Hello
I've been researching the history of the early Mini Moke for nearly 30 years since acquiring a 1959 prototype and restoring it way back in the 1980s. Mine has the reg. 14 BT 18. Others that were made included 14 BT 17, for many years in the Beverley Museum but now in the Haynes Museum at Sparkford, and 20 BT 30 in private hands near Portsmouth. Other registrations included 14 BT 16, 07 RN 49 (Royal Marines) and 27 AE 03 (RAF) but I don’t know what happened to them. Have any of them survived I wonder?
More recently I have been trying to find out what the 4 digit stencilled white numbers on either side of the bonnet represented? Were they military numbers or had they been put on by BMC? So far I’ve found 6008, 6013 and 5950 in various photos. Might they have represented the relevant week of that particular year. e.g. 6008 was the 8th week of 1960? At this stage I really have no idea.
Some of the Mokes were tested at the FVRDE, Chertsey. Some were used by the Army in the Bordon area.
The main differences between the 1959 prototypes and the Moke that went into production in 1964 were: bench seats, not individual seats, 948cc engine, not 848cc (850), petrol tank and battery behind the rear seat, not in the side. In addition the sides were not boxed in on the prototypes.
I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has any information on the prototype Mokes or maybe can remember seeing one way back in the early 1960s.
Graham Robinson
(Now retired and living in Brazil but for many years I lived and worked in Bournemouth)
email: Moke59Prototype@aol.com
