Mini – Classic : Stars and their cars

We take a look at some of the famous people who have driven Minis during its long production run…

Celebrity endorsement has long been a part of car marketing. The Mini was an unlikely beneficiary of this, as Ian Nicholls points out with his gallery. If you have any similar images you’d like to submit, drop us a line and we’ll add them in…



The cult of celebrity is nothing new. Back in the 1960s the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, and her husband Lord Snowdon were the Posh and Becks of their day. Lord Snowdon, pictured here at the wheel, became an enthusiastic Mini owner and a personal friend of Alec Issigonis.


Another royal Mini driver was Princess Alexandra, the Queen’s cousin. She later married Angus Ogilvy.


Comedian and actor Norman Wisdom with his Austin Mini Cooper.


Comedian, writer and actor Spike Milligan was a big Mini fan, even appearing in TV commercials for the
car. In 1984, he claimed he was rich enough to own a Rolls-Royce, but sensible enough to drive a Mini…


Here we see Manchester United footballer George Best with a coachbuilt Mini.


Now forgotten film actor Laurence Harvey is pictured in his Wood & Pickett Mini.


John Lennon in the passenger seat of his Mini in 1967.


Paul McCartney in his Mini.

Ian Nicholls
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6 Comments

  1. Sadly, Marc Bolan, frontman of TRex, died in Barnes, South London, in a Mini Clubman. The extended nose wasn’t enough to save him when the car veered off the road into a tree. His girlfriend, who was driving, survived.

  2. Lennon briefly and famously swapped his Mini for Apple Records’ company Maxi for a trip to Scotland, which he crashed on a highlands road, and later placed on a plinth. Unfortunately Ringo Starr bought the house and had the Maxi crushed. The fate of his Mini is unknown.

  3. I know a Mini was covered in old Pennies to premote Penny Lane, & was still around in the 1990s when it was auctioned.

    Peter Sellers’s own Mini was used in A Shot In The Dark.

  4. Lord Snowden was an enthusiastic owner of a Moulton bicycle, therefore another connection to BMC/BL. A mishap involved a large car and the Moulton, the frame of the Moulton was bent from a parking of a Bentley mishap in his garage,

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