The little mini that is about to tell a story

It isn’t particularly fast. It isn’t particularly valuable. And, if we’re being completely truthful, at the moment it isn’t particularly pretty either.

But this little 2004 MINI Cooper might just become one of the most important parts of Treble Nine Project.

We picked the car up for just £200.

It’s a fairly ordinary R50 Cooper that’s clearly lived a life. It needs some love, there are jobs to work through and it’s a very long way from being a race car.

Which, actually, is exactly why we wanted it.

So, what’s the plan?

We’re going to turn it into a simple, affordable and genuinely usable track car.

Not a £30,000 race build. Not something that disappears into a professional workshop for six months and comes back finished.

We want to do as much as we reasonably can ourselves.

The initial plan is deliberately simple: sort the car mechanically, improve the suspension, upgrade the brakes, put it on some decent tyres, give it a proper Treble Nine identity and get it out on track.

Then we’ll see where it takes us.

Because the finished car isn’t really the important bit.

The journey is.

More than building a MINI

One of the ideas behind Treble Nine has always been to use motorsport as a reason to bring people together.

Working on a car does that brilliantly.

There are jobs to do. Problems to solve. Things to learn. Tea to drink. Probably several bolts that won’t come undone. And almost certainly a few moments where somebody asks why on earth we bought a £200 MINI in the first place.

But that’s part of it.

We want people from the emergency services community to be able to get involved with the car over time — whether that’s helping with a build day, learning something new, lending a skill, coming along to an event or eventually experiencing the car on track.

You don’t need to know anything about mechanics.

You don’t need to be a racing driver.

You don’t even need to be particularly interested in MINIs.

Sometimes having somewhere to go, something to work on and a group of people to do it with is enough.

Keeping it accessible

There’s another reason we’re starting with an old MINI.

Motorsport can look incredibly inaccessible from the outside.

Big transporters. Expensive cars. Huge budgets.

We want to show that it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

Our starting point cost £200.

We’ll improve it gradually, sensibly and on a realistic budget. We’ll share the successes, the mistakes and probably a few questionable decisions along the way.

Hopefully, someone watching the project might think:

“I could do that.”

And that’s exactly what we want.

From the garage to the circuit

The first milestone isn’t some distant racing championship.

It’s much simpler.

Get the MINI safe. Get it sorted. Get it on track.

We want to take it to circuits such as Brands Hatch and Lydden Hill and start creating experiences around it.

From there, who knows?

The car can evolve alongside Treble Nine. More build days. More track experiences. More people getting involved. Perhaps eventually some competitive motorsport.

But we’re deliberately not trying to plan every chapter before we’ve written the first one.

For now, there’s a little black MINI sitting there waiting for us.

And we’ve got some work to do.

Want to be part of it?

This isn’t supposed to be a build that you simply watch from your phone.

We want people to become part of the story.

If you’re serving or former emergency services and fancy getting involved, we’d love to hear from you.

Maybe you’re handy with a spanner. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn. Maybe you’d rather just turn up, make the tea and talk cars.

That’s fine too.

We’re also keen to hear from businesses, motorsport teams, MINI specialists and organisations who might want to support the project with expertise, parts, equipment or simply a bit of encouragement.

We’ll be documenting the MINI’s journey from £200 runabout to Treble Nine track car as we go.

It probably won’t always go to plan.

That’s rather the point.

One little MINI. One growing crew. And hopefully a lot of good memories along the way.

Race | Recover | Reconnect

Treble Nine Project