| Joined: | Fri Jul 25th, 2025 |
| Location: | Stroud Glos., United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 96 |
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I don’t know if you knew of Maurice (Mo) Mendham who raced minis and low formula cars back on the 70s in the UK.
He also did crash repairs from the back yard of his parent’s pub in Watford. We came across him when Jan’s Austin 1100 had an argument with a lorry’s nearside wheel. He repaired it and left it in the street awaiting her collecting it ….and a Council refuse cart reversed into the other side!! So it needed an extended stay and more surgery from him.
When we eventually went to collect her car he was cutting a mini down all round to reduce its weight for racing.
The mini is on this video…
https://youtu.be/heL84f5limE?si=jMU5KezOpal6Qrhd
His modified mini is at 1:30 and racing at 5:20. His business was Mendham Conversions.
Anyway he was done by the police for driving a single seater unregistered racing car between Rickmansworth and Watford……with his girlfriend attached to it. It was unclear exactly how she was attached to it but she couldn’t have fitted in the seated area so was presumably handing onto something. It was 2am and only a 5 mile round trip to her home….but he was apprehended ….and as a result lost his racing licence as well as his Road licence.
The memories that come flooding back.
Came across this old forum discussion about Mo and some of his opponents…
https://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=131336
And here’s his cut down lightweight mini in action.
Click here to comment on this image.
I vaguely remember the name - I started racing in '73, with an MGA .
They were the days of Gerry Marshall, Dave Brodie, Richard Jenvey and Plastic Pearson. I had the Castrol stripes too. ( see your link) Does the name Fred Scatley ring a bell? I still have a few of the photos he took of me in action - all black and white.
Last edited on Tue Aug 19th, 2025 17:15 by