Mini 1000 (1969 - 1982)

Mini MK2 was move to Mk3 body shell with internal hinges and wind up windows. Higher quality interior than the Mini 850 with inertia seat belts and reclining seats. Renamed Mini 1000 Super in 1979. Renamed again to Mini 1000HL in 1980.
Mark III (introduced in November 1969) had wind up windows with internal door hinges except for the van and pickup models. The boot lid lost the original hinged number plate and its recess shape and a large rear colour coded lamp was fitted in its place, along with larger rear side windows.

Mini Moke (1964 – 1993)

The Mini Moke is a vehicle based on the Mini and designed for the British Motor Corporation (BMC) by Sir Alexandros Issigonis. The name comes from "Mini"—the car with which the Moke shares many parts—and "Moke", which is an archaic dialect term for "donkey".

The initial design was a prototype for a light military vehicle in the style of the American Jeep, but its small wheels and low ground clearance made it impractical as an off-road vehicle. It was subsequently offered in a civilian version as a low-cost, easily maintained utility vehicle. The Moke finally achieved success as a beach buggy — becoming a popular 'cult' vehicle in the Seychelles, Australia, the United States and many tropical resorts in the Caribbean. The original Moke used identical engine, transmission and suspension parts to the basic Mini.

Mokes were first built at the Morris factory in Oxford before production moved to BMC's Longbridge, Birmingham plant, and eventually overseas. 14,500 Mokes were produced in the UK between 1964 and 1968, 26,000 in Australia between 1966 and 1981, and 10,000 in Portugal between 1980 and 1993 when production of the Moke ended.

When Issigonis designed the Mini, he planned another vehicle to share the Mini's mechanical parts, but with a more rugged body shell. This was an attempt to take a portion of the military vehicle business from Land Rover. Issigonis had previously designed the Nuffield Guppy in a failed attempt to break into that market. By 1959, BMC had working prototypes of what was codenamed "The Buckboard", later to become the "Mini Moke". These prototypes were shown to the British Army as a parachute-droppable vehicle, but poor ground clearance and a low-powered engine did not meet the most basic requirements for an off-road vehicle. Only the Royal Navy showed any interest at all in the Buckboard—as a vehicle for use on the decks of aircraft carriers.

Early promotional material made much of the lightness of the vehicle, showing four soldiers riding in the Moke off-road, then picking it up by its tubular bumpers and carrying it when (inevitably) its low ground clearance proved inadequate to the task.
In a further attempt to make something for the army, a few four-wheel drive Mokes were made by the addition of a second engine at the back of the vehicle with linked clutches and gear shifters. However, this did nothing to solve the ground-clearance issue, and mechanical complications discouraged development beyond the prototype stage. This strange vehicle was called "The Twini" and was shown to the US Army - again with no success.

British Motor Corporation (BMC)

The British Motor Corporation (BMC) was a UK vehicle company, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation (parent of the Morris car company, MG, Riley and Wolseley) in 1952. BMC was the largest British car company of its day, with (in 1952) 39 percent of British output, producing a wide range of cars under brand names including Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey, Wolseley as well as commercial vehicles and agricultural tractors. The first chairman was Lord Nuffield (William Morris) but he was replaced in August 1952 by Austin's Leonard Lord who continued in that role until his 65th birthday in 1961 but handing over, in theory at least, the managing director responsibilities to his deputy George Harriman in 1956.

BMC's headquarters were at the Austin plant at Longbridge, near Birmingham and Austin was the dominant partner in the group mainly because of the chairman. The use of Morris engine designs was dropped within 3 years and all new car designs were coded ADO from "Austin Drawing Office". The Longbridge plant was up to date, having been thoroughly modernized in 1951, and compared very favorably with Nuffield's 16 different and often old fashioned factories scattered over the English Midlands. Austin's management systems however, especially cost control and marketing were not as good as Nuffield's and as the market changed from a shortage of cars to competition this was to tell.


The biggest selling car, the Mini, was famously analyzed by Ford Motor Company who concluded that BMC must be losing £30 on every one sold. The result was that although volumes held up well throughout the BMC era, market share fell as did profitability and hence investment in new models, resulting eventually in the merger with Leyland Motor Corporation.

At the time of the mergers, there was a well established dealership network for each of the marques. Among the car-buying British public there was a tendency of loyalty to a particular marque and marques appealed to different market segments. This meant that marques competed against each other in some areas, though some marques had a larger range than others. The Riley and Wolseley models were selling in very small numbers. Styling was also getting distinctly old fashioned and this caused Leonard Lord, in an unusual move for him, to call upon the services of an external stylist.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, BMC set-up twenty-one plants overseas, some as subsidiaries, and some as joint ventures, to assemble their vehicles.One was British Motor Corporation (Australia) who were established at the Nuffield Aust site on the one time Victoria Park horse racetrack in Sydney. This facility went from a marshalling area for fully imported Morris cars (Austins were up until then being assembled in Melbourne, Victoria from an earlier Austin Motors establishment), to a facility for making CKD cars, to the total local fabrication and construction of vehicles, engines, and mechanicals.