BMC Mini Cooper: Austin or Morris?

I have been looking a bit more closely at some Mini Coopers recently and I have been getting a bit confused. It seems that there are both Morris and Austin versions of the 333 Sun Rally BMC Mini Cooper and 339 Monte Carlo Mini Cooper.

Here is the real Sun Rally Mini with the Cooper badge on the bonnet. It also has extended front bumper devices.

Corgi dropped the bumper extensions and have both Austin and Morris variations but no Mini Cooper badges. I guess it's understandable that they didn't have a Cooper badge ready but for such a short production run I am surprised that there are both Austin and Morris. If you look at QDT pages you'll find only Austin-badged items! That made me think that Morris might be quite scarce but I have found one or two fairly easily amongst current sales.

Despite its short run, both normal and cast wheels can be seen. I have certainly seen both types of the Austin-badged car but I think the Morris-badged cars have only been with cast wheels. So I cannot be sure but suspect that the Morris-badged 333 with normal wheels is the scarce one.

Now, for the 339. Now this is clearly a Morris Mini Cooper! It seems that the same car was driven with and without both the front bumper extensions and the roof rack with two spare wheels.

Corgi's model is pretty good, although they went a bit over the top with the roof rack. It looks like they used the roof rack from the 485 Austin Countryman issued a couple of years earlier. Unfortunately, this was far too big - the real one being just long enough to hold the two wheels and sat in the centre of the roof with clear space in front and behind. That huge chrome affair on the roof of 339 has always looked odd to me and it is sort of satisfying to discover it was wrong anyway.

Again, this model comes with Austin and Morris badges. Austin-badged models seem mostly to have normal wheels but I have seen them with cast wheels too. However, like the 333 model, the Morris badge seems only to have the later cast wheels. Again, perhaps the Morris badge with normal wheels is the scarce one, if, indeed, it exists at all.

This all started as I was looking for the different types of Mini Van - some have an Austin Countryman type of wavy grill but they are few and far between. Just to show that it can always be worthwhile doing a little research, I think I have found another Morris Mini-Minor in blue with the Morris Mini-Cooper base! That'll be the second in under a year so I'll be able to sell one of them soon. 

Now I have to set about find the missing BMC models and I had better extend the search to other 'BMC' Minis too just in case there are more examples of Austin and Morris badging on the same model.

Slightly different Minis

Firstly, thank you to those of you who offered to help with the 'orange mini' problem. In the continued absence of any in either reasonable condition (I found one very poor example at £5) or at a reasonable price (immaculate in box, £275) I made one myself. I had one that I had resprayed black some time ago so had another go with that. Finding the right colour wasn't easy and I finished up having to order some from Amazon and hoping that it was actually fairly pale. All the examples I found in stores nearby were too dark. Luckily, the Amazon guess was a good one and the customer can now proceed with the birthday celebrations.

On the topic of Minis, though, there has been an interesting development this morning. I have four blue Morris Minis. Here they are:

The first is a very nice early edition in classic pale blue with flat, fixed wheels and a red interior. Note the holes showing the axles and the two floor panels. The text reads Morris Mini-Minor.

Now here is a fairly scarce light blue edition with free spinning wheels and a lemon interior. The base is also different with no floor panels and the text has moved towards the centre on what looks like a correction panel. You'll see this sort of device on many models where a base is re-used for a later edition. Why it was changed for the same model, though, I don't know.

Later editions had cast wheels with a spoke effect design and a red interior. I have not seen a cast wheel version with a lemon interior although I expect that will exist. The base is unchanged from the previous example.

Now look at this one. At first glance it looks like the early edition but with free spinning shaped wheels. Ah, but there are no axle holes and, wait a moment... what is that text? It reads Morris Mini Cooper! Cooper??

The rivets are genuine original fittings and the car has not been taken apart of changed in any way. I saw this advertised last week and it was titled Mini Cooper. I queried this with the seller, assuming that he had simply misread the base but he replied to confirm that that was what it said on the base. I was still not totally convinced, as people do tend to read what they think they see sometimes and the chap's online 'name' was brail with a number. The thought that he may be blind did occur to me! I decided to buy this anyway. It was only a few pounds as no-one else seemed very interested. I thought I could always paint it orange if it was nothing of interest.

It arrived this morning (in a package not much bigger than the size of the car itself so that was a bit of luck that it actually made it!) and I was delighted to find that the base does, indeed, read Morris Mini-Cooper. It is in pretty good condition, just a few marks on the paintwork but the screens are clean and the suspension sound. The tyres are not normal Corgi types - I am guessing that they have been replaced but I won't change them  back to the old original style just in case this was an experiment and the tyres were, indeed, meant to be like that.

So this is an odd one. I am guessing that it has been a factory mistake, using a #227 base, which does seem to have the same rivet places and the two floor panels. An interesting and, I suspect, rather scarce item. 

GS25 items and a Jaguar Fire Chief's car now in Avellino.

A Sun RAC Rally Mini at the Bayko house.

The last but one mini has come along at last. Quite a decent looking #333 which has a large chunk of paint missing on one side but that's about all. There were no door transfers so I added some new ones which seem to be the right colour, unlike some that I have seen which are almost as red as the car.

