Thanks to Minis, Mark Leary became an entrepreneur at an early age. "I remember buying a Mini when I was around 10 years old. I paid about £10 for it and I got my dad to tow it home. I took it all apart and sold the bits in a local free newspaper. I've always had an admiration for Minis and I started racing Ministocks when I was 13 or 14." In 2020 Mark bought himself a present for his 50th birthday. "I bought an Aston Martin as a little treat. I didn't really enjoy it." It was time to buy another Mini. He bought and rebuilt a red rally Mini, which you can read about in a future issue, and then another in the form of this Mini Pick-up. "After the red one was finished I got a bit bored. I then looked around and found this 1962 Mini Pick-up on eBay. Together with Shaun and Daniel, from CCK Historic in High Hurstwood in East Sussex, I checked out all the history and bought it for £9,300 in off-road condition. I got the Heritage Certificate to say when it was built and that it had the tan interior. Then I got CCK to build it to the original specification as it came off the production line." CCK had a lot of work to do. "It was such a rot box and had been totally yobbed! It was sprayed white and had fibreglass wings and these horrible flared fibreglass arches, wide wheels and a sports exhaust. It was a complete mess and in a really bad state. It had bucket seats and came with a 1275 engine but they had kept the original 850 engine too - thank God." All the replacement body panels for both Minis came from M-Machine including wings, floors, doors, load bay door, front end, bonnet, inner and outer sills. "There was about 400 hours of labour put into it."
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