The first owner was Ron Graves of Granada Hills, California.  He was a west coast Mini racer who also ran Grove Aircraft Sales, Inc. in North Hollywood, California. Mr. Graves had the Landar imported from the U.K. in late 1969 when it was new.  It was purchased through Landar's North American importer ... John N. Hill who was owner of Landar/USA, a Chicago company.

The second owner was Robin DePry of San Gabriel, California.  Robin sometimes races Formula Ford today and raced the Landar from 1977 through 1980,  in SCCA races at Willow Springs and Riverside.  When I located Robin, he provided a complete set of detailed chassis photographs from the 1978 period.  This will assist in an authentic restoration, and I thank Robin for this!

The SCCA log book shows two more racers continued to actively race the car after Robin DePry. Bruce Angus McDonald was the third owner.  He successfully raced the car from 1981 through 1984 in SCCA regional and national events,  usually placing 1st or 2nd..

 
The fourth California owner was Leslie Clark who raced SCCA four times in 1987.  Entries in the SCCA log book end there.
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Landar Manufacturing and Engineering History

Landar Manufacturing was located in Birmingham, England and stands for "Radnall" brothers spelled backwards.  I have not been able to trace the family or learn how and when they stopped making race cars, although when I purchased my car all of the original correspondence between Mr. Graves and the factory, and literature, came with the car.

Landar sports racers were designed around Mini Cooper S engines and transmissions.  The R6 models were early 60's cars, and  R7's like this one were built in the mid-to-late 60’s.  The design uses a tube space frames with aluminum attached, and a fiberglass bodies.  The R7 used 13 inch minilite rims, but earlier models such as the R6 used 10 inch diameter rims like Mini's of the era.

R7’s were manufactured until at least 1971, but I'm not sure how much longer.  About 1970 the "C" sports racers started migrating to 2 liter engines.  This left the hopped-up 1275 cc Mini Cooper-S engine underpowered, even though it ran a cross-flow head and Tecalamit-Jackson fuel injection.

Factory specifications for a Landar R7 include an 8 gallon fuel cell, Mangnesium 13" wheels with 9" rims in the rear and 7 1/2" fronts, brake disks are 9 1/4" front and 8 3/4" rear, and the weight of the car is listed at 850 lbs.