To get your Anglia or Mini to achieve any sort of "performance" you had to do quite a bit of work to it. The Peco vroom-box may have sounded the part but added little or nothing to the performance in contrast to the "proper" silencer from British Leyland Special Tuning which just happened to be more than a quarter of the price of a vroom-box too!

People who had "hot" Anglias and Minis were well aware of the limitations of the spec which is why they improved the handling along with the performance and didn't have tyres down to the cords and instead had their wide wheels shod with new G800s or Cints.

Today, you can buy small cars which, although several years old but in absolutely "straight out of the showroom" spec would have left hotted Anglias and Minis almost standing still.

To get a Mini to "go", it wasn't too hard. An MG1100 head, a BL 731 cam, a pair of short-ram 1½ inch SUs, a BL 3-branch with 1½ pipe to a BL box which fits in exactly the same place as the original silencer, not a vroom-box hanging down underneath will all make it go quite well. If you want to do a bit more twiddling for a few more BHP, you could gas-flow the head and fit big inlet valves and while you'd got the engine out fitting the cam, fit a Duplex timing chain and a lightened steel flywheel.

The brakes? A bit more work needed, easy way was a pair of Cooper S driveshafts and discs.

Nowadays, lads want to just buy an old Golf or Astra and drive like loonies as soon as they get it.