There are cars that announce themselves with horsepower and spoilers, and then there are those that simply arrive, well-tailored, sharply styled, and comfortable in their own skin. The Wood and Pickett Mini by CALLUM, the latest collaboration between design house CALLUM and coachbuilding specialists Wood and Pickett, falls squarely in the latter camp. It doesn’t shout. It suggests.
Built on the bones of a Mk5 Sportspack Mini, one of the last true iterations of the classic silhouette, the car is a deliberate throwback, though never a pastiche. Its bodywork has been subtly reworked, its stance recalibrated. The Anthracite metallic finish leans more Savile Row than show car. If this Mini wore shoes, they’d be handmade brogues with a flash of something unexpected at the sole.
That attention to character over nostalgia may explain why its first owner is David Gandy. Model, entrepreneur, self-proclaimed petrolhead, Gandy has long blurred the line between fashion and motoring culture. His involvement here feels less like a celebrity endorsement and more like a natural extension of the design process. From the colour palette to the leather grain, his hand is present but never imposed.
Inside, the cabin moves away from the original Mini’s utilitarian origins without slipping into parody. There’s a new dashboard, inspired by Wood and Pickett’s 1970s “Margrave” interiors, yet built with today’s materials and tolerances. The tan Bridge of Weir leather feels lifted from a gentleman’s club, though the piano-switch pack and satin-finished metal bezels remind you this is not a car caught in amber. It’s one reinterpreting the idea of “Britishness” with both affection and critique.
There’s performance, of course, a newly built 1310cc Stage 3 engine pushing 110 brake horsepower, a re-engineered gearbox, and a bespoke twin-exit exhaust. But this isn’t a car that wants to be measured by 0–60 times. It wants to be driven, heard, and felt. The upgraded suspension and noise-dampening efforts speak to a car intended for actual use, not speculative resale.
Ian Callum, whose résumé spans Aston Martin and Jaguar, has called the Mini “one of the most important cars ever created.” What he and his team have done here is not revivalism, it’s closer to portraiture. They’ve taken a cultural icon and rendered it in a new medium, without losing the essence of the original.
This isn’t a one-off. CALLUM and Wood and Pickett will build a small number of these Minis, each tailored in close consultation with its owner. Prices start at £75,000, but that figure says little about the value proposition. What’s on offer isn’t just a car. It’s an identity, curated, crafted, and quietly subversive in a world still obsessed with scale and spectacle.
Fittingly, the car will make its public debut not at a sprawling expo, but at the Heveningham Concours this June, an event that, like the car itself, favours quality over quantity, presence over pomp.
In a time of digital dashboards and synthetic engine notes, the Wood and Pickett Mini by CALLUM serves as a reminder that the most radical thing a car can do today is feel truly personal.
