Raymond Baxter 1922-2006. Would have been 100 years of age this year deffo. A well respected commentator when it came to cars, trains & aeroplanes. My late dad used to like his commentaries from Farnborough Air Shows especially.
@@hdaviator9181 no they wasn't, thats a myth......ford wanted to know how Austin could make a mini so cheap and deconstructed one and then came to the conclusion they were making a loss on every car ever since then people have said "oh they never made a profit on the mini" which is just complete bollocks
@@thedeadstig123 Funnily enough BL admitted in 1977 that Mini had been built at a loss until about 1968-1969 and only then did it really manage to break even at least.
@@cambs0181 Profits and commissions were low for us at the dealers, we made hardly anything on the 850, a little bit on the 1000, a bit more on the Clubman and the best of all was the GT. I loved the little cars though, my Clubman 1100 in Tahiti blue was my favourite demonstrator.
@@levelcrossing150 I remember there was a rear engined Fiat 850, there were a lot of models of it still around in the late 1970s presumably it was discontinued by that time. As far as I remember The Mini 850 was the smallest Mini in the 1970s ranges until the launch of the Mini City which upgraded the standard mini so the smallest engine in the revised Mini range was about 1000cc. A relative had a dark grilled Mini 850 in the early 1980s, very practical and compact. Her mother had a Mini 1000
@@deldirk7123 Yes I remember the Fiat 850 well, but there was an even smaller bodied Fiat 500 which had a great amount of character. Later on a re-bodied and more squarer Fiat 126 came along and replaced it. Your relatives were obviously proud of their Minis.
@@levelcrossing150 Ah yes the Fiat 126 and 500. They seemed to be more pupular and I see more of them preserved. The Fiat 850 seems rarer but perhaps I just don't notice them. I was given a lift in a Fiat 500 in the early 1980's, distinctive engine sound
I have one :) Yellow 1979 Mini Clubman.. turns heads everywhere I go ( also own 2 others 67 Mk1 Cooper S and 1994 Cooper SPI [very very highly modified] )
In my view it's the old minis that have the appeal for me. The Clubman 1100 was a great little car. It had comfortable cloth seats and mine was nearly as quick as the GT.
My sister purchased a brand new Mini in 1977 and even before she drove it off the forecourt she noticed surface rust. The dealer's reply was they all come like that !!
Lee Englandland That’s a load of balls. I worked for Lex Mead in Wembley in the summer of 1977, preparing dozens of cars for sale (taking of protective plastic, washing off wax from bodywork, etc., Minis, Jags, Triumph Dolomites and more and there was one hell of shoddy workmanship. The boot of one Dolomite was like orange peel. But not rust.
Funnily enough, the Mini my Dad bought in 1970 also had the same, but other than that it was a good little car. He wanted to ship it to Australia when we moved country.
+Lewis72 BMW have taken a similar approach, totally revising the rear light clusters, a mere 15 years after production started. I understand if you you pay more than £25k you even get air con!
So glad I have one, they are so much fun to drive, can’t wait to finish fixing it so it can work properly, cause it was broken when I bought it... getting new clutch today
I had a 1979 T reg Clubman saloon(1198cc engine) in yellow. Rusted under the sills and battery compartment floor in the boot.very easy to fix. Enjoyed it and passed my driving test in it in 1987.
"They are safe and very fun to drive, for instance, they are very lively!" (racing off, without seatbelts on..). I love the seventies so much. You could choose for danger, you could smoke wherever you wanted, at any age, drinking and driving was really a manly thing to do! One could even skip some schooldays if you had a nice story about it, haha, you were far more FREE than nowadays. We all do not dare to LIVE anymore...
@@dandare2586 that's not taking into consideration it has the best visibility of any vehicle 360 degrees compared to modern or larger vehicles, plus excellent handling. So you in theory should have a much better chance at avoiding an accident in the first place.
Wonderful reminder of "mininess". In those days side mirrors on passenger doors were optional luxury items! Steering wheels were huge as there was no power steering.
Wow! Reversing lights and a dipping read view mirror! No more putting the indicators on to see when reversing into the garage - half the time anyway due to the flashing. What would he have thought of today's efforts that reverse parallel park themselves? Be that as it may, if I could buy a new 1978 mini, I probably would. Fun.
