TWICE THE ABILITY – THE STORY OF THE TWINI MOKE

The Mini Moke celebrates its 60^th birthday in 2024, and possibly the most fascinating variant was the dual-engine ‘Twini’. When the British Motor Corporation displayed a prototype to the media in January 1963, their Managing Director George Harriman told the press:

This was originally conceived by Mr Issigonis and myself from the idea of an 0-8-0 locomotive, which has its wheels linked on either side. After producing some experimental versions we found that the traction of the two Mini engines balanced each other and that it was possible to run one in top gear and the other in bottom simultaneously.

The Twini employed two 848cc A-series engines with interconnected throttles and clutch controls. The gearboxes had no linkage, but two levers mounted on either side of the driver could engage the rear power plant to augment the front unit. One impressed observer was John Cooper, who created his own twin-engine Mini saloon, more of which in another blog. He wrote in his memoirs:

Normally, the most expensive item on a four-wheel-drive vehicle is the transfer box, in addition to which or perhaps because of which handling problems always seem to arise. At least they did in those days. But the idea behind the twin-engine Mini was much simpler. Each power unit operated independently of the other, and fitting a second engine was cheaper and simpler than the complications and cost involved with the usual transfer gear. Admittedly, a small amount of load-carrying capacity had to be sacrificed, but with transverse engines it didn’t amount to much. Against this, the actual performance was enormously improved.

The result was a light utility vehicle with what amounted to a spare engine. When driven on the road, the Moke used only one power plant, while the inactive one remained in neutral. This set-up meant there was no need to fit a transfer box, and The Times of the 8^th January 1963 seemed very taken with the twin-engine Moke:

When a 4ft snowdrift brought the car to a halt we put both engines into reverse and cleared the drift in three seconds. Acceleration was as fast and positive as on a dry road and the car can cope easily with a one-in- two gradient. The twin Moke has a power output of 72bhp, a top speed of 75mph, and double the pulling power of the standard Mini. It is designed basically as an agricultural and military cross-country vehicle.

BMC made three Twini Mokes: a hand-built prototype SPL 921 that now resides at the British Motor Museum, SPL 578, and the LHD SPL 935, which was exported to the USA. In December 1963, Jim Clark drove a twin-engine Moke in the BBC Television Autopoint rally, and six months later, there was a news report that:

The United States Army is carrying out trials with two British Motor Corporation vehicles derived from the design of the mini-car, the BMC announced yesterday. One is the Mini-Moke and the other the Twin- Moke a twin-engined version. Left-hand drive prototypes of each are undergoing study and evaluation by the United States Army Tank Automotive Centre.

The Twini Moke now had dual 1,100cc engines and, according to BMC, underwent “all kinds of extensive field tests” in the USA. However, these evaluations did not result in orders, while the British armed forces preferred vehicles with a transfer box rather than a second engine.

All of which begs the question: Could a civilian market Twini Moke have enjoyed commercial success? The Times predicted its price would have been a not unreasonable £850, and the Twini could have augmented both the standard Moke and the Austin Gipsy, BMC’s Land-Rover competitor. Against that, the Twini would not have been cheap to build. It’s one rival was the dual engine Citroën 2CV Sahara, produced in very small numbers for niche buyers such as the Spanish Guardia Civil.

So, the Twini was destined to remain an interesting footnote in the Mini’s history. To have an idea of its potential, here is Alex Issigonis testing it during the ‘Big Winter’ of January 1963. And as the great designer was not a fan of such decadent

fittings as heaters, he would have been completely at home behind the wheel -