Latest news with #WoodandPickett
Car and Driver
33 minutes ago
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
Ian Callum's Design Team Is Behind This Reimagined Red-Hot Mini
Famed British car designer Ian Callum revealed his design house's newest creation: a rowdy reimagination of the Mk5 Mini Sportspack. It's built in collaboration with the coachbuilder Wood and Pickett, and overhauls the hatchback with a new suspension and stronger brakes. The overhauled Mini features a rebuilt 1310 cc rally engine with a new cylinder head, two-point fuel injection, and a custom twin-pipe exhaust. Throughout his career, Ian Callum has designed a lot of cars. He penned both the Aston Martin DB7 and the Vanquish. His back catalog includes the Jaguar XK, the F-type, and even a road-going version of the C-X75 concept car. Callum's newest design is a collaboration between his eponymous design house and the coachbuilder Wood & Pickett. Callum Designs It's aptly named the Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum, and it looks downright rambunctious. Based on the Mk5 Mini Sportsback, the Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum reimagines the pint-sized commuter as a modern hot hatch packed to the gills with character. The original engine is gone, with a 1310 cc rally engine in its place. The mill now makes 110 brake horsepower. It has a new cylinder head, two-point fuel injection, a custom twin-pipe exhaust, and a reinforced gearbox to handle the extra power. Callum Designs Callum Designs The handling has been retuned to feel like it was engineered by someone who has heard the word "rizz" used in a sentence before, rather than feeling like it came straight from 1990. The original wheels are gone in favor of a four-spoke set of Callum's own design, which measures in at the same 13 inches in diameter. A set of grooved and ventilated 8.4-inch disc brakes hides behind the wheels. Callum Designs The styling inside looks like what you'd expect from a firm called "Wood and Pickett." The dashboard features a wooden fascia inspired by walnut panels found in the company's Margrave Mini, built in the 1960s. There are metal fog-light and heater switches, along with metal cupholders and metal instrument gauges. A small touchscreen with Apple CarPlay compatibility brings a more modern feel to the cabin. Each Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum will be built to the owner's specifications, with pricing for the reimaginations starting just north of $100,000. Jack Fitzgerald Associate News Editor Jack Fitzgerald's love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1. After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn't afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf. Read full bio
The Drive
13 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
An OG Mini Coachbuilder Is Back in Business With This Ian Callum Collab
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Venerated car designer Ian Callum has worked for a few big automakers, but is currently focusing on adjacent projects like reviving the Aston Martin Vanquish and even making a street-legal Jaguar C-X75 concept car with his own outfit, Callum Designs. Today, his team announced a new project: The Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum. I thought that was some kind of home restoration lifestyle brand, but shame on me. It is, in fact, one of the best partners for a Mini restoration project you could get. Wood and Pickett, Ltd. goes back to the 1960s—the company was modding original Minis to highline specs when the tiny cars were new. It technically started in 1947, when Bill Wood and Les Pickett left jobs at another coachbuilder called Hooper & Co to start their own thing. The car industry was very different back then, and there was enough market for upgrading cars for quite a few coachbuilders to exist. In a sense, trim levels as we know them today were being made by small aftermarket outfits rather than OEMs. Wood and Pickett focused on Minis after the Radford Mini de Ville came out in '63 and proved that there was a market for high-class upgrades on the compact cars. Wood and Pickett's own Mini variant was known as the Margrave, and it was clearly good enough to get some attention as the little company was able to poach several key managers from rival Radford in just a few short years. The coachbuilder eventually expanded its lineup to include customized versions of the first-gen Range Rover and a few other popular British cars through the '70s and '80s. Wood and Pickett In the 1990s, there were some ownership changes, and the brand pivoted from coachbuilding to parts and accessories. As far as I can tell from my little morning research session here, Wood and Pickett's next milestone was in 2022 when British classic car parts specialist Motaclan Limited acquired it. But as of today, Motaclan's Wood and Pickett link brings you to a new page dedicated to the Wood and Pickett Mini by Callum—which might be the best possible way for the coachbuilder to make a comeback. This brings us to the machine itself—an extremely cool rendition of the old Mini with minimal modernization and maximal class. I don't even like restomods all that much in principle, but this thing is perfecto. As it's pitched from the purveyors: 'The Wood and Pickett Mini by CALLUM is a redefinition of the classic British icon. Built on a fully restored Mk5 Sportspack body shell, it incorporates an entirely bespoke design package, drawing on both Wood and Pickett's coachbuilding legacy and CALLUM's contemporary design expertise.' Swipe through these images to see it from every angle: The 'Mk5' design was the one used by Mini from 1997 to 2001. Yes, the original Mini was being made that recently. It's tough to tell the difference between the '60s Mini body and one from Y2K at a glance, but this new Callum version will be a little easier to spot. Intense fender flares and aero splitters give the car a much more aggressive stance, though the Mini's charming friendliness is still safely intact. Auxiliary lighting in the grille and a slick taillight design modernize the exterior just enough to look good without being gross. Callum Design Aside from all the decorative details you can see in these pictures, this car will get a 'rebuilt 1310cc Stage 3 road/rally engine' with a performance cylinder head, twin-point injection, and a dual exhaust. It's supposed to be good for 110 brake horsepower. Should be more than enough to motivate this little car (an OG Mini weighs under 1,500 pounds). Behind the wheels are 8.4-inch disc brakes and what's just described as a 'road-tuned suspension kit,' likely meaning, not track-level stiff. The wheel design is the biggest triumph here to me, though. The design and size (when's the last time you saw 13s? ) are absolutely perfect and round out the restomod's whole look exceptionally well. Inside is kept pretty simple and stately. There's a small DIN-style screen for infotainment, but everything else is old school. Callum Designs shared, 'No two builds will be alike, each customer will collaborate closely with CALLUM's design team to create a Mini that reflects their individual vision,' so it'll be cool to see what people do with these when they start popping up at car meets. They'll be hand-made in England on a 'limited production run' starting at £75,000, which is about $102,000 at this moment. Tough to say what one of these would exactly end up costing in America, but you might be able to avoid tariffs by sneaking it into your carry-on luggage. Callum Design Know anything else interesting about classic Mini restoration? Drop the author a note at