Yep I liked it too, it actually made me feel good when selling these cars. It was so sad when a huge company like that broke up. We thought it would always be around.
Tinkering with the edges. The car was revolutionary when it appeared and remained competitive up until the mid seventies. Then it was left behind. My mum’s 1974 clubman estate had a rear bench seat, made with fibre board. It snapped after six months. Rust holes appeared in the doors after three years. We never had to replace the rear sub-frame because the car was scrapped before it was four years old. This 1978 car may have ‘improved’ but compared to the Fiesta and the Polo........ Please!
How many of those mark one fiesta's survive today in the UK? Counting from 1976 - 1983 there are between 2 - 3 thousand surviving fiesta's And during the the same time period, 13.7 thousand surviving mini's 🤯 In total there are at least 75 thousand classic mini's surviving in the UK today. 66% of those are SORN 😥
I won't even bother with the polo or the Renault 5 featured in the video, their numbers are even fewer 😅 actually, no other classic car can complete with the mini, not even the the mighty mighty mgb, the minor or the beetle 😎
we had a brown Mini Clubman Estate and took it for an MOT and the guy shouts out "it's an Estate". My mother said "Cheeky bugger saying it's in a state"
Pity the Mini Clubman never featured the hatchback it was originally intended to have, being dropped just because the company did not believe hatchbacks on smaller cars was the future along with the fact that BL was stubbornly pushing the dull-looking slow-selling Austin Maxi (that amongst many things desperately needed a modern rebody like the Aqulia or Pininfarina 1800).
There's only a handful of BL cars that did work and weren't just crap. The mini was one of them, the stag if it wasn't rushed when being built (the engine not being the problem as it was down to how quickly it was put together), dolomite sprint & the MGB (my father had one).
The late Raymond Baxter having just stopped presenting Tomorrows World regularly on BBC. I remember him on washing machine ads in the early 1980s, and occasional appearancez on special editions of Tomorrows world from then until the programme went off the air
Just imagine how frugal it would be to run an 850cc car nowadays with modern fuel economy engine but the weight of the old mini. You'd never need to fill up! I should think some of the Japanese kay cars are like that but the elf 'n' safety mob won't allow them to be sold here.
A new Mini Clubman or 1275 was used in a BBC Morecambe and Wise spoof Starsky and Hutch sketch. It looked quite well, and could have been valuable free advertising for BL
Happy music; a real man, not a cocky, jeans-wearing satirist who'd like to be a comedian: all missed, so very much. It makes me not care that the cars were much more unsafe than todays, as life itself was safer.
What a fabulous car and what a shame BL never kept up its development. When you see something like the 1972 Honda Civic and the first Golf you realize BL dropped the ball on what was a piece of genius that everyone else copied and improved upon. I wonder if BMW will ever make a mini MINI of the same dimensions?
They would have made something like the "Minki 1" (a concept rover mocked up in the 90s that got cancelled because it was too late or something). i.e. A Mini with a tilted back steering wheel, newer engine, 5 gears, a hatchback (with the fuel tank moved to beneath the rear seats to make space) and a modern (for the time) dashboard.
By 1978 sales of the mini were falling thanks British made ford fiesta. And I know what I’m talking about, I had a mini and a fiesta at different times. The Fiesta gearbox was smooth the seats were higher it felt like I was driving a larger car. The mini was noisy thanks it’s in sump gearbox which clanked as you changed gear, you could tell it was 19 years old at this time. To be fair to Alec Issigonis he designed a radical new hatchback mini 11 years previously to this film yet it was scrapped.
The mark 1 fiesta was made between 1976 - 1983 how many survived? 2 - 3 thousand! During the same period fewer Minis were made, but how many survive today? 13.7 thousand! The mini won 🥳 In total around 75 thousand survive in the UK today!
tbf they would use the mini as it was the only good looking high volume car in the range at the time. Ive still got the fiesta, it's a mk2 but same overall shape. making a big deal about 2ft turning circle they forgot to mention the boot is 2.5 times bigger. However the leg room in the mini is surprisingly bigger than an xj40!
I had a 1275Gt back in 1980 and had the car for 11yrs, It never let me down at all and went everywhere, She was in near mint condition when i sold her back in 1991, Jarva Green, PAB858T, wonder if she is still alive in the Uk,!
