Twentieth Century Minis are a yen a dozen in this country, as I’ve documented in many of my monthly singles posts. Several have included a Mini, because I see them so often that, every once in a while, a photo-worthy one does show up. Most times though, they’re just bog standard late model Rover-badged Coopers and Citys, nothing all that exciting. This long-roof version however, complete with UK plates, was very different and warrants its very own long-form post. [Late edit: as if the universe wanted to prove me wrong, between the time I wrote this and publication, I encountered two very interesting Minis. More soon then…]
First the bad news: whatever kind of an excuse these are for headlamps is just plain wrong. Not a fan of the black vinyl wrap on the bonnet and the blacked out chrome in general, but those are less off-putting than these LED-infested atrocities perched on those wings. But enough said about that – it’s not a total deal-breaker.
Aside from the front, the rest of the car looks very nice indeed. I’m even ok with the aftermarket wheels in this case, which is not my usual position on the matter, but these look cool.
I’m assuming that we’re all pretty familiar with the Mini, but perhaps this variant is not quite as well known. The Mini was born in 1959 under the Austin and Morris marques; the long-roof version arrived just a year later. There were two distinct lineages: the family-oriented Austin Countryman / Morris Traveller, some of which were of the fancy wood-trimmed variety, and the no-frills workmanlike ¼ ton Van.
Both the Van and the Countryman / Traveller shared a longer wheelbase, which was all of 84.2 inches (2138 mm), compared to the saloon’s 80.25’’ (2036 mm). This, as well as a tiny amount of extra rear overhang, made the estate / van 9.5 inches (240 mm) longer than the saloon’s 120.2’’ (3054 mm) – just as long as the Wolseley Hornet / Riley Elf. In 1961, a Pickup variant was added to the range on the LWB platform.
All long-roof Minis got a twin barn door tailgate, too. Back in 1960, the hatch was still far from ubiquitous, even in wagons, but it’s still a bit strange that a highly cutting-edge car like the Mini opted for this rather old-fashioned solution.
LWB Minis, clockwise from top left: 1960-69 Countryman, panel van, pickup, 1970-80 Clubman Estate
The woodie Countryman / Traveller did not survive the first major shake-up of the Mini range in 1969, when the new British Leyland direction also elected to do away with the twee stuff, such as the Wolseley and Riley variants and even the Austin and Morris badges. They decided to turn Mini into its own independent brand (on the domestic market, at least) and ushered in the Clubman as the new Mini deluxe, so the Clubman Estate appeared, sans wood. But the Mini panel van and pickup, still dressed in their 1960 clothes, including the external door hinges that had disappeared on the saloons, carried on regardless through the depressing lows of the BL era, also known as the ’70s.
All of the sudden, in the last weeks of 1978, British Leyland remembered about their LWB commercial Minis and gave the range a slight makeover. The name became Mini 95 Pickup and Van, at least on the domestic market and several important Continental ones (e.g. France, Belgium or Germany). But as always with BMC / BL products, certain markets had their own thing going – the above Danish advert shows that the car was known as the Morris Mascot 95 up there.
Engine-wise, the Mini 95 was initially available with either the 848cc (33hp) or the 998cc (39hp) A-series 4-cyl., only mated to a 4-speed manual. After 1980, the 850 was dropped, leaving only the “big” motor available for the remainder of the model’s life.
And that life turned out to be quite short, really. Production of the Mini 95 stopped in the spring of 1983 – it was finally time for the little car to fully espouse its newfound bourgeois clientele. Blue collar variants such as the panel van or pickup, whose success had been quite modest anyway, were no longer welcome in the Austin-Rover showrooms. Just goes to show that not everything sporting a BL badge was necessarily all that bad – provided it was a legacy design made well before the creation of that sorry sinking ship. The badges are in the process of fading away in any case.
The name of the Mini 95 refers to the car’s approximate total weight of 0.94 tons, but it was still only able to haul ¼ ton at best. There is no marque on the car anywhere per se – a Leyland roundel, albeit without the “British Leyland” name, was all that was deemed appropriate. The Mini saloon was brought back under the Austin marque in 1980, but the Mini 95 never bothered with that distinction.
However, since the BL parts bin was regularly raided for ways to improve the working class Minis at a reasonable cost, the Austin Allegro’s steering wheel (the circular one, fortunately!) found its way in the mix. Said steering wheel, aside from clashing with the rest of the dash, also bore the new Austin-Morris logo, introduced in 1978.
