Not one but two attempts were made to spin a two-seater sports car off the original Mini’s platform, but flaws in their designs would see both stall at the prototype stage -
Up at Longbridge, meanwhile, engineers on a parallel ADO 34 project were packing up a pair of Mini subframes and an A-series engine in spicier Cooper tune to be sent down to Pininfarina in Turin. The Italians solved the rigidity problem by joining the subframes with a separate chassis and then wrapping it in a pretty body that looked tantalisingly ready for the showroom.
Our story then jumps forward to March 1970, when Austin Morris management, realising the MG Midget was getting old, ordered an investigation into a Mini-based replacement under the codename ADO 70. Longbridge designer Paul Hughes came up with a concept for a targa-topped two-seater, and by the following month his sketches had been turned into a full-size mock-up.
After the giddy speed with which ADO 70 had raced from sketch to running prototype, enthusiasm for the idea evaporated with similar haste and the project was swiftly abandoned. The Michelotti-made runner was dumped in a corner at Longbridge where it was allowed to rot for many years before being rescued and restored. Today it lives in the British Motor Museum in Warwickshire, alongside the Pininfarina ADO 34.
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