Front to Back—Minis, Twinis & Mokes

In a recent “Last Lap” [60 Years of the Upscale Mini] I considered the expensive customized Minis of the Swinging Sixties, which got me thinking about Mini specials. I cannot help but think of Minis since I now live in Oxford where the 10 millionth Mini was made recently. BMW has tried to make out that the Mini is a 60 year-old brand, but the first cars were launched, on August 26th, 1959, as the Morris Mini-Minor and the Austin Sev7en. Se7en – geddit? They had different radiator grilles and slightly different color options.

Austin or Morris, there were long-lost social nuances at play here. When works cars were run (by Ken Tyrrell) they were the Austin version (because of the Healey connection), but by the early 1960s, everyone called them Minis and even BMC dropped the very clever Se7en name.