Only by suffering a heart attack at his beloved Oulton Park’s Gold Cup event, where expert medical care was at hand, did he enjoy several bonus years.
A natural salesman, Liverpudlian Minshaw identified a lucrative niche market for mail order go-faster equipment and racewear.
Having founded Demon Tweeks in 1971, he built a trusted brand empire from a one-man band, pioneering an industry, and put more back into grassroots motorsport than anybody else.
Minshaw first started competing at Aintree in 1958, in a Morris Minor convertible, before moving on to a Downton-tuned Mini, which enabled him to sample a wide range of sporting disciplines while providing road transport in his work selling Fram Filters.
Sportscars followed, including a Turner-Climax, a factory-supported Reliant Sabre and an 1150cc Lotus 23 sponsored by Charles Bridges’ Red Rose Motors of Chester.
But his big adventure was accompanying Ted Worswick, driving one of the latter’s ex-works Austin-Healey 3000s (PJB 828) to the 1966 Targa Florio in Sicily, a world championship round, then competing.
Source: Autosport