Man builds his ultra rare dream car after finding the remnants of one as a barn find
- A man managed to rebuild his dream car after finding it in a barn
- The mechanic was just a child when he first saw a ultra-rare 1958 MacMinn Le Mans Coupe
- Only a handful of the cars were ever made
Published on Jul 19, 2024 at 5:12 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Jul 19, 2024 at 4:07 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
A man managed to create his dream car – a super rare 1958 MacMinn Le Mans Coupe – after he found the shell of one in a barn find.
If the name MacMinn LeMans Coupe doesn’t mean very much to you, that’s probably because they were never actually proper production cars.
Just a handful of the vehicles were made – and the cars have a pretty interesting story behind them.
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The 1958 MacMinn Le Mans Coupe started life as a challenge
During the 1950s, automotive magazine Road and Track launched a challenge to its readers to come together to create a car that could compete – and hopefully win – the legendary 24-hour LeMans car race.
Road and Track publisher John Bond, who also happened to be an engineer, eventually designed a chassis for the vehicle and enlisted the help of designer Strother MacMinn for the body.
And so, the 1958 MacMinn Le Mans Coupe was born – sort of.
The car never made it into production and the three of them that were made were later lost to the hands of time.
The rare rebuild came thanks to a barn find
But this is where mechanic Dennis Kazmerowski comes in.
As a kid, Dennis saw a MacMinn LeMans Coupe on the cover of Road and Track and fell in love.
Fast-forward several decades, and Dennis was still just as keen on the classic car but knew his odds of ever owning one were pretty much zero.
However, it turns out that luck was on his side – because he managed to stumble across one in a barn find.
Well, not quite a whole one, but parts of one, and certainly enough to pique his interest in doing a rebuild.
The MacMinn had been crashed – and very badly damaged – about 60 years before and left abandoned in a barn.
As a result of the crash, and the intervening decades, the MacMinn was less than a shell – its doors, hood, windows, and wheel wells had all gone, but Dennis didn’t care and struck a deal with its owner so he could get it back up and running.
The man spent thousands of hours on the rebuild
With the help of his friend Alan Fudge he soon set about completely restoring the car – spending around 20 months, or 3,000 hours, working on it.
Using a photo from the cover of Road and Track, Dennis and Alan kept the rebuild as close to the original as possible.
Dennis managed to find a 283 ci V8 motor and four-speed manual transmission from a 1957 C1 Chevrolet Corvette and took the front suspension from a Triumph TR3.
Dennis appeared on an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, where he showed off the fruits of his labor – and it looks absolutely spot on.
Well done, Dennis.
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Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Across her career she's covered a wide variety of topics, including celebrity, cryptocurrency, politics, true crime and just about everything in between.
