AUSTIN MINI-COOPER ‘S’ Mk1

The Italian Job (1969)

Many fine cars are consumed in this wonderfully good-natured caper. A Lamborghini Miura explodes on the SS26 near Aosta. For reasons of production economy, a Lancia Flaminia, disguised as an Aston Martin DB4 convertible, is pushed over a cliff, while one of the two Jaguar E-types is also damaged. The status of a Mafia capo is indicated by his driving a black Fiat Dino. But the film really belongs to the trio of Mini-Coopers. The ‘Cooper’ part is significant: not proletarian, but a little bit fast in every sense.

The Mini was, it is always said, the first small car to be classless. Owning one simply said that you needed a small car, not that you were poor. Thus the Mini was a perfect fit for Charlie Croker, the endearing Cockney villain played by Michael Caine, whose ascent from an impoverished East End to stardom was the best demonstration of high-speed social mobility during The Swinging Sixties.

Fiat offered the producers a deal for productplacement, but the Minis were thought essential to project British character. Also projecting British character was Benny Hill, cast against type. Instead of a randy milkman, he plays a randy computer hacker charged with disabling Turin’s traffic lights.

In the resulting chaos, the Minis do a gloriously choreographed and impertinent tour of Fiat’s home city, racing down the arcades of Piazza San Carlo and even performing some triumphal circuits of the pista on the roof of the Futurist factory at Lingotto. The sewer scenes were, however, shot in Coventry. Minis were already endearing before 1969, but

The Italian Job confirmed their status as examples of peculiar British genius: technically advanced, but irreverent and amusing too. Michael Caine always plays engaging characters, but here he was upstaged by a car.