This Rover Mini has 2,000 Miles From New

There can't be many like this in the world, but this is a 1989 Rover Mini Mayfair with only 2500 miles from new.

1y ago
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This is a 1989 Austin-Rover Mini Mayfair. And it’s in very, very good condition, but I’ll go into that later.

Today I am not going to be telling you the story of the Mini as a whole. That’s just too long-winded, but what I am going to do is be extra nerdy and dive into how the Mini evolved through the mid-80s and survived into the 90s in a rather niche market. First though, a bit of background.

The Mini had been British Leyland’s volume small car for 21 years between 1959 and 1980, but in October of that year BL launched the Austin Metro. It was their first new car for four years and the start of Michael Edwardes’ ‘product-led recovery’ that hoped to bring the company back to success.

The Metro effectively replaced the Mini, but along with its contemporaries it was a bit bigger than the car that started the craze. That’s where the term ‘supermini’ came from. As a result, BL made the decision to keep the Mini in production as a cheaper, smaller, economy model.

In 1981, Mini production was down to 1150 per week and sales took an enormous dive as most buyers went for the much more modern Metro, and the range was enormously rationalised to just the Mini City and Mini HL, but that didn’t mean development stood still.

The Mini got an 80s makeover, stripping away the chrome and replacing it with grey plastic for the grille, bumpers, and door handles, then a lighter grey for the wheel trims. All models got the Clubman-style instruments and in 1982, the revised A+ engine from the Metro. These early 80s Minis also had much better soundproofing than their predecessors.

This one is a Mk5 Mini, built thirty-one years into the production of Issigonis’ iconic little creation, and it’s from an era when the Mini was not an entirely well-loved car, and certainly a low-seller compared to your Metros and Fiestas. The Mk5 was introduced in 1984 and modernised the car further, bringing it closer in line with the Metro.

The wheels grew from tiny 10s up to 12”, the same as the Metro, with 145/70 tyres. Above the wheels, these small plastic arch-extensions became standard across all Minis. Also standard across the range were front disc brakes, and it’s slightly hard to believe that apart from Coopers and the 1275GT, they had drums all-round until 1984. In addition to the discs is a brake servo under the bonnet, new for 1989.

This wasn’t to say things were all rosy. Austin Rover had planned to kill the Mini off in 1986, but production carried on. The mainstream range wasn’t doing very well. The Metro was ageing badly, while the Maestro and Montego couldn’t take on Ford and Vauxhall. The Mini was expensive and tricky to build, but Austin Rover saw the potential and began exploiting it.

For the rest of this article, please visit my YouTube channel and watch the video where we see what exactly a 2000 mile Classic Mini looks like!

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