Ian Nicholls
Stanford Hall in Leicestershire once again played host to the National Mini Owners Club’s annual National Mini Show and AROnline was there. Various sporty and modified Minis attended the event, but our pictures focus on the bread and butter models which made up the bulk of the 5.5 million Minis made.
These range from the badge-engineered MkIs, the ultra-rare MkIIs and the MkIIIs that were on sale during the car’s early 1970s sales zenith to the MkIVs which fought a rearguard action against a new generation of supermini rivals in the late 1970s.
There are also a couple of Innocentis and an Australian-built Clubman.
Mini MkIs
Mini MkIIs
Mini MkIIIs
Mini MkIVs
Mini Clubman
Australian Clubman
Innocentis
Born in Bedfordshire but now residing in Norfolk, Ian Nicholls is an ardent BL enthusiast. Currently he owns a Jaguar and two classic Minis. A stalwart of the Norfolk Mini Owners Club for nearly a decade he is an enthusiast for all things Issigonis. A stickler for historical accuracy he has recently performed the marathon task of mining the online newspaper articles for all BMC>MG related stories. Ian is unable to help with technical queries – he pays other people to fix his cars!
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The owner of one of the MK 3 Mini’s insisted it was harvest gold. We know it as beige.
I’d say he was correct. Both of the non-blue cars look like harvest gold to me . Were you thinking of the undoubtedly beige mark 2 you have shown ?
I know harvest gold very well, a popular late ADO16 colour, and the P reg mini looks like it wears this hue. The L reg however should be sandglow.
Sorry, i meant to say that the P reg one is limeflower.
So no harvest gold minis in there!
No, sorry. Limeflower is much greener than the colour of the P registered one, and the L registered one, stemming from 1972/73, is far too early for Sandglow which did not appear until 1976. Both are , still, in my view Harvest Gold
Its British Leyland beige !
The Rev. Colin Corke reckons BL beige has corrosion preventative qualities, that is why so many models have survived in this colour!
I attended a show last year which had an ADO16 1300 and MGB in beige.
Lovely. Its nice to see the standard basic models well represented, they seem to be rarer than the Coopers / Ss etc.
I love the standard un-messed-with models too. Such a pleasant change from all the ‘Coopered’ stuff.
That’s what i was thinking too.
Original minis are such a rare sight now, always happy to see such unmolested examples.
Although they don’t look the most exciting cars in the world, it was the success of the MK4 Mini in export markets that has enabled BMW to sell its new MINI all over the world. Remember that until Britain joined the EU, the Mini was not price competitive in the major European countries.
Some great examples of Mini’s here. That white C reg MK1 reminds me of my own (67 E-reg Austin Mini 850). Only kept it 10 months but was my first car and memories were mostly good. Always liked the Clubman’s too
Regarding the secret properties of “Harvest Beige”, I remember in the 80s was an astonishing number of cars in “Respray Blue” (was it Pageant?) which shouldn’t have been – Avengers, Fords, all sorts, in the days when cars would receive a blow-over once they started to look tatty.
I wonder if some skullduggery saw Longbridge ordering twice as much of the stuff as was needed, with the surplus being piped out onto the black market?
that Inca Min with the chrome trim is identical to my first, apart form the chrome wheel trims.
Great to see so many ordinary 70s/80s models in standard trim, so few survive modding, mine included!
Just in case any of you think the Aussie Clubman is modified, they came with those group 2 style wheelarches as standard.