[weimdog]

What do you think are the possiblities of the MINI being BMW's entry into the World Rally Championship? Could an all-wheel-drive Mini compete against the likes of Subaru, Ford, Citroen, and Peugeot?

I believe the Mini won the Championship in the late 50's or early 60's.

Any Comments?

[Racer]

weimdog

Reckon it's unlikely to happen - MINI would be far too short for WRC needing pretty big extensions to the front and back to make it in - If they could then one would assume it would be as competitive as other cars - since WRC cars bare little resemblance mechanically to there road counterparts these days I don;t think we'll know for sure until BMW try it !

[Jazzy Jase]

I think we may see the MINI entered as a Super 1600 machine.

[Andrewfuzzy]

Super 1600 the more viable and realistic alternative

[KarmanS]

Super 1600 in that picture looks great!

[smiffy]

That MINI's mad

[Andrewfuzzy]

Not sure if you can make it out...but theres a air scoop on the front of the roof...which is nice

[karmuze]

Quote:

Originally posted by Andrewfuzzy

...but theres a air scoop on the front of the roof...which is nice

This photo came off the BELCAR COOPER QUICK RACING TEAM Netherlands site, who are campaigning a full race Cooper in the VAN DYCK BELCAR Touring Car Series in 2002. The race Cooper under construction has a BMW 3000cc M3 engine mounted mid-ship driving the rear wheels with 340PS (250kW) and 400Nm (295 lb/ft) torque. I'm sure it will be quite a bit different than this artist rendition of a rallye cooper. Not sure what function a hood mounted air scoop would serve on a mid-engine race car, for example.

[Andrewfuzzy]

So are they racing it ? did u say karmuze?

Are you able to find any more info?



Pictures website etc etc

[karmuze]

I saw some pictures of the Cooper race car conversion (about 6 pics) somewhere in Jan. They showed the roll cage, suspension control arms, rear arches, and airdam being fabricated. But I cannot locate them now. I think the BelCar race series begins in mid-April in Belgium.

I think I found the link by starting with www.belcar.com =>links or teams=>Quick Motor Racing. If that doesn't work, let me know and I will try to find the path again--I remember it took a while to find.

Noticed that the QMR home page has a picture of a Bugatti EB110, approx 100 built, and one of my all time favorite production cars.

[Andrewfuzzy]

Just tried that link no luck

[karmuze]

That link was a dead end--my bad. Although the belcar.com link does list April 13th at Zolder in Belgium as the first of 7 races in the series.

Also the race team running the Cooper is Qvick Motor Racing---owned & raced by Erik Qvick and co-driver Vinnie Beernaert. I did a new search on the drivers names and found this link:

http://communities.msn.com/vbeernaertbelcar

On the Home page click on New Photos-View All, and the frist two links on the photo page have all the MINI pics:
Show photos(17pics) and Mini-cooperSM3(5pics).

Wasn't able to find the actual car in build process photos that I saw in Jan since they have rolled off my browser History file.