Here at Mini Sport, we recently celebrated our 50th Anniversary in November by holding a Gala Dinner with all our Mini Sport friends!
To mark this momentous occasion, we decided we would like to take the opportunity to raise some money for a charity. After not so much deliberation, it was set that we would be raising funds for Prevent Breast Cancer, a charity very, very, close to the company’s heart.
Although there were many ways in which we could raised money for charity, we wanted to produce something truly spectacular…
As engineering is in our blood here in Lancashire, it seemed only fitting for our state-of-the-art engineering plant, MAD, to produce something in house to auction off, and really showcase the knowledge, skills and technology, that we have here at Mini Sport, and pour in to everything we design and manufacture. The idea was to design our own centrepieces, something totally unique and innovative, to blow our guests away with. These would then be opened up to bidding through a silent auction on the evening of our gala.
With so many notable achievements to choose from, we narrowed down the design to being a 1:10 scale model of perhaps one of our most famous Minis, NCK (aka ‘The Ultimate Road Rally Mini’).
The process began by 3D scanning NCK itself, the Mini was covered completely in reference markers – before being scanned using a creaform scanner to create the 3D visual image. This scanning picks up every single detail on the Mini, even the imperfections attained from years rallying!
Once scanned we used VX Elements to finalise our image design, before reverse engineering this back to create a a CAD model. Using CAD software, we then converted this in to a solid 3D model, and designed the tooling programme for our CNC Mazak machines to produce the models on. Made from solid aluminium billets, these models were machined, before being sent for blasting and anodising to reach the required finish.
These models were all mounted using connecting rods that were made in house, to the base plates, that we also etched in house, using our halo laser. Approximately 600 hours went in to the production of these 20 models, and will be admired for years to come.
The final, completed Mini models were absolute works of art and attracted an overwhelming amount of bids, raising a phenomenal £21,000 for charity! You can read more about our charity handover to Prevent Breast Cancer, here.
Or to find out more about Prevent Breast Cancer and their on-going research in to this horrific disease, please see their website here.
Mini Sport have chosen Prevent Breast Cancer for our charity of the year, we will be continuing to support them throughout 2018, and should you like to add to the funds raised, you can do so on our Just Giving page here.