Lancashire-based Mini Sport (www.minisport.com) marked its 50th anniversary with a celebration dinner for 200 guests, with the centrepiece of every table being a 1/10 scale machined replica of one of the Mini-specialist’s first competition cars.

During the evening 15 of the 20 replicas were auctioned off by sealed bids, which generated in excess of £20,000 for the Prevent Breast Cancer charity.

The replicas were created by scanning an original car which was then machined on sister company, Motorsport Advanced Development’s Mazak Variaxis i600 five-axis machining centre, using WNT’s (www.wnt.com) Type W solid carbide Alu-line cutters, with a geometry and tool coatings specifically developed for non-ferrous metals.

Each car measures around 300 x 150 x 150mm and took around 10 hours to machine, with 20 cars required in total, this was a major commitment of machine and tooling and people.

Daniel Harper, Mini Sport Director, said: “We wanted to do something special for our 50th anniversary. Replicating one our father’s original competition Minis seemed like the right thing to do.

“The fact that we could then raise such an amazing amount of money for Prevent Breast Cancer, a charity that is close to our family, made the investment in time worthwhile.”

While reflecting the company’s history, the replica cars also highlight the capabilities of Motorsport Advanced Developments which, working in partnership with WNT (part of the Ceratizit Group) for its machining activities on a range of latest machining and turning centre equipment, also offers 3-D printing and scanning.

“The replica cars outline perfectly what we can deliver for customers both for our machining and reverse engineering capabilities, whether it be for our sub-contract customers or for the parts produced for Mini Sport customers from around the world.

“Many of those parts require scanning and reverse engineering as drawings are no longer available.”