Move away from the vehicle Mr Cooper !

Italian Job Breakdown

Imagine you’ve broken down at the bottom of the Simplon Pass on the homeward journey of the Italian Job Charity Tour, and you’re still over 1,000 miles from home. You’re lucky in that you have managed to pull into a small car park on the side of the road where little patches of tarmac form a pretty pattern on an otherwise heavily pitted and seriously uneven surface.

You’ve had to coast in because you’ve conked out on the way down!  The stunning views you enjoyed moments before on the descent from one of Europe’s most breathtaking mountain passes is now but a distant memory. Your thoughts turn to the pressing matter in hand:  Your broken Mini.

In typical Mini fashion, it’s not long before hordes of fellow ‘Jobbers’ begin piling into the car park, drawn by the sight of a raised Mini bonnet yet unaware until now of the seriously uneven surface of the car park. A group head-scratching session begins almost as soon as the Jobbers alight from their still moving cars, such is their anxiety to lend assistance.
Quickly, the space beneath the bonnet and just above the engine of the disabled Mini fills with eager, gazing eyes belonging to nodding heads. With so many heads you know there’ll be many different opinions.

“You’re carbs are frozen!”     “It’ll be that cheap Italian fuel.”  The ubiquitous ‘head gasket’ and the classic ‘wait for the service crew, they’ll be along in a while’ solutions are bandied about.

A crowd now begins to form around the ailing vehicle and the huddle beneath the bonnet. Cigarettes are lit and talk soon turns to the difficulties of hiring a car in Switzerland when all of a sudden, the closely huddled crowd of people begins to separate and form a clear path, upon which is striding a man with a purpose, a man with knowledge above all others, a man whose father and thus he are inextricably linked with the Mini, a man with the technical ability to accurately diagnose the problem in one swift glance, a man who among all others should surely know precisely why this lovely little Mini is presently out of action.

That man is Mike Cooper, a fellow participant on the Italian Job and all round know-it-all about Minis.

As he approaches the car, he bends his knees to assume the ‘Mini squat’, pokes his head over the engine, fills his lungs with a sharp intake of air and is about to convey his judgement, when, out of nowhere, the massive frame of  Italian Job regular Big Jim Thompson appears, pokes Mike Cooper on the arm and says in his delightful Glaswegian accent, “Move away from the Vehicle Mr. Cooper. Probably best to leave this one to the experts, eh?”  With that Mike, Big Jim and the rest of us just laughed and laughed.

It reminds me, though, just how much fun we all have on the Italian Job in the company of like-minded Mini-
loving friends who no matter what the difficulty, problem, drama or situation, always find time to help one another and make sure that at the end of it we’re all laughing.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...... lend me your ears

I’d like to tell you the story of my ‘baby’, the Italian Job; It's a fundraising event that I founded 20 years ago and that has so far raised over two and a quarter million pounds for children’s charities. 

It started like so many things do, as a bit of a gag really. A gang of us eating a pizza and sipping too many glasses of wine in a Hove pizzeria, deciding we should plan a drive in our Minis to Italy and back to raise some money for Children In Need. Some friends of ours had done a Beaujolais Run just before and I think we kind of figured we could do our own ‘job’ a bit better. 

That was in 1990! I sent a hastily cobbled together press release (and it really was cobbled together) to a motoring magazine called Autocar & Motor and if I’m being totally honest I really only expected them to come back and offer to sponsor us for a few quid. Instead they ran the news release with a photo and we were inundated, swamped and overwhelmed with applications to come along on our first ever Italian Job. We took 55 teams and collectively we raised £70,000! I even have the footage of me presenting a cheque on BBC Children In Need at an ice rink somewhere near Basingstoke!

We were pretty crazy in 1990. Our challenge was to return to the UK within 24 hours of leaving Trento in the heart of the Italian Dolomites via Lausanne in Switzerland. We spent two days in and around the city of Trento (look on the map) enjoying the beautiful mountain driving roads of this region, which our Minis positively loved. Whilst driving around we’d raided local producers (by prior arrangement of course) of what we termed our ‘loot’…. It was gold of the liquid variety… WINE! Once we’d filled our boots (geddit!) we said our fond farewells to Italy and headed north to Switzerland for an overnight followed by a soul crunching 14 hour drive to the French port of Dieppe and then home to blighty for a slap up breakfast at Brighton Marina.

Once the euphoria of that first Italian Job began to subside, sponsorship money started pouring in, literally thousands and thousands of pounds came flooding in. We quickly realised that what we had created was something that could go on to make a huge difference to the lives of many disadvantaged children…. We didn’t make a conscious choice to but we just knew it would happen and we began planning for the following year, almost instinctively. This time though we made a few tweaks and changes and added a day so that it became a tad less severe and physically challenging.

In fact, we’ve kept tweaking and improving the event each year. We change routes, cities and special visits just to keep the event fresh, alive and unique.

We have dedicated 21 years of our lives to building the Italian Job and staging what I truly believe to be an immensely rewarding experience for all involved. I know the Italian Job has empowered many people and changed the course of their own lives as a result. I have had the time, ability, back up and support each year to give some of my time to put this thing called the Italian Job together, and as long as I am able, I fully intend to continue. The team who work alongside me similarly give their time, energy and commitment and ask for nothing in return. We love doing it and if it wasn’t for the fact that sometimes, work, business and commitments get in the way, I’m sure we’d be on the IJ 24/7, because, you know what, I think it deserves it.

The reason I wanted to tell you this story is that I need your help and after twenty one years of very successful fundraising, one thing I’ve learned is that if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Don’t panic though I am not going to ask you to dig deep, make a donation, pledge or redirect you to my Justgiving page. The help I need from you is to spread the word of the Italian Job far and wide so we may continue fundraising for some brilliant children’s charities. This year we support the Variety Club Children’s Charity. Have a look at http://bit.ly/dLlMUB

I’d also like to ask that once you’ve read this posting, you take a quick look around you and make sure that you tell every Mini (old or new) to visit http://bit.ly/5uJIgE for the 10 day fundraising driving adventure they will never forget. If you can retweet to this posting then that is brilliant and I thank you.

Facts about the Italian Job:

Any Mini can participate in the Italian Job, as can any classic car which featured in the 1969 movie. These include E-Type Jaguar, Landrover, Aston Martin DB4, Lamborghini Miura, Fiat Dino, London Taxi, Fiat Cinquecento (old or new) Dormobile or even a coach!

So, if you’re reading this at home, at work, on your smart phone sitting in the doctors surgery it doesn’t matter. In the car park outside, parked up on the side of the road, on your neighbor’s drive, in the queue for the pump at the petrol station …. there will be a Mini (or classic car mentioned above) and I’d love for you to tell them all about us and the Italian Job.

Of course if you’ve got a Mini or classic car and you fancy giving the Italian Job a go, we’d love to hear from you. Please call us for a chat … and then fasten your seat belt, engage first gear, ease off the clutch and join us in Italy for the 21^st edition of the Italian Job.