Whatever happened to the Minis used in The Italian Job?

[mab01uk]

Interesting film clip below...as seen on Sporting Minis.

"They were all eventually destroyed is often the answer but the six Cooper S's supplied to Paramount by the factory did survive filming by all accounts. Well this little clip linked below from a 1970 Dunlop film shot in Trafalgar Square might give a clue to one of the cars which was driven back from Turin by stunt driver David Salamone. Apparently BL did request the return of all six (three were still in very good condition) including this one NOC 74F which was never seen again. So what did the factory do with them....what happened to NOC 72F, 73, 74, 75, and 76F and MON 795F?"
(Note: The three Minis pushed down the mountain hillside were just old engineless shells if you look closely)



David Salamone remembers driving the white Mini Cooper S (NOC 74F) seen in the Dunlop film below (at 1m 45sec approx.) after he finished filming the Italian Job but then it went back to B.M.C. and he never saw it again.
NOC 74F was one of six Cooper S's supplied by and returned(?) to BMC, the G reg number plates used in the movie were all fictitious at the time, although they were eventually issued and sold as personal plates for £18k by the DVLA in 2006 and used on replica I.J. Minis.
https://www.facebook.com/thesportingminis/?locale=en_GB

Vive Le Sport - 1969 groovy swinging sixties short film from 'Gannet Films' advertising Dunlop SP Sports radial tyres and the Mini Cooper S:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=eBM3EuyYUmQ

The thread on 'Sporting Minis' linked below....I lost count of the number of times Pete F had to point out and explain the three I.J. Minis often seen today at shows, etc are replicas!! Some are still disputing this in link below despite the owner of the cars having publicly stated they’re replicas! What more proof do some need? I suppose at least it makes a change from the frequent disputes over the 'Works Mini' re-creations....
https://www.facebook.com/thesportingminis/?locale=en_GB

To clarify : any Italian Job replica Minis currently out there, including the set with the movie registration numbers on (released by DVLA in 2006 as cherished numbers) don’t have any connection to the original movie cars.
Also check out Mathew Field’s book, ‘The Self Preservation Society- 50 Years Of The Italian Job’ for a detailed account on the whole film.

[beardylonodn]

Re: the quote that the DVLA sold the number plates in 2006 for £18k, I don't think that is entirely correct.

I read in MiniWorld a few years back that someone applied to the DVLA to have all three previously unused registrations put into a DVLA auction, and that was in 2003. All three were bought individually at auction, as per the search below, selling for a combined £9400, plus fees I presume. See below screen shot all the auction results, click to expand:



In said MiniWorld article, it mentioned that whoever brought them, then packaged them together and sold all three on to someone else, which from memory was around £20k (mentioned in the article), and they were brought by someone who had made three Italian Job replicas.

[mab01uk]

Re: the quote that the DVLA sold the number plates in 2006 for £18k, I don't think that is entirely correct.

Many thanks for posting the extra info.

[Exminiman]

…….so its likely they went back to the factory and were either scrapped or sold on or somthing….

So if you have an original S from around that time it may of been yours that was used……..

[mab01uk]

…….so its likely they went back to the factory and were either scrapped or sold on or somthing….

So if you have an original S from around that time it may of been yours that was used……..

If you notice some creases in the roof panel, it may be one of the three Minis which did the rooftop jump scene...

[Pete]

Yes there’s some errors with dates etc but the simple question I was trying to ask was of the cars that did make it back from filming, including the white car that David Salamone drove back and handed back to BL were any still in existence? Of course there’s little likelihood of getting an answer I know but now and again the odd person will pop up with interesting info! The flip side of this sort of discussion on Facebook (especially!) is the tidal wave of spurious claims that the current replicas are actually built from remains of the original cars, not helped in any way by Brian Johnson’s slightly misleading video!
The records found in 2018 and published in part in Mathew Field’s book on the film spell out the details of the cars Paramount recieved from BL , most of which needed repainting, fair to say their lack of enthusiasm in supplying cars wasn't entirely mirrored by their enthusiasm to get them back!

[Polarsilver]

would have thought with such treatment there would be distortion crease.s to the floor crossmember in the area of the Handbrake as it is a bit weak in that area on a mk1.. with the works welding a second crossmember over the top of the original.. were the Job Bodyshells beefed up in any way?

