GOD OF SMALL THINGS
AN ICON OF THE SWINGING 1960S, THE MINI WAS REVERED AS A NEW APPROACH TO COMPACT-CAR MAKING. IT STILL ENJOYS AN ALMOST SAINTLY STATUS — JUST ASK DAVE COTTY
Dave Cotty and his Mini-mate, Ernie
IT IS IRONIC that someone who sailed big ships on vast oceans should now be tootling around a small country in one of the world’s tiniest cars.
In the 1970s, former Navy seaman Dave Cotty left England with his wife and children and came ashore in Aotearoa. With him came a beat-up Morris Oxford, which was then quite modern for New Zealand. But it was Minis for which he had always had a soft spot — although he’d never been able to afford one — so he was happy to find the company car offered by his new employer, Maritime Services, was a red 850cc Mini.
No matter that Dave was lanky and the car was squat — as far as he was concerned, they were a perfect match.
In those days, company cars weren’t the perk they are now — vehicles were parked at work and used within work hours, never driven to and from home. So, after hours, Dave continued to feed his Mini mania first with books and then the internet. And it was on the web five years ago via Trade Me that Dave finally fulfilled his Mini madness. There, in Wellington, was a car genuinely worthy of hankering after — a 1962 Mini Cooper.
Believed to be one of the first of its kind imported to New Zealand, it was just a few months off the production line when it was bought by a Wellington doctor.
In those days it was hard to get a new car — the buyer had to have overseas funds and pay half before the vehicle was shipped. A Mini would also have been quite a head- turner when it first hit Wellington’s streets as motoring legend Bruce McLaren was then racing the marque, fueling its profile.
So while Dave was on his way to New Zealand via the seven seas, and later working and living in the United States, Australia, Mozambique and Tanzania, his future vehicle was pottering around Wellington, eventually getting as far as Whanganui where it had several owners until it was retired into a shed for nearly a decade.
It wasn’t lost, just a little bit scruffy and forgotten and, eventually, it was retrieved, restored and returned to Wellington.
Dave flew to the capital to have a look, heart in mouth as he so wanted the car to be his. A fully restored Mini was a find; Dave bought it, flying back to Wellington from Auckland a second time to pick up the vehicle and drive it home.
By then, it had become Ernie, named by Dave for former British minister of transport Ernie Marples. Dave and Ernie the Mini hit the road on a journey that would rack up nearly more kilometres in one trip than the little car’s previous owner had done during his five-year ownership.
There were a few embarrassing gear crunches in the beginning. The rain poured down; the wipers were so slow as to be almost useless. The notoriously unreliable Lucas “Prince of Darkness” headlights had less luminosity than Dave’s Maglite. And noisy... Dave had forgotten how loud the little cars were.
But Dave and Ernie were happy. Dusty, road-worn — it didn’t matter. Dave loved his new wheels and remains incredulous that Ernie had been sold by its previous owner to buy a Lotus.