Brampton-Caledon’s Airport Day on September 8 featured a car, motorcycle, and vintage aircraft show. The Great War Flying Museum located here put their replica WWI aircraft in the air for a three ring flying circus, so there was something for everyone. The majority of the several dozen cars were English, featuring the usual mix of MGs, Triumphs, Morgans, as well as a single Jaguar XKE. Pictured here is one car you won’t see at every show, the Hillman Super Minx convertible.
Roger Carr has thoroughly covered the Hillman Minx and even found a video as in this post. The pictured car is probably a 1964 or 1965. Wiki indicates convertibles were made up until 1964, but also indicates that the 1725 cc engine was first used in 1965, demonstrating some of the issues involved with researching a 50-something year old vehicle line. It’s also possible the owner has installed the later engine in an earlier car, as he draws attention to the “1.7”.
I highly recommend this event to anyone in the area next year. In addition to the cars and aircraft, the Great War Flying Museum has excellent artifacts and displays, particularly of lesser known combatants such as the Austro-Hungarians, Italians and Turks (Ottoman Empire).
A few of my personal favourites follow.
A very lovely Mercedes Coupe…
And a Fiat (or perhaps a later Bertone-badged) X1/9. I want this one! I met the owner later, a stereotypical diminutive Italian, who claimed he had built the 1300 cc engine to a race-spec 120 hp. Perhaps a bit optimistic? It did have dual Webers.
This is the one I’d like to fly away with! Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann, 1930s-1960s! Primary trainer of the WWII Luftwaffe, also produced under license in Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Spain, and Japan. A single seat version was competitive in aerobatics until the 1960s. The pictured aircraft was built up to original plans from some salvaged Spanish parts by a gentleman from Toronto in his basement over 11 years.
This family arrived in style, all wearing colorful helmets.
And if it was all too much, these friendly folk were ready to come to your assistance.
Cool! The Peanuts comic this morning mentions the Fokker Triplane, as Snoopy bemoans another encounter as the WW I flying ace in his Sopwith Camel!
I must look up this show for next year. Is it always the second Saturday of September?
Great photos and writeup!
Looks like show is either Saturday or Sunday. Google Brampton-Caledon annual airport day for details. Admission was $20. The Great War Flying Museum (separate website) is open weekends in the summer, and the replica aircraft are flown, weather permitting.
I continue to be a fan of the Minx, and really like the convertible. Am I seeing the lines of the convertible top’s “c pillar” correctly that the try to emulate the reverse slanting pillar of the hardtop with the top’s fabric? I am less a fan of the two-tone treatment which seems a mite amateurish.
Those early fabric wing planes are fascinating to me. I do not believe I have ever seen a German trainer before.
The Super Minx convertible was only available in Mk.I and Mk.II guises (1961-64) but the 1.7 litre engine was new to the Mk.IV version in 1965 but would be easy enough to swap over in place of the earlier 1.6.The black flash at the rear isn’t factory standard, though the soft top is the correct shape. The differences between Mk.I & Mk.II were almost entirely under the skin (such as front disc brakes) so it could be either.
Great write up and pictures. I’ve never heard of this show, but I’ll have to make the trip from Toronto next year.
Is that a reproduction Nieuport 28? I took a picture of an actual one at the NASM last year
The Great War Flying Museum’s aircraft are all reproductions, mostly built by volunteers there.
The Superminx is neither of her compound word names in aesthetics. It has a doleful, low-set face of much plainness, overlaid incongruously by two arched and lit eyebrows. The fins at back look as if the clay was squeezed by big fingers on either side, like an affectionate squeeze of a little kid’s face, but with an unfortunately permanent result. It is a hotch-potch of incompleted ideas. Perhaps the dough ran out early.
As a soft-top – to be brutal, more of a flop-top on these – they do at least look mildly entertaining, and I’m sure they’re rare. It would certainly have my attention at a show over other more favoured but familiar things, as it seems to have yours. A great catch.
I too like the denuded X1/9. I wonder if it is possible to make a road-going mid-engine car that doesn’t look in some degree a bit awkward, but when reduced to its essential shape like this, the Fiat comes fairly close. Certainly nicer than when the standard flims and flams were attached, anyway.
Fokker tri-plane for me. (To look at and hear only, not being made of boarding material for such a thing).
I’m assuming the Dreidecker is a replica, and lacks an authentic ( and period-correct sounding) motor.
I always thought the Super Minx was a dog, and the convertible is not helped by that paint job.
All of the Great War Flying Museum’s aircraft are reproductions, built to original plans mostly by volunteers. Modifications for safety were made, and (relatively) more modern engines used. But a radial engine from the 1930-40s or an inverted, water-cooled inline as on the Fokker D.VII probably doesn’t sound much different than the WWI originals. They all smoked at start-up!
They were meant to smoke with burnt castor oil……the Le Rhone rotary didn’t care for anything less.
Rootes actually installed a callout badge for the new for MK4 1725 Super Minx the first introduction was a stroked version of the old 82mm 3 main bearing block the MK 4 featured a new five main bearing engine block which carried on in use in the Hunter/Arrow range into the next century in Iran, For the MK4 model the 1725 engine could be had with an alloy head twin choke Solex carb and twin branch exhaust header and an overdrive equipped gearbox,
Convertibles are rare in all models and this is the last model offered in that style the next years Arrow/Hunter range didnt feature a ragtop option
I’ll take a Mk II Humber Sceptre rather than the rather than flatly styled Super Minx. Rootes gingerbread and dual headlamps.
There was no convertible Sceptre, but there was for the similar Singer Vogue. I knew one locally about 15 years ago that I watched slowly turn to oxide at the roadside until one day it was gone; perhaps scrapped, perhaps saved, I never found out.
Never seen a convertible Vogue!
Hmm, come to think about it I might have got that mixed up.There was definitely a convertible (with a tear in the roof) and definitely a Vogue (with the four headlights), so the convertible must have been a Super Minx. Sorry!
To make things more confusing there was a Super Minx Estate outside the same house later, but in rather better condition.
Graham Robson’s Cars of the Rootes group does not record a Convertible Vogue, so I guess the car was a Super Minx.
4 lamps = Vogue or Sceptre
Was this in Brampton Ontario?
Yes
Only factory 2 tone on a Superminx was the deep side flash, typified by the car in the my post from 2013 (!), and that was unuusal (maybe not offered) on the Convertible.
Be careful not to confuse the Minx and Super Minx – the latter was a larger though contemporaneous and related car, though both were rep.ace dby the Arrow range.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-1966-hillman-super-minx-rooting-for-rootes/