[Peter Laidler]

I'm aware that the film was made before the days of real health and safety. But someone at BL must have sat back and looked at the torture that the I-J cars had gone through - then thought of the ramifications to BL if anything had gone wrong had the cars had been sold off. Too dodgy.

At the trials and development dept. where I worked they ensured that after punishing trials and tests on any of their kit, after a detailed examination, nothing went back into service. It was either scrapped, returned to the manufactured with a written proviso or used as a hard target on Salisbury Plain

I wouldn't mind betting that this was the BL policy. Even at the MG works here, the crash test cars faced the same fate. Not even the parts were salvaged although I did get a couple of MGB GT V8 front seats

[swifty]

The blue one is rumoured to be in Sacri Monti Italy …. Shirley

[mab01uk]

would have thought with such treatment there would be distortion crease.s to the floor crossmember in the area of the Handbrake as it is a bit weak in that area on a mk1.. with the works welding a second crossmember over the top of the original.. were the Job Bodyshells beefed up in any way?

Quotes below from the book "Self Preservation Society" by Matthew Field.

(Page 222) :-
David Sallamone: 'After the jump, our mechanics repaired those cars and bodged them together again for further filming. There were small kinks in the roofs, both sides. The way we serviced those Minis on that film, it was like 24 Hours of Le Mans, we kept them going by any means possible.'

(Page 244) :-
David Sallamone: 'At least three of them (out of the six hero Minis - NOC 72F, NOC 73F, NOC 75F, NOC 76F, MON 795F) had kinks in their roofs. The chassis had bent. The three cars used for the roof-top jump had serious suspension damage, the bodies had kinked. You could still drive them, but BMC would never have been allowed to sell them. So they must have been destroyed. The second set was ok and there was talk of doing a promotional tour with them and I had agreed to do it. But it didn't happen, and I never saw the Minis again.'

NOC 74F can be seen fleetingly in Dunlop's promo film, Vive Le Sport (1969) - complete with leather bonnet straps and Cibie lights. However their is no trace of any of the six hero Minis at this point. 'F' Reg was 1968 but the production team put 'G' plates on the cars so that they were contemporaneous with the film's release in the summer of 1969.

[roger mcnab]

hi i do not remember how many mustangs they used in the movie bullet they were punished in that chase scene
cheers roger

[hanlminiman]

Problem solved. David's red one turned up at Gaydon on Sunday

[WMU 211G]

hi i do not remember how many mustangs they used in the movie bullet they were punished in that chase scene
cheers roger

They used two 390GT Fastbacks Roger, both of which survived - the main one driven by McQueen was sold (appropriately enough) to a Police detective in LA shortly after filming was finished, he then sold it to a farming family in 1974 who used it as daily transport for a while before putting it into storage in one of their barns, they sold it for a c.$3m a few years ago. It still has the metal tubing welded to the floorpan for mounting the cameras during the filming. In 1977 McQueen wrote to the family asking to buy it back, but they refused.

The other Fastback which was used as the stunt car was found beaten, battered and painted white in New Mexico a few years ago and has been restored.

[roger mcnab]

hi
thanks for that info those cars did cop a lot of abuse but the bodies were well built wonder how the new one would handle that abuse
cheers roger

[steve1071]

Anyone go see The Italian Job at the cinema tonight for the 55th anniversary?

First scene they’ve turned the Miura red….!

[wantafaster1]

Didn't know it was re released!

[nick@dunsdale]

BL missed a huge marketing chance to cash in after the films release
It just shows how out of touch they were with the real world

I am sure mini sales had slight surge but i bet they could have done a lot more with all the publicty

[steve1071]

Didn't know it was re released!

Was only for a couple of nights at Cineworld cinema's for the 55th anniversary

[Costafortune]

BL missed a huge marketing chance to cash in after the films release
It just shows how out of touch they were with the real world

I am sure mini sales had slight surge but i bet they could have done a lot more with all the publicty

BLMC could sell every Mini they could make, with ease, and minimal profit.

They really didn't need any help. Four Monte wins in a row did that job.

[Exminiman]

BL missed a huge marketing chance to cash in after the films release
It just shows how out of touch they were with the real world

I am sure mini sales had slight surge but i bet they could have done a lot more with all the publicty

BLMC could sell every Mini they could make, with ease, and minimal profit.

They really didn't need any help. Four Monte wins in a row did that job.

it is a shame they got their sums wrong.....I think even Ford realised BMC had got the numbers wrong.....