Of course, this car has plainly had a lot of aftermarket dials added here and there, as well as what looks like a dash-mounted A/C. If that’s the case, let’s hope the engine was swapped for the 1250 GT’s unit.
Despite the many unwelcome additions festooned about this Mini, it would take very little effort to return it to a near stock appearance, so it’s not too bad. Some mods, such as the deletion of the ugly fender extensions that BL put on these from the factory (go back to the Morris Mascot ad above), are actually very good – though judging from a quick Internet search, it seems a lot of folks either did the same thing or this was only for the Danes.
Everyone has their favourite oddball design features. For me, one of those if the LWB Mini’s fuel filler cap, half-buried in its little recess. It reminds me of the Land-Rover’s fuel filler, which looks almost exactly the same. It’s a great little trick to break the monotony of the car’s flank – and rather than being cute or clever, like those hidden-in-a-taillight types, it’s just plain and practical.
And speaking of taillights, I’m quite fond of the ones on these Minis too. All in all, this version of the van, i.e. with side windows, is perhaps one of the most attractive versions of the classic LWB Mini, tied with the woodies of the ‘60s. And it’s the most interesting one I’ve seen around here, by at least 9.5 inches.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: Austin Mini – Yesterday’s Mini; Today’s Micro, by PN
Car Carshow Classic: 1960 Austin Seven (Mini) – The Future Started Here, by Roger Carr
If a top hinged hatch door had been used, it would need to swing up very high otherwise it would be in your way. Which would make it quite awkward to use and near impossible to fabricate decent struts for it. This is because of the low build and the near vertical rear. I have always found both barn doors pretty practical.
A friend bought one new in 1979 and I have been allowed to use it for various things over the years. Tried to buy the car off him but he still owns it to this date.
All the mods done to this car makes it worse in my opinion. I like them best as a small work horse, not a show item. The black wheels could be the originals but painted black?
These vans have the fixed metal grille. On the saloon models the grille can be removed which helps in setting the points on the distributor. But the van has the grille fixed (welded). Not sure why – did it make the body stiffer? If so was that needed?
Prices have gone through the roof for these vans here (Netherlands), more so than their saloon variants.
Agreed about the rear doors. There was a good reason they used barn doors. These were intended primarily for commercial use, and loading and unloading such a low car was easier with these.
There’s a good reason barn doors or side-hinged doors were the preferred style on sedan deliveries, and were available optionally on American vehicles like the Suburban and such. And of course real van never got rid of them.
Top hinged hatches made sense for personal passenger car hatchbacks, but not so much for commercial use.
All the European compact delivery vans, like the little Citroens and Renaults and such all had side hinged doors, IIRC.
And those wheels look to e to be 12″ replacements. The original 10″ were really tiny; go look at the ones on that Countryman (upper left) in that composite picture.
Most Minis have had the 12″ upgrade unless they’re trying very hard to keep them perfectly original.
1. Nix on the googly-eyes (as several have said)
2. Get the rims painted body-color or silver.
I have a particular affinity to any of the early Mini’s —
My dad had a 1961 Austin 850, and I’m partial to the:
— magic wand shifter (seemed like 2 ft. long)
— Cyclops “instrument panel”
— bus-size steering whee.
Thanks for the post Tatra87, great to see one of these.
As Dion has mentioned, the wheels look to be the original 10 inch steels without their dog dish (would be a small dog!) hubcaps. Certainly the UK market commercials and lower spec saloons did not have the plastic wheel arch extensions, only 12 inch wheel equipped cars did and of course later Cooper models had them.
As to the grille, probably cheaper to produce a single piece rather than manufacture and install a further fancy grille and grille ‘moustache’ as per the saloon cars – certainly Ford UK did this on Mk1 Cortinas for the stripper ‘fleet’ models (although I am not sure if this was welded in or not – or indeed if it had a separate grille surround).
They look like the typical and very common 12″ upgrade wheels/tires to me.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a Mini saloon – I’ve certainly never driven one – but back in the 60s I remember a cousin showing me how fast her Mini Countryman (sans timber) would go in second gear ! I also remember, as a 17 year-old schoolboy with a Saturday job getting the key to a Minivan one day when they were short a driver. Sadly in those days all Minis had the long bendy gear lever…
I agree the back doors were fine – they were exactly what you expected, just like on the Morris Minor Traveller.
Both my mother, in the early 60’s, and brother in the early 80’s had used Mini vans as their first cars. In the sixties the commercial variants of the Mini were popular because there was no purchase tax payable, you did without the rear seat and rear side windows and there was a speed limit of 30mph. However when Mum got stopped for speeding it was Dad who was in trouble because Mum was a learner driver, the speedo didn’t work anyway.
