Throughout the years I have come across a lot of Top Gear fans who have all been wondering the same thing – What happened to the Paddy Hopkirk mini?

Top Gear ran a competition called Restoration Ripoff during Series 5, back in 2004. In each episode, James May would introduce a car which was worthy of restoration and asked viewers to vote via a phone poll to decide which would be restored. The list consisted of James Dean’s Lotus Ten, the Adams Probe 16 from A Clockwork Orange, Keith Moon’s 1938 Chrysler Wimbledon, a Range Rover previously owned by Princess Diana and Paddy Hopkirk’s racing Mini Cooper “407 ARX”.

In the eighth episode of the series, the 407 ARX Mini was crowned the winner and would be restored during Series 6, using the money raised by the phone call voters. However, this would be the last time we ever saw 407 ARX on Top Gear… Read more