Phil Wicks is a driver of extraordinary experience.  He started his career during the dawn of modern motorsport era in the 50’s and early 60’s.  He shared the track with legendary names in their early careers, names such as Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill and Jacky Ickx.  But Phil Wicks has not retired as the majority of drivers of his time have done.  On the contrary, he has not even slowed much.  He now enters his 50th year of his motorsport career by expanding his business holdings and entering a new phase with the opening of his “Phil Wicks MINI Driving Academy.”

Throughout his career, Phil Wicks has driven and campaigned one primary marque of car, the Mini.  His experience started at the very beginning of the car’s motorsport history.  In 1960, Wicks met John and Jeffrey Anstead who were then successfully preparing and racing various British and Italian racecars.  They were also England’s #1 Weber carburetor specialists and many racing teams hired them to sort out their carburetor problems.  Together, they formed a race team called Radbourne Racing and used Wicks’ 997cc Mini Cooper to race all across England.  But Wicks wanted to expand his horizons and looked to Radbourne Racing as the means to accomplish that goal.  When John Stanton, the chairman of the newly formed Mini Club joined the organization as team manager and sponsor, the means to do it became a reality.

Radbourne Racing headed for Europe and the young-gun driver went with them.  “Here I was, the new boy with my newly acquired International License ready to take on the best of Europe,” commented Wicks.  His first racetrack turned out to be the one he had dreamed about since boyhood; the longest, most dangerous racetrack in the world – Germany’s Nurburgring.

The six-hour “Grosser Prix Die Touring Wagen” started with 104 cars, including young Wicks in his first international event.  “Hurtling into the 180-degree right hand bend for the first time was eye opening to say the least!”  While Wicks had worked his way to fourth in class by the end of the first long lap, a rod end bolt broke and the connecting rod shot straight through the side of the engine block.  “The 180 degree right hand bend caused an oil surge and the pick-up pipe in the bottom of the transmission was starved of oil for the crankshaft,” said Wicks.  His first race at the ‘ring was quickly and officially classified a DNF.

However, with his international appearance, Wicks was able to elevate his visibility and reputation among racing’s hierarchy of the day.  In 1963, Stanton introduced Wicks to Bill Kelley, owner of the new 1071 cc Cooper “S” (7766PH), the first of the ‘S’ models.  “By 1963 there were several commercial conversion shops modifying Mini Coopers and Cooper ‘S’.  Radbourne had become a Fiat dealership and campaigned a pair of Fiat-Abarth saloon cars in England.
 “I drove the cars a couple of times, but I wanted to race in Europe,” said Wick.  “Radbourne was more interested in racing in England to promote their new Fiat dealership.  So, it was with great sadness that my business relationship with Radbourne ended.  We remained great friends and went on to become the greatest of rivals.”

Wicks and Kelley took the “S” to Taurus Performance Tuning for race preparation.  This led to the car being used as a research and development car for Taurus with Kelley as a director of the company who helped broadened their horizons to include many makes of cars, British, European and American.  “Bill and I raced 7766 PH in some British Saloon Car Championship races and some European long distance event,” added Wicks.  “The next couple of years with Taurus were great.  Magazines were writing reviews and testing our street converted cars.  Autosport test our street 1275cc ‘S’ and reported it to be ‘the fastest 1275 street car ever’.  The look of those guys in their E-type Jags and Aston Martins as the Mini Cooper ‘S’ out-dragged them up to 100mph was priceless!  And of course, in traffic, only a motorcycle could stay with it!” 

The attention being drawn to the Mini led Wicks to other opportunities.  He was an occasional stunt driver for the British TV series “Dangerman” starring Patrick McGoohan as well as other stunt driving roles in the feature films Grand Prix and the 1969 version of “The Italian Job.”

Continued development of the Mini meant more racing for Wicks.  He built a lightweight 850 “S” that took on the best of the British Saloon car racers.  “I built a Sprint spec ‘S’ engine with a very light flywheel, lightened and polished rocker arms, push rods, cam followers, the first ever front-mounted radiator, destroked the 1071 ‘S’ crank and sleeved the bores down to bring the engine size to 850,” recalled Wicks.  “Well, my competitors could not believe how quick the first ever 850 ‘S’ was!  They still had just a bit more top-end speed but as we got to the curvy bits, I was gone!”  The 850 ‘S’ won every race it started and created a new concept for the company, the “instant Mini Racer” kit for (then equivalent) $1000.  It represented the high point of development of the car that was to transform saloon car racing for the every day club racer. 

Wicks looks back on his early Mini racing days as the pinnacle of his racing career.  After moving on from Mini racing, Wicks continued to race cars and stay close to the automotive industry.  He worked as a test and development driver for Lamborghini, a job he shared with his boyhood hero, Sterling Moss.  Wicks started several automotive related businesses and moved to the USA.  He owned a limousine business using classic Rolls Royce cars and opened numerous British themed pubs in Florida.  But his heart was always with the Mini and when BMW revived the brand with the introduction of the MINI Cooper and Cooper “S” to the USA, Wicks was back in the MINI business in a role that was custom fit for him.  He had come full circle.  He now enjoys his new role as chief instructor and owner of the “Phil Wicks MINI Driving Academy.” 

“It’s great to share my passion for MINIs with a whole new generation of enthusiasts.  Many of them were not even born when I was racing the first generation of Mini racers,” added Wicks. Wicks’ Academies are aimed to teach every day driving skills in a car that far exceeds customary handling characteristics of a compact car.

When one talks to Phil Wicks about Mini, it quickly becomes apparent that the stories told are more than just racing tales.  They are stories of a brand that made its mark at a time when racing was blossoming into the modern powerhouse sport we enjoy today.  Few brands have spread their wings across the sport in the same way as the Mini.  It was a revolutionary car that evolved into a saloon car racer of extraordinary capability.  Few drivers can say they have participated in the heart of it since the beginning.  Phil Wicks did and now, revived with the new MINI, still does.

“I think that the new BMW built MINI has captured the essence of the classic Mini exceptionally well,” said Wicks.  “It is a real treat to take the lessons learned over a career with one brand of car and be able to apply it to a modern version of the classic car.  I’m not sure that you can do that with any other brand quite so seamlessly as you can with the MINI Cooper.  I can sense that link back to the beginning, the car’s origins are not only clearly to be seen in its styling but I can feel the heritage of 7766PH in its handling as well!”

Rarely has there been a brand so easily identified with its heritage as the MINI.  Rarer still, to find a person that has been a part of the brand’s racing development from the very beginning.    It is easily understood that Phil Wicks has enjoyed a Mini career in the grandest of times, half a century of racing with a brand that was born to race.  And perhaps more than anyone else, Phil Wicks should know.  He was part of the original team that helped with the delivery.