It is a strange sight before me. Not only because the Mini Moke is more pared down than a car can really be, what's even more striking is the condition of this minimalist creation. Beacuse it looks so light and thin, I can imagine a large hand carefully lifting it down from a storage shelf where it has been standing for decades, the condition is not worse than that. On closer inspection, a little surface rust is visible in a few places, such as on the unused license plate holders.
The Dunlop diagonals look completely unused, the chassis can never have been driven over a single puddle of water. The odometer in the Smiths instrument reads 001260 with the zero halfway over to a one.
This Moke left the BMC factory in Longbridge on September 27, 1966 and was intended for the Swedish market. There is not much more information to lean on about the car´s history. What you can see with your eyes is that this is a car that has never been in traffic and has instead been left standing – probably it has almost always been well stored considering the condition.
Jonas, who owns Mini Moke today, has some clues about the car's history, but not all. He got to buy the car after a long friendship with a man who owned it for several decades. The previous owner was an artist who lived in the same suburb in Stockholm, Sweden as Jonas.
- That's where we met, says Jonas. He was going to walk home with a lot of grocery bags so I gave him a ride in my car instead.
Jonas started helping the man with practical things. The artist was sometimes in contact with people who wanted see the Mini Moke, but one of the few who actually got to see it was Jonas.
- I bought it 20 years ago, says Jonas. However, the condition of the purchase was that it had to remain where it was stored.
Three years ago the previous owner died. Jonas will now sell his Moke at an auction to get funds for a house purchase. On November 10, 2022, the online auction at Bilweb Auctions will end. Here is a link to the auction. It will be exciting to see what the next owner does with it. Put the Moke back on the storage shelf or gently bring it back to life?
The Mini Moke was intended as a vehicle for military use but the British military turned down the car after testing it. Perhaps the project was too far gone because it became a civilian car anyway. BMC started production in 1964. The Mini Moke was sold as both Austin and Morris but both versions were produced at the Austin factory in Longbridge. Also in BMC's assembly plant in South Africa and what was then Rhodesia, the Mini Moke was assembled.
Between 1964 and 1968, only 14,518 examples were produced in England and 90 percent of them were exported. In Australia, production started in 1966 where Moke was built until 1981, then production had already started in Portugal where the model was manufactured until 1993. In Australia 26,142 cars were produced and in Portugal 10,060 cars.
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