Imagine deciding which car to buy based on if it had a vanity mirror, handbrake grip etc 😅 I want the 1275GT because it has the the bigger engine and the rev count etc 😉 I can buy the other accessories from Poundland 😂
Omg this is fantastic. Reversing lights, nylon seats and dipping mirror. What else would you want? Leyyyylanddd , Leyyyyyylannnd, caaars! Let's all sing the company anthem. On a serious note, how much of the failure of the British car industry is because of the branding as Leyland cars? Austin Morris, jaguar, landrover, Wolsey eats now branded as Leyland cars. Ugh.
Competitors major advantage is the tailgate. No their advantage is selling cars that are not a twenty year old design that they can mass produce with a robotic production line.
I had a 1976 P reg 1275 GT, its doors rusted out after 2 years, the steering rack broke, the fuel tank corroded, the front suspension collapsed and it always broke down! It was only 3 years old when I got rid! I was so upset after having had a 64 & 70 minis. I blame Red Robbo. I then went with Toyota for reliability in 1980; I never looked back.(oh just to add I tried a Volvo S40 on a 08 plate, only 20K miles. Even a bigger piece of Junk! - Don't get me started! Soon rushed back to Toyota. Phew!).
@@deanosaur808 It Was, really only 2 years old, registered in 76, I got it in 78. Alas it had already done 35K, and I learned, had not been looked after well. When I traded it in in 1980 for a New Starlet, it was fun to see it on a cold morning. Smoke everywhere! The engine was trashed, a sign of poor servicing in early life. I paid £850 for it in 78, got £960 on the Trade in! So a good ending! My new Starlet was £3,200 in January 80 "V" Reg
Ford Transit? _groannn!_ Seems to me like you've never driven a Mini (I drove a MkIII Transit for 2 years - it was a stinking piece of shite that was molting parts like a mangy and flea bitten dog. Driven Minis - they _RAWK!_ )
Fewer than you would imagine, but it's disturbing that Marc Bolan died that way just one year before the video was made 😱 Maybe he could've survived if he wore a seatbelt 🤷♀️ the driver survived just fine
So the 850 was too embarrassing to comment on? I had a Clubman and my mate had a mk1 Fiesta - I don't like Fords but i was obviously streets ahead of a Mini
Wow, I've got twin coach lines made from sticky back vinyl. A real-world beating selling point in 1970s Britain. Nothing about the lack of a radio or heated rear screen. Nothing about the lack of synchro on the first gear of a four-speed gearbox. Dipping rear mirror. who wants on anyway. No wonder the Japanese cleaned up.
And someone had to clean the piles of rust that remained of those Japanese cars of the time 😂 Tens of thousands of minis still survive to this day in the UK. The popular Japanese cars of the day are almost exist. But I'm sure a few survive elsewhere, maybe 😅
True - but I don't think tyres would have saved him...it was probably his girlfriend's _driving_ that led to the smash (even though she was cleared of any wrongdoing - I mean, how does one lose control of a _MINI_ on a straight stretch of well lit road?)
Date of Liability 29 09 1994 Date of First Registration 03 04 1977 Year of Manufacture 1977 Cylinder Capacity (cc) 1098cc CO₂ Emissions Not Available Fuel Type PETROL Export Marker N Vehicle Status Unlicensed Vehicle Colour BLACK Vehicle Type Approval Not Available
What a ridiculous out-of-date ad, even for '78 this was! The mini by then was so old..fancy thinking to compare it to the R5 or the Fiesta!.. simply cars from another planet (as well as another market segment)! The speaker's RP accent makes it all the worse!!!
Paianni I know what you mean but , my Dad had a Vauxhall Viva mark III that was crap , he got the civic after that ,, the 1975 Civic was about the size of a Fiesta not that big , the Mini was not much cheaper and had no extra's as standard compared too the Honda or other Small cars it was poor value ,,,
Raymond Baxter 1922-2006. Would have been 100 years of age this year deffo. A well respected commentator when it came to cars, trains & aeroplanes. My late dad used to like his commentaries from Farnborough Air Shows especially.
The fact that the Mini was still competitive in the marketplace in 1978, 19 years after its introduction, speaks volumes about the original design.
