Pulling a trailer

You may have seen from my protect posts that I'm building a trailer for my car. Now I'm at the point of needing to put a hitch onto my car. Have any of you got hitches on your Elf/Hornet or ever seen one done? I just need to know the best way to mount it up to the car, whether to the subframe or the body and at what height the tow ball needs to end up behind the car.

Witter make towbars for the booted mini and although not advertised on their wedsite (www.witter-towbars.co.uk) they are still available. I'm sure they will be able to help re the mounting arrangement and from memory I think their design simply attaches to the boot floor and avoids the subframe.

I'll Ask my son to find out , his friend works there! Also my son in laws father has a Hornet with one fitted. Ill check that out.
The reason that DB's don't put it on their adverts or website is because it is a grey area. EU regulations do not allow minis to have towbars if they are post 1979 (I think but not sure) registration.
Give me a week or so to find out dimensions and so forth

I think the cut-off year is 1998, which is when the European type approval regs came in. If you fit a towbar to a later Mini (not that there are many!) you will be breaking the law and invalidate your insurance.

I'm interested in this right now, as, following the IMM, we have resolved to build a trailer. Which then set me wondering if it was possible to design a towbar which will allow us to retain our centre-exit exhausts (as fitted to our four main cars)...

I emailed Witter, and they gave me the polite brush-off. I've sent an email to www.towbarsni.co.uk as they handle more suppliers.
Possibly sorted, as I now have a pricelist from http://www.watling-towbars.co.uk/ showing towbars for the Elf and Hornet.

My son has lost contact with the chap who worked at the towbar manufacturers. Sorry!
Do you still want me to measure up Mervins towbar?
I'm not sure if it is the type that bolts through the rear bumper. I don't like that idea of cutting the chrome, it may cause problems later on?

TONYELF wrote:I'm not sure if it is the type that bolts through the rear bumper. I don't like that idea of cutting the chrome, it may cause problems later on?

My Elfie seems to have had one of those fitted at some point, or at least had a bumper transferred from one (don't recall seeing any other mounting holes anywhere). The holes are still in the bumper, but nothing wrong with the chrome - well not as a result of that at least.

I'm not too keen on drilling holes in my solid unobtanium rear bumper, so I might have to come up with a custom setup. What I would like though, is to have some measurements to help me figure out where the mounting points should be under the car. I've seen Minis with towbars mounted to the subframe, but others have told me that it's better to mount to the body only.

I am going to fit one to my Riley i already have a towsure bar on my mini saloon which mounts on the subframe and boot floor. It's a simple job to copy it from the saloon version just make it slightly longer to clear the extended floor before it's cranked up to get the hitch height correct.
cheers lester

Mini Mag ran a towbar DIY in the March 09 issue. I'm going to use their design as a starting point, but make it a receiver type that I'll be able to disconnect where it crosses under the rear of the subframe. It won't be quite like what you folks have to do, since there basically aren't ANY laws concerning towing over here.