They love their Minis in this country. After the UK, Japan’s contingent is probably the second largest, judging by how common these are on local roads. The lion’s share of these classic Minis are of the late type, made in the ‘80s and ‘90s – imported and sold in Japan when new. Finding a CC-worthy BMC kernel among all that Rover-branded chaff is the stuff of needles in haystacks, but every once in a while, one comes along that actually looks interesting.
This one caught my eye a while back. It looks like the Real McCoy – a Morris-branded Mk 1 Mini, looking like it could use a little TLC (or at the very least some protection from the elements). But I’m really no expert. Minis, just like VW Beetles, Renault 4s or the Fiat 124 / Lada, have existed for so long, in so many local variants and in such numbers that one has to be a true devotee to ferret out what is what and what shouldn’t be there.
That looks like the slightly smaller series 1 backlight, if I’m not mistaken. So along with the door hinges, the grille and the emblems, which do not proclaim this to be a “Cooper S” or any of that BS. But one must be wary of confirmation bias…
There are a couple of weird things on this car, sure. The interior has necessarily been redone, for a start. Really not sure what is going on with that weird thing around the central dial – looks like something the owner did themselves with a piece of cheap plywood. The rest of the dash and the steering wheel look pretty genuine, but I’m not sure about that gearstick – aren’t those supposed to be longer?
Same story with the rear compartment – the upholstery (not to mention the seatbelts) is not original, but looks decent enough. Always surprised by how much room passengers had back there, especially compared to most other small cars of the time.
I found other Minis (see the related posts section below) that looked suspicious, or were just plain figments of the imagination, but I’ve got a good feeling about this one. I guess the clincher is that Morris badge. Who would want to fake that?
Over to you folks over in Blighty (and the rest of the world, of course) to let the rest of us know whether you reckon this might be first genuine Mk 1 Mini I’ve caught in this country, or whether it’s raising more red flags than a May Day parade in a Warsaw Pact capital city. More Mini madness to follow soon – there really is an ecosystem of these here.
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
Curbside Classic: 1980 Austin / BL Mini 95 Van – Just More Of It To Love, by T87
Curbside Classic: Austin Mini Mark III “Cooper” – How Do You Say “Fugazi” In Japanese?, by T87
Curbside Classic: When Is a Mini Not a Mini? When it’s a 1966 Riley Elf Mk III, by MarcKyle1964
CC Outake: 1966 Austin Mini Cooper S – Direct From Monte Carlo, by Roger Carr
Sports Car Shop Classics: 1967 Austin Mini Cooper S And 1999 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur, by PN
Wordless Outtake: 1959 Morris Mini-Minor – Makes Parking Easy, by Brendan Saur
It smells deliciously authentic, with just a tiny hint of plywood.
I can’t comment on its authenticity, but it’s a great find. Let’s see some more!
About those fender mounted side view mirrors. Were they of any practical use? Did they help you to see the vehicle beside you as their primary function?
Does the 66 in the license plate number indicate anything significant about this car?
Amazing this has survived with just some restoration work. Are there Hondas in view and as plentiful as these?
The factory-electric fender mirrors on my C33 Nissan Laurel were fantastic – being at the far end of the fender made it so easy to glance between mirror and road ahead without having to refocus my eyes as much as for a door mirror. They also made it easy to gauge the width of the car when parking, and the best thing was how good they were when towing a trailer as they offered a much wider field of vision to door mirrors (akin to extendable door mirrors). Downsides are they’re generally ungainly, and if they’re not electric you need someone else to adjust them whilst you’re in the driver’s seat.
My father had a 64 Mini – the gear stick was much longer !
Rover imported automatic trans with a/c Coopers into Japan. Some have found their may back to their birth land.
20 years ago I worked at a Japanese owned main dealer in North London. They had a mechanic who would restorer Mini Travellers fitting them with 1275 cc engines and a/c .They were shipped to eger buyers in Japan.
I rode in one of these in the UK. I could not believe how cramped it felt (in front, I was 6’4″) with a ride like a old buckboard on a rough road! Plus the car did not “feel” quick.
The “new” Minis are in a completely different and vastly better league than these, both functionally and visually-well the original new BMW Minis were……IMhO. 🙂 DFO
Try getting in the back seat! The cushions are all so small, it makes it look a lot bigger in the picture than it is in real life.
Here’s a video that includes an attempt to sit in the back seat (failed). That’s at 13 minutes in.
One of my high school teachers had one and he took myself and three other teenagers somewhere in it once. I didn’t think we’d fit, but we did without huge discomfort and I was amazed at its space-efficiency. Thin doors and sides though which contributed to said space-efficiency and provided none of the impact protection expected nowadays.
No it is not the real deal, the door cards are from an eighties / nineties model.
Truth is though that Japanese demand kept the Mini alive and the whole aftermarket industry to give them the sixties look.
