington and that the customization of the Minis would have required significant lead time. Some sources claim Epstein ordered the Minis as early as the spring of 1965, with the four delivered to him via his company, Brydor Cars, then transferred to the band members throughout the first half of 1967.

Radford, long known for its work on British luxury car chassis, had pivoted to offering upgraded and customized Minis that it sold as the Mini deVille starting in 1963, and customized each of the four Beatles Minis slightly differently. Ringo Starr’s Mini Cooper S received one of Radford’s hatchback conversions, ostensibly so he could fit a drum kit into the otherwise tight car, was painted maroon and silver, fitted with Volkswagen Beetle taillamps turned sideways, and was treated to additional work by British coachbuilder Hooper. George Harrison’s, originally painted metallic black, received a fabric sunroof, the same Volkswagen Beetle taillamps turned sideways as Starr’s, and a pair of driving lamps faired into the bonnet. Paul McCartney’s Cooper S, painted California Sage Green – an Aston Martin color – also received a Webasto sunroof along with Aston Martin taillamps presumably to match the DB5 he also owned. Lennon’s Cooper S, originally thought to have been painted black but also seen in two-tone green, was equipped with the sunroof, hatchback, and Aston Martin taillamps.

Harrison’s, registered as LGF 695D, not long after delivery received psychedelic paint inspired by Dutch design collective “The Fool,” which in turn inspired Harrison to similarly paint one side of his bungalow. In 1968 he gave it to Eric Clapton, who repainted it in something less decorative, but sometime in the 1970s Harrison got it back from Clapton and restored it to its prior paint. Harrison and Lennon, as the story goes, experienced their firs LSD trip in the car while driving home from a visit to a friend who had slipped the drug into their tea. Though Harrison died in 2001, the car remains in his widow Olivia’s possession. McCartney’s, registered as GGJ 382C, made its way to the United States in the 1970s, where it was first frequently spotted in the Hollywood area before subsequent owners restored it in the early 2000s, displayed it at the Sarasota Classic Car Museum, then sold it via Worldwide’s 2018 Auburn auction for $236,500 (about £183,500 at the time), reportedly a world record for a Mini. Starr’s, registered as LLO 836D, remained in his possession until December 1968, after which it went on occasional display, saw a Naylor Brothers restoration in the early Nineties, and sold at the Bonhams Bond Street sale in December 2017 for £102,300 (about $180,000 at the time) to former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.

As for Lennon’s Mini, he’s seen driving up to EMI in December 1966 in the car registered as LGF 696D, painted all black with deep-tinted windows, similar to the all-black Rolls-Royce Phantom V that he commissioned in 1964. As Jeroen Booij at Maximum Mini pointed out, the Mini then appears in Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1968 film project “Look at Me” painted green and sans the tinted windows. After that is when the rumors take over. One rumor has it that Lennon gave the Mini to his assistant, whose boyfriend subsequently smashed the car. Another reports that Lennon gave it to his butler, who kept the car on his narrowboat as he traveled the UK before scrapping it. Others claim to have spotted it in Dublin or in Norfolk or in Holmfirth. Curiously, Booij and other Mini enthusiasts note that the DVLA database shows that LGF 696D remains registered though not on the road somewhere in Great Britain. More recently, Booij reported that Fred and Tony Waters of Nippy Cars in Somerset have been commissioned to build a replica of Lennon’s Mini, complete with hatchback, Aston Martin taillamps, and original Radford parts when possible.

While Booij speculated that the Lennon Mini replica could be ready in time to join the other three Minis at the London Classic Car Show, to date the show’s spokespeople have only confirmed Harrison’s, McCartney’s, and Starr’s, which they claim were reportedly last seen together in 1968 during rehearsals for the white album (ignoring the appearance of the three together at the 2019 Goodwood Revival). According to a London Classic Car Show press release, the display of the three Minis is meant to coincide with the 60th anniversary of “Please Please Me,” the group’s first album.

The show, which will also include a display to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Corvette, will take place February 24-26 in Olympia, Kensington. For more information, visit TheClassicCarShowUK.com.

Date: May 1979

Location: Akron, Ohio

Source: Ted Walls, via Summit Memory

What do you see here?

While the general public might have its issues with modern electric vehicles–range anxiety, charging infrastructure, and the mining of lithium for the batteries among them – gearheads who aren’t blind to the potential of all that torque right off the line seem to have one concern above all of those: Can EVs be hot-rodded and made to perform better? As with any vehicle, regardless of the energy source that turns the wheels, of course they can, but it’s the tradeoffs to watch out for.

As the Specialty Equipment Market Association recently noted, the EV aftermarket has steadily grown over the last few years, to the point where SEMA Electrified, a sort of show-within-a-show at the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas, now features several dozen exhibitors across 21,000 square feet of the convention center floor. “Many folks who were new to the electric market were both surprised and excited to see how far this segment of the industry had progressed,” said Luis Morales, SEMA’s director of vehicle technology.

One SEMA Electrified exhibitor, Neil Tjin, likened the growing EV aftermarket to an earlier scene that rapidly took off. “I feel like where we were in the Nineties with Hondas and four-bangers and all that,” he said. “It’s all still so new that I heard so many questions about batteries, wiring, and what the EV motors will fit in.”

