Al Ram­sawack

In our haste for moder­ni­ty, we too of­ten de­stroy ob­jects of tan­gi­ble his­to­ry. On the flip side, Au­gus­tus "Mano" Syl­van ap­pre­ci­ates the val­ue of preser­va­tion. Mano's main fo­cus is restor­ing old (and not-so-old) Mi­ni ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing cars, pick­up trucks and jeeps. At his garage, Mano point­ed to sev­er­al old mod­el Austin and Mor­ris Mi­ni ve­hi­cles in dif­fer­ent stages of restora­tion. "These are my toys," he said, with a boy­ish smile."I have a pas­sion for Mi­ni ve­hi­cles. My main hob­by is their restora­tion."In 2001, he ac­quired his first old Austin Mi­ni. With ea­gle eyes, he went through the coach works and en­gine. For months he worked tire­less­ly with sur­gi­cal pre­ci­sion to re­store it. The fi­nal prod­uct was sat­is­fy­ing: just the way he had en­vi­sioned it.

Mano is a mem­ber of the Wheels Club in Dow Vil­lage, South Oropouche. He de­vel­oped his au­to me­chan­ic and au­to body­work skills from an ear­ly age. Most of the younger vil­lagers knew him as the own­er and dri­ver of a maxi taxi; he al­so ran a bar. His taxi was al­ways in im­mac­u­late con­di­tion; be­cause of his friend­ly, care­ful, dri­ving at­ti­tude, he was a favourite in his route. Mano soon de­cid­ed to ac­quire and re­store Min­is, and be­came an ac­tive mem­ber of the Tri­ni Mi­ni Car Club."Every young boy and girl should have a hob­by to pur­sue to old age," Mano said."Too many of our young peo­ple com­plain of be­ing bored."For Mano, be­ing bored is not an op­tion. Whether it's restor­ing Mi­ni cars or his lat­est hob­by, jet ski­ing, he's a man that keeps busy. He likes jet ski­ing along the Mos­qui­to Creek and up the beau­ti­ful Godineau Riv­er through the Oropouche wet­lands, leav­ing a trail of foam along the riv­er as he ma­neu­vers his ma­chine.He ex­plained: "It takes me five min­utes from the riv­er mouth near the Shore of Peace Cre­ma­tion site to The King's Wharf, in San Fer­nan­do; and with no traf­fic jam in­clud­ed. In the op­po­site di­rec­tion, sail­ing to the South to Point Fortin, it takes me ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 min­utes."

There's an in­creas­ing in­ter­est in jet ski­ing be­tween San Fer­nan­do and Mos­qui­to Creek, says Mano, who is among ten oth­er en­thu­si­asts who ski to­geth­er, and who will soon form their own jet ski club. They will host a fam­i­ly day, to in­clude ex­hi­bi­tions of oth­er skiers and oth­er aquat­ic sports. Mano says this may even be the be­gin­ning of an an­nu­al aquat­ic event at Mos­qui­to Creek.

Mano's first pas­sion, though, is restor­ing Min­is.He ex­plained that own­ing a vin­tage Mi­ni car and dri­ving it can be a dis­ap­point­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for some peo­ple who may pur­chase one, on­ly to lat­er dis­cov­er pos­si­ble draw­backs: some may find the steer­ing too hard to turn, for in­stance, be­cause there is no pow­er-steer­ing sys­tem; the ride may be rough; the brak­ing sys­tem is me­chan­i­cal; the win­dow winders are man­u­al; there is no air con­di­tion­ing, CD play­er, or oth­er so­phis­ti­cat­ed elec­tron­ic de­vices com­pared to oth­er mod­ern (of­ten ful­ly- pow­ered) ve­hi­cles.One dri­ver, he shared, had de­scribed his ex­pe­ri­ence of dri­ving an old Austin Mi­ni as "a phys­i­cal work­out in a gym." But Mano thinks oth­er­wise: "You must ap­pre­ci­ate the his­to­ry and de­vel­op­ment of the mo­tor car from its ear­ly days, and the vast im­prove­ments which fol­lowed."

The Austin Mi­ni pick­up truck is a rare sight on our roads. Many have nev­er seen one.In his se­clud­ed restora­tion garage in Dow Vil­lage, South Oropouche, Mano prides his ful­ly-re­stored Mi­ni pick­up truck as "pos­si­bly the on­ly one of its kind in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is in per­fect work­ing con­di­tion."He said his Mi­ni pick­up, in its ear­ly days, was de­signed as a mi­ni-util­i­ty ve­hi­cle (1961�982). It was slight­ly longer than the Mi­ni car, hav­ing a rear car­go area in­stead of the back pas­sen­ger seat, and hav­ing a tail­gate for load­ing and re­mov­ing car­go. This Mi­ni truck could car­ry a max­i­mum load of 1,500 lb (680 kg)."Boy, I bought this Mi­ni pick­up from a guy in Vance Riv­er," he told me, "...it was parked up for a long time. I al­ways had my eye on it. When I (fi­nal­ly) got this pick­up, it was a start-from-scratch ex­er­cise; com­plete knock-down to com­plete restora­tion; in­side and out."An­oth­er in his prized Mi­ni col­lec­tion is an at­trac­tive metal­lic blue Austin Mi­ni Coop­er (2003 mod­el). This spe­cial breed of Mi­ni was the re­sult of a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort be­tween John Coop­er of the Eu­ro­pean Coop­er Car Com­pa­ny and the man­age­ment of British Mo­tor Cor­po­ra­tion (BMC) of the Austin Mi­ni.

With ap­pro­pri­ate me­chan­i­cal im­prove­ment, the re­sult was the cre­ation of a Mi­ni per­for­mance car - both mod­els, Austin and Mor­ris Coop­ers. Those mod­els won many in­ter­na­tion­al ral­lies, and even won some here in Trinidad in the ear­ly days of au­to sports in Waller Field.Mano al­so has an Austin Mi­ni Moke. Austin Mi­ni Mokes are rare in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The mod­el is a low, mi­ni jeep with­out a hood, and with open seat­ing for four to five pas­sen­gers (in­clud­ing the dri­ver). The Austin Mi­ni Moke was first in­tend­ed for the British Army, and built with a twin en­gine, four-wheel dri­ve, suit­able for steep gra­di­ents and rugged ter­rain. Lat­er, the sin­gle en­gine mod­el, with front wheel dri­ve, rolled out of the as­sem­bly line. Those were used in Bar­ba­dos and Grena­da as hol­i­day ve­hi­cles for tourist sight­see­ing and beach comb­ing, and al­so some­times as po­lice ve­hi­cles.

Mano en­tire­ly knocked down his Mi­ni Moke. Start­ing from scratch, he did the heavy coach work, prim­ing and re­paint­ing it. He in­stalled wheels, lights and the en­gine. Mano and his as­sis­tant Ab­dool ex­pect to com­plete restora­tion in a few weeks: "The re­sult will be a work of art," saus Mano.Syl­van start­ed his car restora­tion hob­by twelve years ago when he bought his first Austin Mi­ni. Like any hob­by, when tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and with ded­i­ca­tion, it can be ex­pen­sive, but he says it is al­ways re­ward­ing. Syl­van spends all his free time in his garage. He con­sid­ers the time well spent. He com­ments:"When you con­sid­er the hours of hard work, and you view the pro­gres­sion from al­most scrap to fin­ish, the in­ner plea­sure and sat­is­fac­tion you achieve seem spir­i­tu­al; dol­lars and cents can­not pay for that."