Modders though, look at the Clubman with different eyes, because what they’re interested in as the potential underneath that spacious square-cut front. It’s an engine bay which is almost begging for a transplant and in Matthew Lawrence’s case he had dreams involving a Honda VTEC.

    So Matthew, which came first your fixation with Minis or Hondas? “Minis – my first car was a 998cc Mini, then I had a Civic VTI and then two Integra Type-Rs one after the other and now this, a 1976 1098cc Clubman.

    “The Clubman was in original condition but it was bog standard. The front floors had large holes in them, the wings were shot – and so were the A-panels, inner arches, and the inner and outer sills. It was fairly bad really,” says Matthew with a heavy dose of understatement.

    “The engine is from a Japanese spec EK9 Civic Type-R, it did take a fair bit of work to install it, but now I sort of forget how much was really involved. Thinking about it, there was quite a bit of messing around.”

    Did it involve a lot of subframe jiggory-pokery? “The subframe I got from Allspeed Engineering, but it wasn’t designed for the EK9’s engine, so I did have to change it around quite a bit to get it to fit because it’s got different engine mounts.

    “I had to cut all the inner wings out. I then bolted the engine up in there, with some help from Dad, and cut the bulkhead and stepped it back by about 4 inches to get the Honda inlet manifold on. I didn’t have the bodywork done, but the car was pretty much there. I even had it running, but then I had to pull it all apart and painted it. Everything else was just built around it.”

    Filling in the missing gaps of the spec, is a custom exhaust system which utilises Integra Type-R and new Mini Cooper S components. The brakes are KAD 8.4 inch vented discs, whilst rear Cooper S drums follow up behind with EBC competition linings and the servo is inside the car too. The suspension consists of: standard rubber cones with Gaz adjustable dampers, Hi-Los; the front is fully Rose-jointed and is adjustable for camber and castor, while the rear is adjustable for camber.

     Was that a case of trial and error with setting up the suspension? “Yeah, I started with the standard settings and just went from there. It’s running slightly more positive castor at the front with more negative camber at the rear.

    “It turned out better than I thought it would. It doesn’t get too much attention because most people don’t realise what’s in it. At Himley, I left the bonnet shut and everyone was walking past it – but as soon as I opened the bonnet, that was it, everyone crowded around.”

Restrained stripped out interior retains all the essentials and it includes Matt's custom dash complete with Civic LSI instrument cluster. It's modified because he had to move the redline upwards.