In the constant endeavour to monitor articles on the Unipower GT both in print and on the internet, there are occasionally references to the marque on the Maximum Mini Blog site, which covers a wide breadth of Mini derivatives.
On the 24th October an article was posted referring to the well known 1275 Cooper 'S' factory demonstrator OYF 80F, that naturally featured in many press road tests and articles of that period.
Maximum Mini writes :
" I came across this after reading a period article (dated August '68) which shows the car as it was used in the series, mentioning The Troubleshooters as having a prominent role for the Unipower. The car that was used was the factory demonstrator 'OYF 80F', which also featured in a great number of magazine articles and several PR shots. It was here running on white 'reverse rim' wheels and featuring a Mogul decal on the back. I guess the colour must have been the metallic green seen on a few other period pictures of the car. Remarkably, it's the only Unipower publication which seems to mention The Troubleshooters, there's also not a word about it in the Unipower GT book which came out last year. "
What is surprising, is that the author of Maximum Mini, who bought a copy some time ago, of the definitive history of the Unipower GT referred to in his article, should comment that "there's also not a word about it in the Unipower GT book which came out last year".
This statement, suggesting the book's historical content is lacking, is once again incorrect and misleading. Perhaps Maximum Mini has not read its purchase thoroughly, as the use of OYF 80F in 'The Troubleshooters' drama Series is mentioned in detail on Pages 49 & 50 of the book, as being filmed on location at both Saltburn-on-Sea and the Croft race track in the north of England, driven to the locations by Gerry Wheeler, where it was filmed over two days on location. Gerry Wheeler is a surviving member of the UPD factory team and kindly contributed this story and others for my Unipower GT book. In the drama, the car was used on occasions by its lead character Peter Thornton, played by the well known Australian actor, Ray Barratt who unfortunately died in Sept 2009.
For completeness, the car was painted in metallic Aquatic Jade green (a standard colour supplied by UPD) as original and was to remain such, until a later owner changed the colour. The car now resides in Switzerland. No pictures from those location shoots were included in the book, as they could not be verified as original. As Author of the Unipower GT book, I researched in great detail the availability of any episodes from 'The Troubleshooters', but as Maximum Mini also found, the BBC had inexplicitly lost/destroyed most of the episodes with certain exceptions, (not even any VHS copies that had been available for some episodes) but none appear to have survived showing the Unipower GT.
The book on the definitive history of the Unipower GT is available through this website and is the most comprehensive accredited and detailed history available anywhere.
Postscript 2nd November '22 : I'm pleased to say that having informed Maximum Mini of the error in its Blog, Jeroen has now added a retraction in the Blog article stating that there is indeed a brief reference in my Book to the Unipower GT's participation in a episode of the TV Series. The story of this episode only warranted a few sentences however, given the cars only brief participation, but it was discussed as to what, where, when and who took the car to the film sets.
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