Thing is the Japanese were always keen on inventing a Mini by and for themselves, their greatest disappointment must have been when the uhr Twingo came on the market, that car is the spritual successor of both the Renault 4 and the Mini, practical, utilitarian, sexless and no nonsense.
Hello? The Series 3, which started in 1967, had hidden door hinges, roll-down windows, and larger rear and side windows. This one may have aftermarket door cards (and an upholstery kit) that may look a bit newer than original, but it’s most certainly not a Series 3 or later (eighties/nineties). It’s obviously a whole lot easier to replace a door card than to make the rear window smaller and put on external hinges and such.
Everything about this says Mark 1, except for a few minor easy and obvious upgrades.
There are plenty of resources to backdate later models to the mk 1 look. Some are relatively easy, such as the tail lights, some are hard, such as the external door hinges. These are hard because the doors are actually different.
The one change that is pretty much not do-able is the rear side windows, and this car seems to have the later ones. I just took a photo of my 1962 mini’s windows, and you can see the difference.
As Tatra87 says though, this is a bit of an enigma, in that some quite expensive changes have been made in order to look like an earlier car, but they have gone for a very basic, dowdy mk 1, rather than the Cooper S look.
A very interesting little car and I’d love to have a closer look at this one!
I’m not convinced, guys. Shouldn’t the rear side windows be smaller and framed for an original old Mini? They always were in Australia, and a Google search for 1964 Mini (admittedly mostly Coopers like this) doesn’t show any with this style window.
This looks like it has the later model’s larger windows. I’m wondering if it’s an especially thorough backdate.
The rear side windows didn’t open on the early base models which therefore only had black rubber round them, with no bright metal frame. That would be consistent with the single round dial (though the added surround is ‘after market’).
Also, notice the front corner of the doors. On mk 1 and mk 2 with original external hinges, this corner is rounded. Mk 3 onwards with the internal hinges, this corner is square, as per this example.
I understand it is quite challenging to make external hinges work on later doors – sometimes you’ll see “stick on” ones, but the car still uses the internal hinges.
The external hinges are actually pretty rubbish, and it was definitely a change that needed to be made. It’s very hard to make a Mk 1 door fit properly, and the hinges wear and go out of adjustment far too easily.
Are side repeaters required by in Japan? Because UK Minis didn’t get those until the 90s. They look stock, and 90s front wings obviously have a hole there.
It would seem strange to go so far as even putting the external hinges on a later shell to fool people, then leaving the indicators on.
I also noticed the repeaters on this Mini look like stock ’80s-’90s items, rather unlike repeaters that would’ve been on offer by Lucas or any of the others in the early-mid ’60s (we’d be looking for a metal base/rim).
Side repeaters have been required in Japan for many decades; I don’t know what year that requirement came in, but probably in the late ’50s; certainly no later than the early ’60s. The UK has required repeaters on new cars (i.e, those first used since) 1 April ’86.
All that said, I can think of a few reasons why these repeaters might be on a car that didn’t originally come with them.
But does Japan require them to be retrofitted? Mini wings are pretty cheap, and it would be pretty easy to fill the holes if the car is a disguised 1995 model or whatever.
Minis wouldn’t normally have wing mirrors like that either. So is it an old car with a newer front clip, or a retrofied newer car? How hard is it to fit bigger side windows to a Mk1 shell? The owner must be found and interrogated.
Like most countries, Japan generally requires imported vehicles to meet the requirements that apply to Japan-market vehicles of the same build date, but does not require retrofitment of any newer safety devices to vehicles already in the country.
I’m reminded of the time in 2000 I happened upon a Mini parked curbside in San Francisco. Late taillights, turn signal repeaters, airbag, head restraints, etc. The owner came along and I asked what year it was. “It’s a ’67”, he said. I looked overtop my glasses. “Okeh, it’s a ’97”, he said. “Shh!”.
I regularly see Minis for sale on ebay and craigslist which are quite obviously newer than stated. 2CVs too.
To a certain extent, the same goes for Land Rovers, but apparently Land Rover assisted US customs in identifying model year details which led to some potential imports being mindlessly crushed.
When I moved stateside, the pound was extremely weak due to Brexit, and I briefly considered converting the proceeds from the sale of my house from sterling to Defenders, but life got in the way.
Mindlessly?
The authorities crushed perfectly good vehicles in a display of “authoritah”.
It’s particularly mindless when the law says a 1915 Model T is fine but a 2021 Renault doesn’t comply and the public must be protected from its evil intentions. Or that 24 yr old Land Rovers are bad, mmmkay, but 30 yr old examples are A-OK.
They coulda seized them and sold them to a country with less fucked regulations and given the money to a little orphan boy to buy porridge.
No, sir. I’m sorry, but you’re just completely misinformed about this. Your pet theories are flatly wrong.