He noted that when he took a customized Ford Mustang Mach-E to SEMA in 2021, EVs still felt too new for the aftermarket crowd, but that changed last year when he displayed his customized Ford Lightning. “People are getting more used to EVs there,” he said.

How are EVs being modded?

If the exhibitors in the SEMA Electrified display are any indication of overall trends in the EV aftermarket scene, then a significant portion of that scene is dedicated to electromodding older vehicles either via individual components such as motors and controllers, conversion kits, or conversion services offering turnkey vehicles. One exhibitor, Switch Vehicles, even built an entire EV kit car from the ground up during the weeklong SEMA show.

For newer EVs, however, exhibitors focused more on charging solutions, service equipment, testing equipment, safety tools, and accessories. Tjin’s Lightning is a good example of the focus on accessories: The brand-new truck with less than 100 miles on it was painted green and fitted with a Ford accessory electronic bed cover, a custom grille and headlamps, Air Design roof and bed spoilers, a Thule bike rack and awning, Recaro seats, ARB air compressor, PowerTank air compressor, an electric grill, and even an ARB refrigerator and freezer. Underneath, Tjin had Baer six-piston front and rear brakes installed along with a Custom Air Lift suspension to drop the pickup over its 24-inch Vossen wheels and 295/45-24 Nitto Recon Grappler AT tires. The idea, Tjin said, was to build “the ultimate EV vehicle that does it all.”

Similarly, a scan of the leading Tesla aftermarket parts sources shows that hard parts for Teslas – beyond carbon-fiber trim pieces and other dress-up or utility accessories – are largely relegated to brake kits and suspension packages. The Nissan Leaf – at one point the all-time top-selling electric vehicle and a car that benefits from parts-bin sharing with other Nissan vehicles – sees little aftermarket support beyond floormats and charging adapters.

Wrenching, coding, or both?

Nevertheless, DIYers are beginning to find ways to juice the drivetrains of the EVs that have his the market over the last dozen years or so. Daniel Öster, better known as Dala from the YouTube channel Dala’s EV Repair, is one example. After a series of higher-capacity battery upgrades on Nissan Leafs, BMW i3s, and other EVs, he started to explore inverter swaps as a way of extracting more power out of older 80kW (110hp) Leaf drivetrains. The physical aspect of the swap is simple, with inverters from later Leafs bolting directly in place of their earlier counterparts, though the coding necessary to unlock the newer inverters’ full potential can be daunting. Still, the results are nothing to sneeze at, with output of up to 160 kilowatts (215 horsepower) possible. Öster discovered that even a 110kW (148hp) inverter swap cuts roughly a second and a half off of a Leaf’s 0-60 time.

Component upgrades like Öster’s inverter swap aren’t the only way for hotrodders to modify an EV for power and speed. Companies like Ingenext offer products like the Ghost that Öster describes as “man-in-the-middle CAN attack messages,” while other EVs like the Volkswagen eGolf can output more power with re-flashed computers.

One could also just pay for increased performance via a touchscreen. Tesla offers performance upgrades via software upgrades enabled by over-the-air updates and purchases. The Acceleration Boost upgrade, for instance, drops a Model 3’s 0-60 time from 4.2 to 3.7 seconds and costs $2,000. Dodge’s Tim Kuniskis has said that the brand will similarly offer tiered over-the-air performance upgrades for its upcoming performance EV and that the upgrades will be tied to the car’s VIN in an effort to lock out third-party tuners.

So what are the drawbacks?

Range, mainly. “Your battery might run out quicker due to all the improved acceleration and burnouts,” Öster noted.

Even Tjin, who left the drivetrains and electrical systems on both his Lightning and Mach-E entirely stock, has had to contend with reduced range due to his modifications. On the drive back home from SEMA, the 300-mile range that he anticipated from a perfectly stock Lightning (the EPA rates the Lightning’s range at 230 miles with the standard battery pack and 320 miles with the extended range battery pack) dwindled to 170 miles from a full charge thanks to the extra 1,000 pounds of accessories and the larger wheels and tires. He’s since shed a number of accessories from its display state so that it’s only carrying an additional 500 pounds or so and has seen the truck’s range on a full charge increase to about 250 miles. “It’s not terrible,” he said. “But the wheels and the weight do play a factor.”

Despite his likening it to the Nineties import tuner scene, Tjin said he sees EVs taking a different trajectory. “I see EVs right now as wheels, tires, sublte upgrades, maybe a wrap, but as builders, owners, shops and manufactures get more educated on EVs, I see them becoming more full builds,” he said. “The EV space also offers something different than the ’90s, because a lot of old school cars are undergoing EV swaps, which will give the EV space a huge demographic of builders and cars.”

Öster hasn’t discussed specific range limitations due to his modifications, but then again, he’s also upgraded from the stock 24 kWh battery to a later 62kWh unit and has started to explore how to adapt the Leaf’s original CHAdeMO fast charger with the increasingly more common CCS type fast charger using i3 components.

Indeed, maybe the future of EV modification isn’t as focused on power and speed as it is on extending range and adapting newer EV technology to older cars. After all, maybe all that torque right off the line is enough.