It helped that Leyland was selling the cars at a loss. Meaning, they where cheaper than they should have been.
@@hdaviator9181 Not entirely true, they may have been selling at a loss in the early years but by then that wasn't the case.
@@hdaviator9181 no they wasn't, thats a myth......ford wanted to know how Austin could make a mini so cheap and deconstructed one and then came to the conclusion they were making a loss on every car
ever since then people have said "oh they never made a profit on the mini" which is just complete bollocks
@@thedeadstig123 Funnily enough BL admitted in 1977 that Mini had been built at a loss until about 1968-1969 and only then did it really manage to break even at least.
At the time, a lot of people didn't like the Clubman front. But looking back, I think it looks quite stylish. They're getting very rare now of course.
In Aussie, all Mini had Clubman noses after 1973...discontinued in 1978.
The standard clubman looked a bit underwhelming, but nothing a good set of wheels and arches couldn't fix 👌
I will never forget my trip to England in a Mini Clubman Estate in 1994 :-)
Why was it that bad?
@leahall that good! 😉😂
I have a '98 Mini Cooper Mpi, garaged all year round and only taken out in summer for shows, etc. I like seeing old videos like this. Great find.
When you consider the problems British Leyland was having during the 1970s, it's incredible how well the Mini came through.
They were building it at a loss.
@@cambs0181 Profits and commissions were low for us at the dealers, we made hardly anything on the 850, a little bit on the 1000, a bit more on the Clubman and the best of all was the GT. I loved the little cars though, my Clubman 1100 in Tahiti blue was my favourite demonstrator.
@@levelcrossing150 I remember there was a rear engined Fiat 850, there were a lot of models of it still around in the late 1970s presumably it was discontinued by that time. As far as I remember The Mini 850 was the smallest Mini in the 1970s ranges until the launch of the Mini City which upgraded the standard mini so the smallest engine in the revised Mini range was about 1000cc. A relative had a dark grilled Mini 850 in the early 1980s, very practical and compact. Her mother had a Mini 1000
@@deldirk7123 Yes I remember the Fiat 850 well, but there was an even smaller bodied Fiat 500 which had a great amount of character. Later on a re-bodied and more squarer Fiat 126 came along and replaced it. Your relatives were obviously proud of their Minis.
@@levelcrossing150 Ah yes the Fiat 126 and 500. They seemed to be more pupular and I see more of them preserved. The Fiat 850 seems rarer but perhaps I just don't notice them. I was given a lift in a Fiat 500 in the early 1980's, distinctive engine sound
I have one :) Yellow 1979 Mini Clubman.. turns heads everywhere I go ( also own 2 others 67 Mk1 Cooper S and 1994 Cooper SPI [very very highly modified] )
In my view it's the old minis that have the appeal for me. The Clubman 1100 was a great little car. It had comfortable cloth seats and mine was nearly as quick as the GT.
No matter how well equipped the Clubman my have been, the round nose Mini will always be my favorite. Proud owner of a 91 Mayfair.
I always liked the smartness of the Clubman front, but yes the round front actually turned a full circle and became popular again.
I personally prefer the blunt front end and the graphics of the 1275GT. Shame they haven’t done a modern version of the clubman front end
You've got to love both if you love Minis 🥰 60/40 maybe 😂
This ad is the epitome of a British man saying "Ahhh, that'll do."
Who can live with a passenger vanity mirror and handbrake grip?? It's just not possible 😂
My sister purchased a brand new Mini in 1977 and even before she drove it off the forecourt she noticed surface rust. The dealer's reply was they all come like that !!
Lee Englandland That’s a load of balls. I worked for Lex Mead in Wembley in the summer of 1977, preparing dozens of cars for sale (taking of protective plastic, washing off wax from bodywork, etc., Minis, Jags, Triumph Dolomites and more and there was one hell of shoddy workmanship. The boot of one Dolomite was like orange peel. But not rust.
Funnily enough, the Mini my Dad bought in 1970 also had the same, but other than that it was a good little car. He wanted to ship it to Australia when we moved country.
@@gavinhudson5251 ...and did he, please ?
By 1978, the Mini was already 19 years old.
Oohh! Handbrake grip !! Wow, there's something to get excited about !!