The pressed metal front grille was what Issigonis wanted for all Minis. It must have been much cheaper to make than the saloon version, especially the mk2 Austin version which which had over 20 different parts welded riveted and screwed together.
The reason given for the van rear doors when it was launched was that they took up less room on the assembly line.
The van had a small metal hatch in the roof (about 8×4 inches) above and behind the front seats, although this must have been phased out before the 1980s.
It’s a symptom of how chaotic Leyland was that by the time the pictured van was made in the late 70s or early 80s it had virtually no shared components with the car version apart from the engine, gearbox and front subframe. Even the windscreen wipers were different for the van.
The prices asked for vans are now higher than for saloons here in the UK as well.
Surely the speed limit was 40 mph ? ( I got pulled by an un-marked car in East Sussex for 60mph in a Transit )
Riding my bike a couple of days ago, I came across this otherwise nice old Scout II, with similar headlights. To each, his own.
Quite odd that with those mods, they haven’t changed the ugly BL steering wheel. Normally a new smaller steering wheel is the first mod on a mini – gives you extra room for your knees if nothing else.
Typically poor fit on the doors, with the external hinge models it’s quite hard to get that bottom corner to behave.
As everywhere else in the world it seems, vans fetch a premium. Not as much as the pick-up though, which are ridiculously expensive
Is it getting hard to find the standard (7” ??) round headlights, whether US sealed beam or OEM lens/reflector units? I too have noticed some of these LED replacements recently, both on cars that were otherwise unmodded, a Pinto and an older Toyota pickup. Perhaps it’s a choice driven by expedience and not style.
For minis, pretty much everything is really easy to get hold of. There’s a large worldwide network of mini spares suppliers, and so many minis were made (and then scrapped, as they rust like crazy) that there’s a large stockpile of used parts.
Lucas headlights aren’t known for their brightness though, so I can see why you would want an upgrade. Just not these horrible angel eyes ones.
It’s very easy to get good-quality 7″ round headlamps (even easier to get bad ones) in almost any technology one might want: replaceable-bulb halogen, LED, HID. The one that’s grown difficult is sealed beams—there are no longer any on the American or UK markets in quality worth buying no matter how low the price, and the good Japanese ones are no longer in production so old stocks are dwindling.
The owner of this Mini chose these deliberately; they were not practically forced to install those spaceship-lookin’ items, which appear to be one of many knockoff trinkets aping the appearance of reputable headlamps.
I’ve driven many of these, vans and saloons – if you corner fast enough, often enough [ and it’s very hard to resist in a Mini] you can wear out the front tyres in 3000 miles.
I’d always assumed that the grille and external hinges were kept for so long because perhaps they were made on their own production line and any attempt at rationalisation would’ve precipitated strike action…
In the UK, following the launch of the Mini saloons, the van appeared within the next year. And became quite popular with a certain breed of drivers, who got the same, ‘ahead of its time’ roadability and tuning potential, at a substantially lower price. Subject to taking a relaxed view of the lower speed limit on vans – which, in general the police also did.
If I remember this right, the only colour in which vans were initially available was grey ( or maybe, other colours cost extra ) …. which played further, to their ‘under the radar’ image.
The original 1960 brochure is online here:
http://www.minipassionmini.50megs.com/pdf/Morris%20Mini-Van%201960.pdf
Two colours only (despite the illustrations!): Whitehall Beige or Smoke Grey. Both pretty anonomous.
My last and longest-held Mini was an Austin-badged ’62 Countryman. Bought in Anchorage AK for $275, needing new front nylon suspension cones and rubber biscuits, has a wrinkled front fender that never did get fixed. Shipped by barge to Seattle when we moved south, then drove it down to Palo Alto. Several years and two trips up and down the coast later, me and a different sidekick drove it out to Nashville, and around there for a few years longer. The wood and paint looked awful, but that little 848cc engine kept going. I sold it to a Kentucky family looking for a project … and I DO wish I hadn’t lost their contact info.
Driving note: that extra 5″ of wheelbase makes high-speed cornering a lot calmer. My mechanic in Menlo Park had one with a rodded 1100 engine, a side-draft Weber poking into a hinged-lid box where the speedo used to be, and plexiglass in both rear and side rear windows. It was his tight-course racing tool, and an effective one.
“needing new front nylon suspension cones”
These I would like to see.