Inspired

With much inspiration from his late uncle Dave, Mark Dell has built a fantastic retro-styled Mini…

- Karen Drury

“It’s probably through my uncle Dave, my dad and my other uncle that I’ve always had an interest in cars,” explains London cab driver and tour guide Mark Dell, whose first car was a white Mk3 Escort. “It was a four-door 1.3L which cost £1,100 at auction.” Since then, he’s owned a host of boy-racer cars: “I had a Vauxhall Nova 1.3 SR when they were all the rage. I spent nearly £10K on that. Then a Fiesta RS Turbo, a Peugeot 306 GTi 6 and a Seat Leon Cupra R.” But he had never owned a Mini. “I said to my uncle Dave, who was a mechanic, that I wanted a Mini Van but we couldn’t find one. In 2011, as I was dropping off a passenger in Camberwell, South London, this Studio 2 Mini caught my eye as a lady and her friend were pushing it out of a garage. I called uncle Dave and told him that I’d found a Mini. I knew about Minis rusting but he told me to check the subframes and also the gearbox for noise. It was rusty but the gearbox was alright. I told him they wanted £250 for it and he said that, for that money, I should buy it and I can sell it for parts if it’s no good.”