Improved steering wheel.. What was the old one like, was it a coiled up snake?
... And just look at that TWIN coach line. Brown really does go well with an orange Mini! No really, that's awesome
+poldsmobile Phil Harrison Square, like the Allegro.
+Lewis72 BMW have taken a similar approach, totally revising the rear light clusters, a mere 15 years after production started. I understand if you you pay more than £25k you even get air con!
Sick Note
It's a totally different car now, with different engine. The Issi. Mini started with the A Series and ended with the A Series.
So glad I have one, they are so much fun to drive, can’t wait to finish fixing it so it can work properly, cause it was broken when I bought it... getting new clutch today
lovely days ...lovely video :)
I had a 1979 T reg Clubman saloon(1198cc engine) in yellow. Rusted under the sills and battery compartment floor in the boot.very easy to fix. Enjoyed it and passed my driving test in it in 1987.
"They are safe and very fun to drive, for instance, they are very lively!" (racing off, without seatbelts on..). I love the seventies so much. You could choose for danger, you could smoke wherever you wanted, at any age, drinking and driving was really a manly thing to do! One could even skip some schooldays if you had a nice story about it, haha, you were far more FREE than nowadays. We all do not dare to LIVE anymore...
Ronald de Rooij
For more confidence whilst driving drink Gin!
Big Brother is here
Dave Ind We were warned!
@@dandare2586 that's not taking into consideration it has the best visibility of any vehicle 360 degrees compared to modern or larger vehicles, plus excellent handling. So you in theory should have a much better chance at avoiding an accident in the first place.
@@dandare2586 I guess not everything is avoidable- I've had two minis always found them safe just due to the handling alone.
great to see these old ads ,thanks for upload!
Wonderful reminder of "mininess".
In those days side mirrors on passenger doors were optional luxury items!
Steering wheels were huge as there was no power steering.
8:13 'Fweel trims'
Wow! Reversing lights and a dipping read view mirror! No more putting the indicators on to see when reversing into the garage - half the time anyway due to the flashing. What would he have thought of today's efforts that reverse parallel park themselves? Be that as it may, if I could buy a new 1978 mini, I probably would. Fun.
Gotta admit, I love that theme tune! 😃
Yep I liked it too, it actually made me feel good when selling these cars. It was so sad when a huge company like that broke up. We thought it would always be around.
Well presented
i had a new 1275 gt in 1978..i now have a classic mini 1984 25 year anniversary model..restored to show room condition. lov it..
o on the first outing to norfolk..lost all the water from the rad.. the guys at the factory had no tightened up the bottom rad hose cilp..[fact]
Love the theme tune
Tinkering with the edges. The car was revolutionary when it appeared and remained competitive up until the mid seventies. Then it was left behind. My mum’s 1974 clubman estate had a rear bench seat, made with fibre board. It snapped after six months. Rust holes appeared in the doors after three years. We never had to replace the rear sub-frame because the car was scrapped before it was four years old. This 1978 car may have ‘improved’ but compared to the Fiesta and the Polo........ Please!
How many of those mark one fiesta's survive today in the UK?
Counting from 1976 - 1983 there are between 2 - 3 thousand surviving fiesta's
And during the the same time period, 13.7 thousand surviving mini's 🤯
In total there are at least 75 thousand classic mini's surviving in the UK today. 66% of those are SORN 😥
I won't even bother with the polo or the Renault 5 featured in the video, their numbers are even fewer 😅 actually, no other classic car can complete with the mini, not even the the mighty mighty mgb, the minor or the beetle 😎
Basically, you just had bad luck with your mini, because the evidence proves that many survived 😉
Raymond Baxter great bloke R I P
NO RIP PLEASE NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
In the days when going from vinyl seats to velour was enough to launch a 'new car'.
They actually made a big difference to comfort.
I want this song as cell phone ring tone :-))))))))
Careful...your phone may contract BL syndrome and get sucked down the Leyland plughole of doom!
Sodham G'morris True, their phone may instantaneously rust, start not turning on and need hitting with a tree branch, Basil Fawlty style.
