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It could have bloody worked - cars which could have been...


Dick Longbridge

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Oooh, Radford DeVille. There was a very serious Rover Group proposal to give the original Mini a hatch, called the MinKi (K for K-Series) - in fact, a hatch was but one of several improvements the team wanted to implement, along with a new dash, different seats and a K series Because of crash test issues, concerns about torsional rigidity (and because type approval would have meant spending money), the project never went anywhere.

 

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There was also this mad one off thing a Redditch coachbuilder converted for a customer. It was on eBay last year.

 

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Of course, there was a hatchback Mini built by British Leyland - but not in the UK:

 

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This was the 1974 'Bertone' Mini, a reshelled hatch using Mini floor pans and running gear, built by Innocenti (a BL satellite) in the old Lambretta works in Milan.

If you look carefully, some of the ADO88 Metro clay proposals used Bertone Mini wheels. You could buy them in the UK via an importer but they were never available through Austin dealerships. Why BL didn't use it as a stopgap before the Metro in 1980 I've no idea.

 

Later Daihatsu engined cars (built under Alessandro DeTomaso's control when he purchased Innocenti from BL) were actually craftilty re shelled Daihatsu Charade G11s. That's how hot Japanese Domestic Market Charade G11s ended up badged as DeTomasos - a reverse licensing agreement.

Also the 9X prototype

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Quite a few times, groups of anal concours types pored over it, and began snorting because there was a bit of loose paint on the B pillar - completely missing the fact that the owner had bloody fabricated the thing using nothing but an old jig and a press photograph.

 

Would it be missing the point to mention that it looks absolutely rubbish? I appreciate the work that has gone into it, but the proportions are way off. I guess he was limited by using existing Cortina panels and not sculpting it out of clay or whatever as per the original, but surely he noticed every panel is a totally different shape to a standard Mk1?

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Would it be missing the point to mention that it looks absolutely rubbish? I appreciate the work that has gone into it, but the proportions are way off. I guess he was limited by using existing Cortina panels and not sculpting it out of clay or whatever as per the original, but surely he noticed every panel is a totally different shape to a standard Mk1?

OK, fair enough, but these lot were obsessed (and clucking loudly) about the fact there was a bit of paint missing off the B pillar, nothing else.

It works for me, it's a little short in the deck but the bloke was building a replica of a car which doesn't exist any more.

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