Unusual German Minivan

[mab01uk]

Spotted on another forum:
Minivan with Traveller/Countryman rear floor
http://cgi.ebay.de/Austin-Mini-Cooper-L ... 35aa49e291

[wolseley 1000]

in the item description it is said that this van once belonged to the British Telekom.
I think you guys over there should know......

[mascher]

The wooden load floor van was available for export only according to the BMC body service parts list. Commercial vehicles were taxed at a lower rate in many countries. It's likely that BMC provided the wooden load floor van to take advantage of the tax break as they also provided a rear seat kit that could be used to convert the van into an estate. The local dealer would provide the side windows. There is one here in Seattle that spent most of it's life in Ecuador.

Kelley

[IAIN]

There is another van with that floor here in Scotland, its a 1980.
I think this subject came up on the mk1 - mk1 forum some where.

[Tim]

Its nice to see some photographic evidence. I saw one of these in NZ several years ago, but when I mentioned it on the old old forum was treated quite rudely by a skeptical know-it-all from the UK.

Its a shame we never got them here, the best we managed was our local vans with a dodgy aftermarket back seat.

Tim

[JC T ONE]

My Fathers company had 2 Mini vans, as a service cars, in the 60ies (have a photo somewhere) one of them had a rearseat.
Here in DK you could registre a van, on a thing called "Parrot" plates, they were part Yellow with Black print, and part Black with White print.
These vans had no side windows, but had a rear seat, they ran on cheaper roadtax.
I remember getting VERY sick, when sitting in the back, as you couldnt see out

In the early 70ies, the goverment stopped it, and people were allowed to put sidewindows in, and change the plates to "proper" Black plates, and almost all people did, so these cars with "parrot" plates are VERY rare now, I think only 7 have survived, I know of 1 Volvo Amazon, who still has them.


Jens Christian

[mk1]

That one also looks to be finished in the very rare Marigold colour.

A van of this colour was used by both Downton & Speedwell!

[InimiaD]

Only just spotted this thread.
I know of one of these vans. A member on my local Mini forum has one that he is part way through restoring.
Apparently it was made to order by the factory.
I shall dig out some more details if i can find them.

[UHR850]

The MINI Van was never official sold in Germany, so every VAN was afterwards imported.

[wolseley 1000]

The MINI Van was never official sold in Germany, so every VAN was afterwards imported.

Who did tell you that ?
There´s a lot of them that I think might be used by the British Forces
and they had and have german papers.....

In Austria they were sold at the time.

[InimiaD]

The Van my friend has was built in 1973 and was indeed custom built by the factory to special order.
There is no provision for a rear seat.
There is an Alloy plate with all the kerb weights etc riveted to the inner sill along with extra steel plate in the sill box section
By all accounts this type of Mini van build became a factory option in around 1976.
The colour is Yellow (ish).
A very interesting commercial indeed.

[Tulka]

These vans had no side windows, but had a rear seat, they ran on cheaper roadtax.
I remember getting VERY sick, when sitting in the back, as you couldnt see out

Jens Christian,
You can not have been the only one getting sick in the back seat of Mini vans,
I remember a Danish Mini sales brochure where a small side window had been added,
retouched from the British original catalogue.

Tulka

[kwjcoopermk2]

Hi

Someone once told me that alot of danish Mini Vans and pick ups was exported to Germany, but i am not able to confirm this

Best Regards Kristian

[Stefan]

I remember a guy in Denmark who always added in a German classic car magazine to sell danish minis. One day I visited him and nearly could not belive my eyes. He had a barn full of Mk 1 Minis, Pick-ups, flatroof Vans, hydro MK 2 and all that.
All in a price region of 300 to 800 Pounds.
It´s about 20 years ago and one day all the cars were sold to a workshop in Hamburg/Germany. In those days Hamburg was the German capital of the Mini scene, and especially early Minis sold very well then.
Will dig out some pics of the barn I took those days.

A few years later, I bought a 1979 Pick-Up from a danish farmer during a local Mini meet. It was completely original and went like a rocket. Later I found out it had no coolant water........anyway. It made the 300 km trip home without any problem.

[Flying Finn]

This kind of Vans are very typical in Finland. It is easier to find a Van with Estate floor than with original Van floor. The reason in Finland was in tax policy. Commercial vehicles had smaller tax and you were allow to insert the back seat after a while.



Mine had a huge windows cut in the sides.



Here pic when converted back.

[almondgreen]

Someone once told me that alot of danish Mini Vans and pick ups was exported to Germany

I have a danish pickup here in Germany....

[mk1]

So it appears that the conversion of Vans to Estates was a fairly common thing to do across most of Europe. Up until very recently I thought it was only here in the UK that this silly policy existed.

[Stefan]

Andreas.....is your Pick-Up green? I sold mine to Frankfurt years ago. Not far from you, I guess.

[austinisuseless]

British Telecom didn't exist in 1969. It was all part of the Post Office (known as the GPO - General Post Office). The telephone business was split off about ten years later. All GPO vans were red, as the post vans are still today.

The back seat conversion makes sense, because in remote areas of the country, GPO vans used to double up as a taxi-service for country folk. That still goes on in the highlands of Scotland especially.

[mk1]

All GPO vans were red;

No they weren't









They were almost all either green or yellow. Check out Google Images by typing in "GPO Van"