Be careful: there are gonna be much more piano rains around, than there used to be!
we had a brown Mini Clubman Estate and took it for an MOT and the guy shouts out "it's an Estate". My mother said "Cheeky bugger saying it's in a state"
Now it's probably in the united states 😂
Pity the Mini Clubman never featured the hatchback it was originally intended to have, being dropped just because the company did not believe hatchbacks on smaller cars was the future along with the fact that BL was stubbornly pushing the dull-looking slow-selling Austin Maxi (that amongst many things desperately needed a modern rebody like the Aqulia or Pininfarina 1800).
BL provided an estate version of the Clubman so we had to do with that.
Love this oldies!!
My 1st car was an Austin Mini 850cc 1978S.
They're so SHINY!
Amazing to think that Twiggy used to wear one.
She wore an E-type in The Blues Brothers film.
Even British Leyland couldn't screw up the Mini, because they didn't design it.
There's only a handful of BL cars that did work and weren't just crap. The mini was one of them, the stag if it wasn't rushed when being built (the engine not being the problem as it was down to how quickly it was put together), dolomite sprint & the MGB (my father had one).
Sublime!
The late Raymond Baxter having just stopped presenting Tomorrows World regularly on BBC. I remember him on washing machine ads in the early 1980s, and occasional appearancez on special editions of Tomorrows world from then until the programme went off the air
Jingle composed by Jonathan Hodge/Gary Sulsh, and sung by Gary, Jonathon, Stuart Leathwood and Clare Torry.
I'll take a Leyland Mini over a BMW Mini any day of the week.
***** Prefer the later Rover Mini, they are much better built but i agree with the principle of old over new
Stood next to the new 2016 Mini, what an enormous beast. I'm 5' 10 and the roof line was well above my shoulder. That Mini is just a contradiction.
I know the one you mean it's massive. The basic one is smaller but still not 'Mini'
No contest - BMC Mini is a work of modern art...just like all of Issigonis' work.
Defo the new mini has an immobiliser.
On the Cowley forecourts, the sound of the new Leyland cars rusting was truly deafening.
All the car’s from that period were the same fords being repaired before they were a year old!
Now the sound of their increasing value is deafening lol
How come so many survive if they were so plagued with rust?? 😉
Just imagine how frugal it would be to run an 850cc car nowadays with modern fuel economy engine but the weight of the old mini. You'd never need to fill up! I should think some of the Japanese kay cars are like that but the elf 'n' safety mob won't allow them to be sold here.
They have been sold here though. Even classic minis are still allowed out to play lol
A new Mini Clubman or 1275 was used in a BBC Morecambe and Wise spoof Starsky and Hutch sketch. It looked quite well, and could have been valuable free advertising for BL
Happy music; a real man, not a cocky, jeans-wearing satirist who'd like to be a comedian: all missed, so very much. It makes me not care that the cars were much more unsafe than todays, as life itself was safer.
You can't be referring to Jeremy Clarkson 🤣🤣🤣
The design wasn’t from Britisch Leyzieland maybe that is the succes. Truly still a lovely car
Austin/Morris became part of Leyland 🤷♀️
If only they had been put together properly.
LMAO
They were but forgot that metal rusts.... :)
Well, at least 75,000 whole minis survive in the UK today 😉
I guess a little bit tlc can keep them in one piece 😂
Pity they didn't do a 1.8 Marina B series version of it. It would have been mental.
The b series engine is a bit heavy for the mini. Honda VTEC is the way to go now 😎
Anyhow, a soaped up A series mini with 125bhp would slaughter any mini with a B series marina engine. Not worth the hassle lol
What a fabulous car and what a shame BL never kept up its development. When you see something like the 1972 Honda Civic and the first Golf you realize BL dropped the ball on what was a piece of genius that everyone else copied and improved upon. I wonder if BMW will ever make a mini MINI of the same dimensions?
I don't think you could build a 4 seater car that small today, which would comply with modern crash standards.
They would have made something like the "Minki 1" (a concept rover mocked up in the 90s that got cancelled because it was too late or something). i.e. A Mini with a tilted back steering wheel, newer engine, 5 gears, a hatchback (with the fuel tank moved to beneath the rear seats to make space) and a modern (for the time) dashboard.