They crushed vehicles that were noncompliant with US safety and emissions laws, and had been fraudulently and falsely declared to US Customs (which is a very big crime). That’s not a random display of “authoritah”, it’s enforcing federal law. Other countries do exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reason.
The fact that old vehicles are allowed to remain on the roads has nothing to do with any of this. The law doesn’t “say a 1915 Model T is fine”, it says a vehicle built after such-and-such a date has to meet such-and-such standards or it may not be imported or introduced into interstate commerce; and once a vehicle is 21 years old it may be imported regardless of its emissions (non)compliance, and once a vehicle is 25 years old it may be imported regardless of its safety (non)compliance.
It’s certainly arguable that American safety and emissions standards, divergent from the international-consensus standards, serve more as non-tariff trade barriers than as genuinely better protectors of public health and safety, but there are also very sturdy reasons why the US does not recognise the UN (formerly “European”) standards. They’re not compatible with the American legal system, for starters. There are ways around that, and there’s a sturdy case to be made that the US should pursue them, but the American auto industry (including the branches of international automakers) very much do not want UN-spec vehicles in the US or Canada, because it would create enormous liability traps for them and it would spoil their control of what vehicles enter this market and at what price.
They could’ve sold them into a country where they’re compliant? Sure…but that would have cost the American taxpayer considerably more money than scrapping them.
There’s nothing misinformed about the comment. You disagree with it.
Defenders are not particularly safe compared to modern vehicles, but it’s equally illegal to import a new Mondeo. This has more to do with restraint of trade than safety or the environment. The law does effectively say a 1915 car is fine – it can be driven unhindered on a public road, not destroyed like unexploded ordinance.
They filmed cars being crushed and put it online as a supposed deterrent. Because they can. I must congratulate them on solving all the murders and the sex trafficking!
You and I have both had unnecessarily unpleasant issues at international borders and this seems to be part of the same disease. If you’re telling me that advertising a vehicle on eBay and selling it for $30,000 is a burden on the taxpayer then I must be missing something. I can go on MinnBid right now and buy an old snowplow or police cruiser from the govt. Why don’t they crush it? I’m not suggesting using elephants to pull them to Peru.
I’m not against regulation. I don’t think red turn signals should be legal. I would welcome annual inspections in Minnesota even though my cars would probably fail them as they are. But the Mercedes law is shenanigans.
Despite that, I have no complaint with customs refusing entry and even seizing the vehicles, although that seems unreasonably harsh, especially since so many older Land Rovers are made from bits of multiple model years.
Interesting concoction. My take on it is that it’s a Mk III, with Mk I/II front clip and Mk I taillights.
Key evidence is the windows and the doors. On the Mk I/II, the rear side windows and door frames stop at least an inch below the drip rail. On the Mk III, the rear side windows and door frames are taller, reaching almost to the drip-rail, like the feature car. The rear windscreen looks like the larger Mk II-onwards one to me too.
So what about the sliding door windows you ask? There’s a kit available in Japan for converting Mk III door windows to sliders. Mk I/II door glass doesn’t fit as it’s too short by an inch, so custom glass is required, although the UK’s Plastics 4 Performance used to sell the whole kit with Lexan windows. Looking at the feature car’s Mk III door cards, it’s possible to see where the original winder was – the hole has been covered but the groove in the trim hasn’t been carried across.
The taillights and surrounding metalwork are definitely Mk I, but there’s a conversion kit available in Japan to convert the Mk II/III back to the small taillights via a welded-in patch panel.
Another thing is the indicator stalk – the Mk I stalk has a flashing light on the end of it when the indicators are in operation. It looks to me as if the feature car has a later Mk II/III indicator stalk.
One thing I’m unsure on is whether the Mk I/II body shell had C-pillar anchors for seatbelts? The feature car does, which suggests to me that it’s a Mk III. There we go, that’s my 5c worth!!
I shouldn’t think such a fanatical backdater of an owner would be too hard to find, Dr T.
They will be the local person who at first glance looks just five years old – till you notice the five o’ clock shadow and the wrinkled hands.
An old mate of mine used to import used Jappas into NZ during the boom years for that activity he also used to export Minis to Japan youd never know though there are still plenty on the roads here, but that one could have originated here, its definitely had a remote gearshift fitted instead of the magic wand and the doors dont look right.
The exterior door handles are Mk3 (later used on the Sherpa van) the earlier handles weren’t push button.
But my Mum bought a Mini 850 Mk3 new in 1971 – AAR835K where are you now? – and typically of the chaos of British Leyland it had the toggle switches and central key of this car, steering column lock and flat switches should have been fitted, a magic wand gearlever, but ‘super deluxe’ seats like the featured Mini. Basic seats had a different pattern to the vinyl.
It looks like a bitsa to me, but so what? Even if it’s the last one made it’s over 20 years old. Great car