1959 Austin Mini 850

Chassis number A-A2S7L/ 215.

Built 8th June 1959 as the 89th LHD car and 115th Austin at the Longbridge factory in Farina Grey as a Standard (internally - Basic) Danish export model and badged as the Austin Partner for the DK market. It is the 6th oldest surviving Austin in the world, the 10th oldest Mini in the world & it is 4th oldest Mini in the UK. But 215’s greatest claim to fame is it was the 3rd Austin Basic saloon built after 101 and 141 and the earliest survivor.

I run the 1959 Mini Register and for filled a life long dream to own one of the earliest surviving Mini's ever built and the cherry on the cake was that Basic specification, this is as close as we can possibly get to Issiginis's dream of no frills transport.

Chassis number A-A2S7/ 101 was the first Austin built on the 3rd April 1959 and along with 102 designated “Mr Issigonis, Works car” in the production records. The foot note “Built by J Brettle in Dev. Dept; to Experimental Dept. Scrapped in 1960” is written along side 101 in those records.

The next basic, chassis number A-A2S7L/ 141 was another Farina Grey Danish export car built 25th May 1959 and dispatched on 14th August 1959. The registration papers survive in Sweden but the car is long gone.

215 is one of the 14 Austins designated “Longbridge Display car” in the production records. Of those 14 only L/ 185, L/ 220 and L/ 215 survive.

Dispatched on 31st July 1959 to Odense, over a month after exports to Denmark started on the 22nd June 1959. The chassis number was punched into the right hand inner-wing when the cars arrived new at the Austin importers in Odense and can still be seen today. 215 still carries many of the unique identifying features of the first 400 odd cars produced, split roughly 50/ 50 between Austin & Morris.

Restored by myself (body work by Dave Gate at Phoenix Motor bodies Nantwich) between 2014 and 2019 using all period correct & mostly NOS parts to represent the as it would have been brand new in the DK sales room. The restoration of this car included full scale remanufacturing of the basic hounds tooth cloth seat material.

I bought the car in 2010 from Georg Mikkelsen from AKM racing in Thisted DK (from AKM 7 port cylinder head fame, now sold by Mini Sport), Georg had owned the car for 18 years and had spent many years collecting parts. 215 had at some point in it's life been used as a rally car but we have yet to find any documented results.

Viewing welcome.