By
1978 sales of the mini were falling thanks British made ford fiesta. And I know what I’m talking about, I had a mini and a fiesta at different times. The Fiesta gearbox was smooth the seats were higher it felt like I was driving a larger car. The mini was noisy thanks it’s in sump gearbox which clanked as you changed gear, you could tell it was 19 years old at this time. To be fair to Alec Issigonis he designed a radical new hatchback mini 11 years previously to this film yet it was scrapped.
The mark 1 fiesta was made between 1976 - 1983 how many survived? 2 - 3 thousand!
During the same period fewer Minis were made, but how many survive today? 13.7 thousand! The mini won 🥳
In total around 75 thousand survive in the UK today!
That hatchback wouldn't be the 9X by any chance? God awful it was 🤮
His daughter learned to drive on one - presumably she was on the roof.
Mr Bean style on an armchair!!!!!
tbf they would use the mini as it was the only good looking high volume car in the range at the time. Ive still got the fiesta, it's a mk2 but same overall shape. making a big deal about 2ft turning circle they forgot to mention the boot is 2.5 times bigger. However the leg room in the mini is surprisingly bigger than an xj40!
It was big enough for the people of the 20th century.
Love the cheesy 70s instrumental at the start!
I had a 1275Gt back in 1980 and had the car for 11yrs, It never let me down at all and went everywhere, She was in near mint condition when i sold her back in 1991, Jarva Green, PAB858T, wonder if she is still alive in the Uk,!
Last taxed Jan 1st 2001…..
Listed as SORN
Imagine deciding which car to buy based on if it had a vanity mirror, handbrake grip etc 😅
I want the 1275GT because it has the the bigger engine and the rev count etc 😉
I can buy the other accessories from Poundland 😂
Ticket pocket? That's sold it for me then ......
Pocket Cup was £20 extra. Heheheh.
The red VW fastback in front of the mini is a nice car you could put luggage in the front and the back.
...but it was still only a VW Typ 3. :-)
@@saxongreen78 Yeah Until the VW Golf GTi they were only relatively unknown except for the Beetle and Caravanette.
the young Rowley Birkin QC.
The whole thing was completely made of wubber
Omg this is fantastic. Reversing lights, nylon seats and dipping mirror. What else would you want? Leyyyylanddd , Leyyyyyylannnd, caaars! Let's all sing the company anthem. On a serious note, how much of the failure of the British car industry is because of the branding as Leyland cars? Austin Morris, jaguar, landrover, Wolsey eats now branded as Leyland cars. Ugh.
Don't forget the handbrake grip and passenger vanity mirror 😉 game changer lol
Who is the actor?
The famous Raymond Baxter - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Baxter
haven't things changed ? reclining seats and a ticket pocket 😅
Handbrake grip too! 😆
Yes please. Gimme gimme gimme gimme.....
A man after midnight?? 😂
Competitors major advantage is the tailgate. No their advantage is selling cars that are not a twenty year old design that they can mass produce with a robotic production line.
It's just one big advertisement. They gotta sell the product 😉
that haffs / das hafft ;-))))
No need to bother about wearing the seatbelt! It was the law here in Victoria, Australia since 1972!
0:01 LINK PLEASE MUSIC ROVER MINI AND LEYLANDS CAR I LOVE YOU
There is no other car that can ever match the Classic Mini
I had a 1976 P reg 1275 GT, its doors rusted out after 2 years, the steering rack broke, the fuel tank corroded, the front suspension collapsed and it always broke down! It was only 3 years old when I got rid! I was so upset after having had a 64 & 70 minis. I blame Red Robbo. I then went with Toyota for reliability in 1980; I never looked back.(oh just to add I tried a Volvo S40 on a 08 plate, only 20K miles. Even a bigger piece of Junk! - Don't get me started! Soon rushed back to Toyota. Phew!).
I don't believe it was only e years old. I think the old memory is playing tricks or you was seriously unlucky lol
@@deanosaur808 It Was, really only 2 years old, registered in 76, I got it in 78. Alas it had already done 35K, and I learned, had not been looked after well. When I traded it in in 1980 for a New Starlet, it was fun to see it on a cold morning. Smoke everywhere! The engine was trashed, a sign of poor servicing in early life. I paid £850 for it in 78, got £960 on the Trade in! So a good ending! My new Starlet was £3,200 in January 80 "V" Reg
@@deanosaur808 I still like them though, would love to own one now, but so expensive.
