This Little Mini Went To Moscow

Two really old ( really bad) photo's of Bowlesy and 10 MWL in 197????

10 MWL was a gray Mini Pick-up that sat decaying in our garage during the 1970s. On long lonely afternoons I played in 10 MWL steering it dramatically along imaginary roads to imaginary destinations, I would often pretend that me and 10 MWL were in the film The Italian Job, driving on pavements in Milan. I had no idea then that the little Mini Pick-up languishing in our garage had itself once been famous in its own right. One afternoon, with nothing better to do, my uncle Gordon and I pushed the little Mini out into the baking heat of the summer of 1976 with the intention of restoring it together and then, when I was old enough and could reach the pedals, I would learn to drive ( properly drive) in it. A few months later on a crisp autumn morning we pushed it back in the garage again, untouched; it stayed there for the next ten years. The car was actually my aunt Joyce's, it had been her first car, although to me it was now mine because I was the only one who took any interest in it and it had sort of been promised to me for when I was older. We had a three car garage and 10 MWL sat in the middle dwarfed by whatever vehicle happened to be on its left or right. My uncle, annoyingly, used the back of the Mini for storage, I would always carefully remove whatever I discovered in the back of it and relocate it somewhere else in the garage.

I was aware that my aunt had written two books, "Most Women Do It" and "What Every Woman Ought To Know About Men And Motoring" but was not terribly interested in them as a child and, looking at them now, the kindest thing I can say about them is that they were of their time. However, looking at the back cover of "Most Women Dot It" one day I noticed that the picture of my aunt also featured 10 MWL; it had been famous! I later discovered that it had also featured in magazine articles that my aunt had written after her books had been published. This, in a rather shallow way, made me love 10 MWL even more. I started to clean it regularly, be even more vigilant in clearing my uncle's junk out of the back of it and spending more and more time sitting in it thinking of all the adventures we'd have together when my feet eventually reached the pedals and I was able to drive the little truck.

Then one day something happened, I started to have real places to go and friends to go with, suddenly I didn't have time for 10 MWL anymore, in fact, it seemed really childish to sit in it and pretend to drive it; I was growing up. I stopped playing in the little Mini pick-up and really forgot about it pretty much, then in 1983, when I was 18, I moved away from home to London and didn't think about it at all. My aunt and uncle retired to Italy in 1986 and 10 MWL was sold. I never thought about it again until a few years ago when I found an ad' for it, it had been restored and was coming up for sale in auction. I was amazed at the facts that I discovered about "my" little Mini Pick-up, 10 MWL, in the accompanying auction notes. I have included them below.

"Here is an interesting classic car for sale: a 1961 Morris Mini Pickup. This car will be auctioned on 18th, April 2007, at the Pavillon Gardens, Buxton, during the H&H classic auctions.First registered on September 1st 1961 to Morris Motors Ltd, '10 MWL' achieved considerable fame later that month when it was driven from Oxford to Moscow on a single tank of fuel by The Mayor of Oxford Ald. Lionel Harrison and local solicitor E.A. Ferguson. Although, the six-day trip had been orchestrated with help from BMC's chief experimental engineer J.E. Whitehead, the pick-up was to standard specification save for a RAC sealed 50-gallon petrol tank, radio and spare wheel. Arriving in Red Square with thirty minutes and 6-gallons to spare (having averaged 43.18mpg) on September 29th, '10 MWL' was given a hero's welcome. Repatriated by BMC employee Paddy Howells and E.A. Ferguson, the Mini lost its oversize tank and mayoral regalia before being sold to the acclaimed journalist / competitor, Gordon Wilkins, on October 30th 1962."

And as she is today.






A Mini adventure!