CooperWorld Magazine

CooperWorld is the monthly magazine of the Mini Cooper Register

Produced in full colour and packed with Mini Cooper information, this is essential reading for Mini enthusiasts.

Editorial Welcome to the September edition of CooperWorld. And let me start with some positive news which we have received via the Federation of Historic Vehicle clubs, relating to a change in the DVLA’s policy on registering CKD (Complete Knock Down) cars. If you are not aware of what these cars are, they were cars that were shipped to a destination country as a collection of individual, unassembled parts which were then put together in a local assembly plant. These cars were predominantly exported in the 1960s to countries such as South Africa, but they had UK chassis numbers allocated to them. The cars usually had to be built utilising some parts that were produced in the receiving country. They also qualified for local government tax breaks or incentives. Fast forward to today and a lot of CKD cars have since been imported back to the UK. Unfortunately, when owners applied to register their cars with the DVLA, they faced issues in providing a date of build that the DVLA would accept to base the issue of an appropriate age-related registration on. The British Motor Museum hold records of the CKD cars’ chassis numbers and a date against each batch of cars that had been exported. However, the DVLA were not previously prepared to accept or adopt the original date of shipment of these cars as the date of build of them. But after some lobbying by the Federation, the DVLA have now agreed to accept the date of export as the date of build of CKD cars. Thus, a CKD car can now be registered with an appropriate age-related registration number and not a Q plate. Moving on and I would like to start by mentioning an article which the well-known Mini engine builder and tuner, Bryan Slark, has kindly written about his life from when he was a young man and up to the present day. Richard Pengelly and Ian Beaton have, I understand, helped Bryan in putting together a two-part article, with the first part appearing in this edition of CooperWorld. Then we have some news to report in relation to our Mk 3 Cooper S Registrar, Jeff Solomon, who has decided to step down from his role as soon as we are able to find a replacement registrar. If you think you might be able to take on this role from Jeff, then please contact Peter Barker our chairman to apply for the position. Hopefully, we will find a suitable candidate for the role very soon. In the meantime, I would like to thank Jeff for producing some very interesting reports over the time that he has been the Mk 3 Registrar, and I wish him all the best for the future. Finally, this month, Russell Earnshaw has written a report on Swiftune Engineering and Equipe Classic Racing’s launch of the first dedicated race series for Pre-66 Appendix K Minis. This new four-round series will provide Pre-66 Mini competitors with a stand-alone race platform to race head-to-head without competing against larger engined cars. Russell has written on the second race of the championship. Paul Sulma Editor CooperWorld        

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