The Mini Moke at 60 by Andrew Roberts

To celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the Mini Moke, we travel to Portmeirion in North Wales, where this writer had the honour of encountering one of the most famous automotive television stars of the 20^th century. It was all a far cry from the British Motor Corporation developing a light utility in response to a 1958 War Office brief for light utility vehicles capable of being carried by helicopter and lifted by four service personnel.

BMC made six hand-built Mokes – named after a donkey – in mid-1959, using the suspension, brakes, steering and sub-frames of the forthcoming Mini. The Army’s Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (FVRDE) at Chertsey evaluated the ‘BMC Light Inter-Communication Car’. However, Moke’s ground clearance was a problem.

One solution was a twin-engine version, with 848cc A-Series units fore and aft, each with its own ignition and gear lever and interconnected clutches and accelerator. BMC claimed the Twini Moke could climb a 1 in 2 gradient and that they hoped to sell it for £475.

Meanwhile, BMC decided to offer the single-engine FWD Moke to the civilian market. They displayed the Moke in February 1964 at the Tripoli International Fair, with the official launch taking place in August 1964. As with the standard Mini, the Corporation marketed the Moke as an Austin or a Morris; the latter proved more popular in the UK. They also planned to build the Twini Moke “once it has been fully developed,” but this never happened; when the US Army evaluated it, the lack of ground clearance remained an issue.

As for the single-engine models, The Daily Telegraph predicted they would be “suitable for uses ranging from site or agricultural work to beach car or hotel waggon—or even as a ‘golf buggy’. BMC promised the Moke would be as “Sure-footed as a cat wherever you take it,” and it was certainly spacious. The engine bay occupied only 18 inches of the overall length, leaving a great deal of room for the occupants to enjoy fresh-air motoring.

In terms of equipment, £405 gave you a folding windscreen that could also be removed, a single wiper, a canvas roof, and a driver’s seat “of pressed steel construction”. The colour choice varied between Spruce Green, Spruce Green, or the ever-popular Spruce Green. The extensive options list included passenger seats, a sump guard, side screens, a heater and a second wiper.

The sales publicity promised a “rugged runabout with a thousand uses”. In 1964, the AA evaluated the Moke, and police forces and fire brigades were among its other customers. But it cost £25 more than the Mini Van and seemed to be destined to be a niche product in this country. It also, probably to the surprise of BMC, gained an image as the automotive embodiment of youthful grooviness. As early as 1965, the director John Boorman used the Moke to symbolise Swinging London’s emptiness in the downbeat road/pop movie Catch Us If You Can.

On January 4 1966, the London dealer Weircrest Ltd displayed a Wood & Pickett converted Moke at the Hilton Hotel. For £664 9s 2d, a dedicated follower of fashion could own the ideal Carnaby Street transport, with white paintwork mock-wood exterior decorations, four bucket seats upholstered in striped PVC (the same material covered the spare wheel), and a Moto-lite wooden steering wheel. The floor was covered in red and black rubber, and a very jolly striped roof completed the look.

Autocar reported that the Wood & Pickett Moke was to be “sold on a worldwide basis through BMC dealers,” but its global fame came about via television. As the story goes, an employee of Everyman Films noticed the display car at the Hilton. Patrick McGoohan, the star of Danger Man, owned the production company, and the W&P Moke seemed ideal for his new series, which would commence filming on August 28, 1966.

Four W&P Mokes appeared in The Prisoner, and this writer had the extreme privilege of riding in HLT 709 C, one of two surviving examples from the series in 2017:

What The Prisoner did not convey to the viewers was HLT had a 998cc Cooper engine, unlike the other three Mokes. As we bowled along, I was reminded that ‘passenger safety’ meant gripping the bodysides, as The Village authorities had clearly decided seat belts were an extravagance. They also thought the optional heater was a luxury.

But to say it was an experience never to be forgotten is a slight understatement, for travelling in a Prisoner Moke through Portmeirion felt akin to being in the series. It was very hard to resist the temptation to look over my shoulder to see if Leo McKern or Rover was pursuing me. To make the scenario even more surreal, the great Fenella Fielding reprised her role as Tanoy Announcer. Another guest at the event was Derren Nesbitt, No. 2 in It’s Your Funeral.

ITV first screened The Prisoner in 1967, and in October of that year, BMC introduced the Mk. II version of the Moke. A second windscreen wiper was now standard, and there was even a choice of two colours—Spruce Green or Snowberry White. Alas, a ruling by HM Customs and Revenue decreed the Moke was a car, not a commercial vehicle, thereby inflating the price by £78.

Consequently, UK production ended in 1968 after 1 4,518 examples (5,422 Austins and 9,096 Morris). Only 10% of these were home-market cars, and in 1966, BMC-Australia began assembling the Moke. Two years later, the recently formed British Leyland Motor Corporation transferred the surplus tooling from the West Midlands to Sydney. 1981 marked the demise of the Australian Moke, and the last examples were made in Portugal in 1993.

HLT was auctioned for £69,750 at the NEC Classic Motor Show Sale in 2021, and I shall never forget re-enacting The Prisoner while perched on the rear seat. As to why The Village authorities favoured an Austin rather than a Morris - “Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself. Be seeing you...”

With thanks to: Phil Caunt