Food Advert On TV In South Africa

A new advert on South African television has just been released. Granted its an advert for fast food, but it happens to feature a Mk1 Austin Cooper S with Aussie doors and what looks to be like Minilights. Just thought everyone might like to see.

Glad to see that the advertising people have good taste in cars

I tend to agree there. I had a look at the photos on my laptop that I have of some South African cars and I happened to have a much clearer picture of this car. And here she is :

I am loving those wheels! I did the same look on my Cosmic wheels with the gold color. Really clean looking car, I like the understated look of the MKI's

Agreed - a stunning car. Are the small white discs located between the head-lamps and the indicators some sort of reflector ?
Was / is this a South African legal requirement ?
Concerning the doors - very strange hy-brids = Mk1 doors with external hinges but with what looks like quarter lights with wind-up main
windows. I once saw an Australian Mini Cooper S that had been imported into Ireland. It had the self same door/window arrangement.
Its proud owner explained that sliding windows as per UK Mk.1 Minis were not permitted under Australian law. Does South Africa have the
same rules ? I'm also puzzled about the shade of green used on this car - can anyone supply me with its official BMC name ?
David2010.

Yes, those are indeed reflectors. Under South African law, reflectors have to be on the front and the back of all cars, obviously white in the front and red at the back. They were made in such a way that they had a section on the back that would screw into the bodywork of the car and thus sit tight and flush. It must also be noted that even though the later cars like the Clubman and Mk4 Minis had reflectors in their tail lamps, South African specific reflectors had to be placed over those on the lamps themselves due to the fact that the British items did not carry the SABS sign on it, which is required be law here. Those small round reflectors were required to be fitted all models available in this country.

About the doors. The first few years of production of the Mk1 Mini had the British spec sliding window doors. Then in about 1967 or so, BMC SA decided that the use of the Australian spec doors would be better for our market. So some of the last Mk1s and all the Mk2s received these doors. They are indeed the external hinge doors with a quarterlight window and wind up window. Also, the door bins on the inside were not as tall as the sliding window doors. The only problem with this now though is that parts for these doors, especially the chrome items, have become a bit scarce. My brother currently owns a Mk2 with these doors that he is going to restore if you would like more pictures.

I asked my dad about the colour of the car and he says it could possibly be Palm Green. Obviously this colour was not used on the Minis, but with a whole bunch of different marques being produced at one plant i.e. : Jaguar, Triumph, Austin, Morris etc, the possibility of some of the marque's colours landing up being used on the Minis was highly likely. An example of this is the colour Protea White of my dad's GT.

Many thanks Jared for answering my questions.
Would love to see any up-to-date pics of both your car and your brothers.
David2010

Its a pleasure. Oh, another possible reason for the switch to the Aussie doors here in SA could be down to the fact that our climate is also very hot and dry in this country, much like Australia, thus the wind down windows would allow for better air flow into the car.

I will try put up some more up to date photos of these cars tomorrow.

always want to see cooper s' with their hubcaps.... but everyone that has one here puts on mini lites

by "here" i mean south africa

As indicated, the Australian doors started showing up on all the South African cars in 1967 -- maybe as early as March. They stayed around until about the time the Mk 3 was introduced (Sept '69) then the English style doors were used instead.

I have some photos of that same green S. We may have taken them at the same car show! It was hard to find a South African Cooper S that wasn't that green color with the Protea white roof.

Even though that colour scheme is quite common, I will have to say that it works very well with the car and those wheels.

On a side note, there are also many guys out there who try to recreate the rally Mini look by having it sprayed red with a white roof and bonnet stripes. In the '60s, when the Mini celebrated its success at Monte Carlo, there was a dealership in Bloemfontein here in South Africa that actually had five Cooper S cars done in red with the white roof to commemorate the rally wins. Obviously this colour scheme wasn't available as standard from BMC at the time, so they had it done specially and then sold them on to customers. Just thought some people might like to know that.

Hi I have a Wolseley 1000 1966 that is in 100% original condition that I got from my grandfather after he passed away and I would like to know what is the value of the car.

Thanks

As answered in your other thread, 1966 is too early for the car to be a Wolseley 1000.

Sorry it was registered in 1967-01-01