LITTLE STAR IS BORN ON THE BIG SCREEN

When considering the Mini’s vast bigand small-screen career, Mr Bean and The Italian Job go virtually without saying. Almost as well known are the New Zealand-built 1000s in Goodbye Pork Pie and the Radford Mini de Ville from A Shot in the Dark (top left), which director Blake Edwards subsequently acquired. And, across the Atlantic, an Austin Cooper appeared in the Paul Newman racing drama Winning.

However, the Mini’s celluloid breakthrough arguably occurred with two pictures released in 1962. The CID drove an Austin Se7en rather than the more familiar Wolseleys in the agreeable B-film Seven Keys (bottom right), while the comic The Fast Lady features a Morris Cooper (bottom left). Stunt driver Jack Silk had to don a blonde wig in the latter to double for Julie Christie. The following year there was a Morris co-star for Juliet Mills in Nurse on Wheels, while the car piloted by Dirk Bogarde in Doctor in Distress boasted wickerwork panelling.

The Mini’s prominent appearances in such mainstream movie comedies demonstrated the BMC baby’s success, and by the end of the decade it was fulfilling various roles. Laurence Harvey tried to flee ‘The North’ for Swinging London by Mini Traveller in Life at the Top, while James Booth’s detective inspector favours an unmarked Morris Cooper in Robbery (top right). Meanwhile, the baddies employ another example for their reconnaissance duties.

At the opposite end of the cinematic quality spectrum, a Minivan is one of the few redeeming elements of Confessions of a Window Cleaner. Instead, it is safer to remember two prominent television roles for the Mini during the ’60s. Many viewers associated a red Austin with Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) almost as much as their Vauxhall Victor FD, and who could forget the Radford de Ville of Adam Adamant Lives? Even if it never explained how the revived Edwardian hero learned to drive… Andrew Roberts