A world beater? Perhaps it was until Ford Transit was launched.
The transit was launched in 1965. :p
Ford Transit? _groannn!_ Seems to me like you've never driven a Mini (I drove a MkIII Transit for 2 years - it was a stinking piece of shite that was molting parts like a mangy and flea bitten dog. Driven Minis - they _RAWK!_ )
How many people died when an old mini wrapped itself around them after hitting something?
Fewer than you would imagine, but it's disturbing that Marc Bolan died that way just one year before the video was made 😱
Maybe he could've survived if he wore a seatbelt 🤷♀️ the driver survived just fine
So the 850 was too embarrassing to comment on? I had a Clubman and my mate had a mk1 Fiesta - I don't like Fords but i was obviously streets ahead of a Mini
I bought a mini 1000 but I should have got a Fiesta , it was a far better car that I never test drove because it was far too new at the time.
A lockable filler cap happy 😊 simply days 😁
Omg. A handbrake grip and a ticket pocket are a big deal. How times have changed.
Handbrake grips were all the rage back then 😂
I'd buy any car that had the luxury of a parking ticket pocket in the sun visor.
That says a lot about your parking habits 🤣🤣🤣
They're tiny compared to today's 'small' cars. The Fiat 500 was even smaller! No NCAP safety cells either.
But a brilliant design for it's time.
The fiat 500 only had half an engine, and was more cramped inside. Still have a soft spot for them though ☺️
Wow, I've got twin coach lines made from sticky back vinyl. A real-world beating selling point in 1970s Britain. Nothing about the lack of a radio or heated rear screen. Nothing about the lack of synchro on the first gear of a four-speed gearbox. Dipping rear mirror. who wants on anyway. No wonder the Japanese cleaned up.
And someone had to clean the piles of rust that remained of those Japanese cars of the time 😂
Tens of thousands of minis still survive to this day in the UK.
The popular Japanese cars of the day are almost exist. But I'm sure a few survive elsewhere, maybe 😅
Extinct*
Those new safety tyres on the 1275gt came just too late for Bolan!
True - but I don't think tyres would have saved him...it was probably his girlfriend's _driving_ that led to the smash (even though she was cleared of any wrongdoing - I mean, how does one lose control of a _MINI_ on a straight stretch of well lit road?)
No seatbelt!
I bought a mini in 1968 drove it home in the wet floor flooded. Rubber grommets in the floor missing. Typical BL at the time.
Easy fix though 😎
Leyland does what BMW don't
BMW does what mini isn't 😉
The Clubman looks like a Marina wannabie. Still a awesome little car though. Originals the best car ever imo.
renault 5 comfort wins for me
STEERLING HWHEEL
This bloke forgot to wear his seat belts…
Date of Liability 29 09 1994
Date of First Registration 03 04 1977
Year of Manufacture 1977
Cylinder Capacity (cc) 1098cc
CO₂ Emissions Not Available
Fuel Type PETROL
Export Marker N
Vehicle Status Unlicensed
Vehicle Colour BLACK
Vehicle Type Approval Not Available
That grill sloiled its look
Fecking worst minis ever.. thinned the thickness of the steel , minimum paint. Car rusted before my eyes. Sales pitch was great tho
They never thinned anything. That's just not true!
Id agree with that
Well done BMW
That’s progress
Awful machines
What a ridiculous out-of-date ad, even for '78 this was! The mini by then was so old..fancy thinking to compare it to the R5 or the Fiesta!.. simply cars from another planet (as well as another market segment)! The speaker's RP accent makes it all the worse!!!
Your Right my dad bought a Honda civic in 1975 it was so modern and safe compared to the Mini , and had so many extras as standards ,
Villy Vassell Not the same class of car I'm afraid. Honda Civic was an Allegro or Marina rival, not Mini rival.
Paianni I know what you mean but , my Dad had a Vauxhall Viva mark III that was crap , he got the civic after that ,, the 1975 Civic was about the size of a Fiesta not that big , the Mini was not much cheaper and had no extra's as standard compared too the Honda or other Small cars it was poor value ,,,
+Dakfab The guy on this was my grandad, pal. Steady on, mate.
No need to get touchy mate. I'm still not going to change my opinion because of that.