Yup, a while back I had the aptly named 'mini magazine' monthly. In it was a fantastic article concerning a chap who put a heavily modified supercharged vtec honda engin into his mini mayfair, limited slip differential and a whole host of other crazy goodies. From the outside it looked like an ordinary mini apart from the fat alloy wheels and a tiny 'R-type' badge on the rear quarter panel. it cost him about 15k for all of the parts and work on the engine and interior (tasteful leather seats and the like). He'd modified the Vtec system to kik in at 3000rpm instead of 5-6k
with some crazy 0-60 times of under 4 seconds!
What a machine. Really. Utterly insane, but you gotta hand it to the guy for creating a nifty wolf in sheeps clothing.
If I had a scanner I'd post some of the pics for your appreciation.