Weekly Motor Fix: the car with a cult following — the Mini Moke

10 November, 2015

Mini designer Alec Issigonis laid down his blueprints for a utilitarian Mini in the early ’60s, and his idea became reality with the Mini Moke’s debut in 1964.

Starting with the standard four-cylinder A-series transverse Mini engine — front-wheel drive, of course — the Moke’s off-road ability was severely curtailed by its low ground clearance, a factor necessitated by the use of 10-inch Mini wheels. However, despite that, as any Mini owner will tell you, these little front-wheel drive marvels can pull themselves out of almost any situation – with the right tyres, and as long as they don’t bottom down in something like mud.

Eventually, BMC fitted 13-inch wheels to the Moke, also popping in their larger 998c motor. The totally open Spartan Moke also eventually received perspex side windows, mud flaps, and wider wheel arches. Later still, the Moke’s utilitarian hood received zip-in doors, and roll bars were added as the more powerful 1275cc engine became available.

In Australia, where all production shifted in 1968, roo bars also became standard. Between 1964 and 1968, around 30,000 Mokes had been built in the UK, but only 1500 were registered in their homeland.

In the ’70s, our Australian cousins relabeled the car as the Moke Californian, and the car was even available with flower power–style floral hoods to complement vibrant colours such as pink and aqua. The final Mokes were built in Portugal up until the early ’80s.

Today, the Mini Moke is considered to be something of a cult car, helped by their exposure in Patrick McGoohan’s infamous ’60s TV series, The Prisoner.

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.