The bonnet and boot transfers are original and sort of mostly there so I'll leave them. The new ones were from a chap with nothing better to do in Cambridgeshire. They came all as a single sheet, though, and so required cutting out before soaking. You try cutting those small curved corners! Impossible. But the ones that I found ready-cut were definitely the wrong colour so I went for these.

Observant readers may have spotted that the background I am using for many photos now is some strange looking building. It's a Bayko house, made from a set I had when I was 11 or 12 and of the same vintage as the Corgi Toys I had in the mid 1960s. The set is really quite big as I added several new bases and extra bricks and windows at the time. I was particularly fond of windows and most of my houses had as many as I could fit in!

I shall use this or, as time progresses, other designs of houses for future photos and not having a computer screen lighting up the wrong part of things on darker days will make for better photos too with a bit of luck.

This mini is the RAC Sun Rally version which has four jewelled fog lamps as well as the usual two headlamps. Only available for a short time in early 1967, surplus production, such as it was, finished up in the car transporter gift sets! Ridiculous. They were also the main source of the purple Rover 2000, the bronze Hillman Imp and the very elusive Whizzwheels Mini Marcos in blue. There is an article on that topic in my head but I'll have to do a bit more research first.

Auction price updates for The Saint and others

Model Collector magazine reports some extraordinary prices being paid recently at auctions. Each is a model I have been recommending for a while but I hadn't expected that amount of interest in them. I just hope this doesn't make getting hold of a few even more difficult!

Funnily enough, I was thinking this week that I should have a green one in good condition. I have three back and grey, two with boxes, which are immaculate and, I believe, a better colour than the green. Now I am not sure my bids are likely to be successful for the two I am after! I'll know in a few days. Watch this space.

At first glance you might think this is Emma Peel's Lotus Elan. Basically it is - with a transfer on the back and someone else planted in the driving seat. Or should that be hers is #318 without the transfer and figure? I don't know which came first. £816 is an amazing price, though, and just shows how rare the white open top model is in this guise.

I have been buying quite a few of the white S2 without the transfer for the Avengers Gift sets I'm making up. However, it must be tempting for some less scrupulous people to stick transfers on. They're pretty easy to buy. The driver too. He looks like the usual suspect from several other cars.

The Saint's Volvo P1800 at £1200??!! Good grief. That's another that I would like a decent version of as my own one has suffered a bit. The box is still a round but is missing a flap or two. I actually prefer the original black on transparent backing transfer to this blue and white affair.

My last post talked about teh various Mini Coopers. I knew this had a fairly short life but had no idea it was £1200's worth of short life! 

Mini Coopers: a guide

One day you may need to look twice at your collection of Corgi minis. There are a lot more than you might have realised - and this post only deals with the Mini Coopers!

The story starts in 1962 when a Morris Mini Cooper was issued. This only came in pale blue or an almost white pale primrose. All had white roofs. I have some with white bonnets and some without. I am not sure whether both are original, though. They'll be numbers #1, #3 or #7 but as people can buy the decals and stick them on that's not a definitive guide. The colour should be enough but you'll find that this model had just two headlamp jewels and none in the radiator grill.

Next came 317 in 1964 - the Morris Mini Cooper S Rally Monte Carlo. This is always red with a white roof only and should be #37. It's pretty easy to spot this one! There's a chrome spot light on top. This one has no jewels in the radiator grill and no other minis have the light on top so this is a fairly safe bet identification-wise.

In 1965 things started to get complicated. I guess the mini won a rally and Corgi issued #321 Morris Mini Cooper S Rally Monte Carlo. This red with a white roof - no other colours or combinations, of course, as they're reflecting a real car. It should have #52 on the side and three jewels in the radiator. Look carefully and you will see that it is a different casting with two fog lamps just above the radiator, usually painted silver.

In 1966 I think a mini must have won the Rally again and there is a second version but still model number 321. This one has signatures on the roof (which look a bit strange) and it should have #2 on the side. Again it is only in red with a white roof. There is a second difference, though: surprisingly, this version has just two jewels in the radiator grill! And, unbelievably, it doesn't have the two cast fog lamps, being based on an earlier cast! That's really odd and I have only just spotted it, several months later!

Almost as an aside, there is the 1965 issue of a Mini Cooper with wickerwork panels but that is so different that it doesn't need much explaining! That's model number 249.

As if the 1966 change wasn't enough, there is another. Model 333 comes along - this time as a BMC Mini Cooper S 'RAC International Rally'. This is red with a white roof and should have #21 on the side in a strange-looking decal which has the black digits across a red disc on a white rectangle. Now this model has not two, not three but four jewels in the radiator grill! This is proving elusive so still no photo!

In 1967 model number 339 comes along - another red and white affair - and a repeat of the four jewels in the radiator but luckily this one has a massive roof rack so you'll not have to worry too much identifying that one!

You might have expcted 334 to be a variant of 333 but it is actually a completely different mould. It is still, allegedly, a Mini Cooper but comes with an orange stripey sunroof affair, opening everything and is called a BMC Mini Cooper Manifique. Two colours, a nice metallic blue or this green, and it was available from 1968 until 1970. No extra jewels, no numbers and all have louvred cast wheels.

There are, of course, Whizzwheel  versions of the Mini Cooper too.

This is 308 which you can see is really #339! This only appeared in yellow.

This is #208 and is #334 in disguise, with opening bits but no stripey roof. This only appeared in white.

I hope this helps someone! Soon I shall look at the 'normal' Mini.