50 YEARS OF THE OUTSPAN MINI

Picture the scene. It is 1973, and you are attending a village fete with your family. Just as you think that a second-hand copy of Crackerjack Annual 1969 marks the day's high point, you spot a Mini like none other. Not only did it have a 48-inch wheelbase and seating for six, but it also featured GRP bodywork that made it resemble a giant mobile orange. According to your mood, the result was either charming or resembled a Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who villain.

The Outspan Mini celebrates its 50th birthday this year, and it is the creation of Brian Waite Enterprises Ltd. Six GRP-bodied vehicles left the Bodium works in East Sussex between 1972 and 1974 as part of a major campaign to promote South African oranges.

Such PR vehicles had quite a long tradition in the UK. By the 1960s, various soap manufacturers used fleets of Vauxhall Victor FCs or Ford Cortina Mk. and driven by out-of-work actors in not terribly plausible costumes. During that decade, a business report noted "three attractive South African girls in miniskirts touring London in an orange Mini Moke, handing small gifts to consumers who have bought Outspan".

The last-named campaign now sounds like the plot of a really terrible 'Swinging London' film, but it did attract public attention. The next stage was to use a specially designed vehicle instead of a standard production car. Such was the popularity of the Outspan Mini that Oxford Diecast created a scale model in 1972 and they certainly caused a stir at any event.

For example, in 1973 The Formby Times reported how the footballers Joe Royle and Gordon West arrived by Outspan Mini to donate four boxes of fruit to a children's home. Three 'Outspan Girls’ accompanied the sportsmen – a reminder that the citrus fruit Mini dates from another world. Similarly, in 1974 the motoring correspondent from The Coventry Telegraph found it "Ideal for women drivers". In addition, "for fashion-conscious women drivers, it has a colour-keyed interior with tuft pile carpets, deep folded upholstery and an orange, leather-trimmed steering wheel".

Today, the Outspan Mini showcased on the Lancaster Insurance stand at the 2022 Classic Motor Show delights countless visitors to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. When Richard Bremner recently tested its stablemate from the Grampian Transport Museum for Autocar, he wrote how the conversion required sizable GRP moulds and how:

“Beneath this were stuffed the aforementioned subframes, the axles a mere 48in apart. Until some concrete ballast was added below the floor, this arrangement rendered the orange orb prone to performing impromptu forward rolls. The trigger for these gymnastics was the heft of the 848cc four-speed automatic powerpack, the A-series engine accessed via a lift-up lid cut into a dashboard stylishly surfaced with orange carpet. The carpet and its plywood substrate, incidentally, do a surprisingly good job of suppressing the Mini motor's cheery threshings.”

Access to the Outspan Mini was via a single rear door, and the driver benefited from a turning circle of under seventeen feet - superior to even an Austin FX4 taxi. On the negative side, the top speed was a mere 30 mph; if the operator went for broke and attempted 40 mph, the Outspan became rather unstable and might roll over. Nor would one envy the occupants on a summer's day as none of the tinted windows open; two inlets provide limited ventilation.

Most importantly, the Outspan Mini helped create a truly memorable day out for many families, which remains the case in 2022. Even if it does look as though Roger Delgado’s Master should drive it in Planet of The Oranges.