54 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 7 AUGUST 2019
ars shaped as
foodstuffs – there
have been quite a few.
We’ve had cars shaped
like sausages, creme-
filled chocolate eggs, cheese burgers,
ice-cream cornets and even crayfish.
But none of them has quite the charm
of the Outspan orange Mini. Which,
as the pictures on these pages show,
is an outlandishly dimensioned
citrus fruit on wheels.
T he r e w e r e or i g i n a l l y h a l f a
dozen of these promotional spheres
of inf luence. Designed and built
by the Brian Thwaites company of
Sussex between 1972 and 1974, they
were used by South African orange
producer Outspan to promote its
fruits around Europe, and rather
effectively so, one suspects. The
company is still in business today,
and at least three of the Oranges
are known to survive, one still with
Outspan. Minis were often hacked
about and adapted in the 1960s
and ’70s because they were cheap,
because regulations were more
relaxed and because the Mini’s
me c h a n ic a l l ay out le nt it s e l f t o w i ld
reconfigurings of the bodywork
enveloping it.
All of which has led us down
some weird avenues of Minidom
ov e r t he pa s t 6 0 y e a r s. T he M i n i’s
adaptability stems from the fact that
its powertrain and suspension are
carried on a pair of subframes whose
position relative to one another can
e a s i l y b e s h i f t e d. T h a t m a de it s i mple r
for the British Motor Corporation
to offer the longer-wheelbase Mini
Countryman and Minivan, and
not too difficult for assorted jokers
to build devices such as the Mini
Mini, which rides on a wheelbase
short enough to house only two, or
the Duckhams oil company to turn
C
...and other food groups, for that matter.
In its 60 years of existence, the Mini has taken many
forms to promote products. Richard Bremner
drives the best known – one with true a-peel
PHOTOGR A PHY OLGUN KOR DAL