Quote:
One of the earliest production Minis – widely believed to the world’s oldest – has been rediscovered by a classic car fan on Merseyside.
George Smith bought 434 NWL, a 1959 Morris Mini Minor MK1 car earlier this year, and was unaware of its history as a Cowley test car which later went on become a newspaper competition and a star exhibit at the former Alton Towers car museum.
The Liverpool enthusiast told CCfS: “Originally I was bidding for it online on behalf of a friend, but after he backed out I decided to carry on bidding anyway because it was such a lovely old car, and ended up winning the auction for £2,000.
“I knew it was an early MK1 but I didn’t realise just how much history it had behind it.”
The car, the 40th Morris Mini Minor when it rolled off the Cowley production line in May 1959, was used by engineers as a test car for the first three years of its life, before being sold to a BMC employee, the late Bernard Ferriman, who owned it until the mid 1980s.
Due to its chassis number it made a string of appearances billed as the world’s oldest Mini – including appearing on TV alongside Noel Edmonds – before given away as a prize in a competition by the Today newspaper. Later in this life it spent a decade as one of the stars of the former car museum at Alton Towers, but disappeared after being auctioned in 1999 and then passing through a series of different owners.
The car, which has already been given a new shell and is not yet in running condition, is currently being stored by Suffolk specialists The East Anglia Mini Centre.
A spokesman for the centre said: “Mr Smith got in touch with us about the car after he bought it online a few weeks ago, and as it was a car local to us we collected it on his behalf.
“The car’s been in our storage facilities for about six weeks, and we hope to be able to restore it later this year.”
The oldest known surviving Mini, registered 621 AOK, has been fully restored, while the oldest unrestored example, registered XLL 27, sold for more than £40,000 at auction last year.
BY DAVID SIMISTER
http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/new ... iscovered/
The late 'Taffy' posted these old tv clips that I had recorded on videotape about this Mini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw43PJV8WDE
Quote from Trevor Ripley 1959 Mini Register:
"This is known as the 'Ferriman' car. The description on the old video by Noel Edmonds is far from accurate. The car came off the production line at Cowley on 20th May 1959 bearing chassis number 140. It was LHD and was allocated to the experimental dept for proving tests and re-allocated with another number. After a couple of years when they had finished with it it was converted to RHD and sold to Bernard Ferriman who worked for BMC. It was then re-allocated yet another chassis number 98. This re-allocation of numbers occured with a few cars that were plucked off the line for testing and then subsiquently sold off 2nd hand to employees. ( They went backwards from 101 ).
Anyway this car was used by Bernard Ferriman well into the late 1980's. Eventually it was bought by Today Newspapers and after being 'restored' by Penta Garages in Reading was used as a competition prize in the Today newspaper. Amazingly the first prize of the competition was 434 NWL along with a brand new mini. The lucky winners of the two cars were Lindsay and Cathy Bromage. Cathy used the new one as her everyday car and 434 NWL ended up on display in a small museum at Alton Towers. In 1999 the Bromages decieded to sell it and it was entered in Sotherby's auction. I was very interested in buying the car at the time but after consulting Sotherbys it turned out that it seemed to have been re shelled and I decided against it. It made just short of £3000.
Many years later I made contact with Lindsay Bromage to see if he new the whereabouts of the car, but unfortunately he did not.
It certainly was an early and interesting car, although not really original. The 1959 Mini Register do not know its whereabouts now.
It was certainly an early car but by no means as early as it says on the video.
It would be very interesting to know its present whereabouts. It is on the DVLA database, but unlicensed since 1988."
(Miniworld Summer 2011)
The Oldest Surviving Mini? - old TMF thread:
http://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/to ... ving-mini/
The opening line itself is in effect a complete distortion of the truth, the kind of reportage that drives most people nuts. At best the buff logbook has been "rediscovered", the car itself is no more, as Bill says, it's two completely different cars. I feel a 'Dead Parrot' skit coming on.... 
