From loser to beach cruiser. The Mini Moke.

GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO. 

It was 1959 and the British Motor Corporation (BMC) intended to create a compact military vehicle using the original Mini. Luckily for them, Sir Alec Issigonis, the original Mini’s designer, had unfinished business in just that field. Before Mini, he had worked on the parachute-deployable, amphibious Nuffield Gutty, which didn’t find great success.    

Issigonis knew that the Mini’s revolutionary compact design – especially its transverse engine and rubber-based Moulton suspension – would be suitable for specialist uses. After all, it had been the basis for a van, a pickup, a motorhome, or even an ice cream van. The Mini thus seemed like an obvious choice.  

Together with John Sheppard – a designer at BMC, who had also worked on the original Mini – they created a stripped down, doorless car codenamed “The Buckboard”. With potentially lucrative contracts on the horizon, the first prototypes of the car were produced even before the first Mini rolled off the production line. However, production hadn’t started yet. Between 1959 and 1963, the car was designed and redesigned to meet the British Military’s needs. 

The Moke was not stripped of most of its Mini parts just for show. First, it was meant to be stackable, meaning multiple models could simply be stacked on top of each other. These stacks – and thus the cars themselves – would also need to be light, that is, light enough to be lifted by aircraft and dropped by parachute. If one ever got stuck in the mud, four people could literally pick the car up and carry it to safety. Being based on the Mini, mass production would have been simple, with the chassis essentially being a flat sheet of pressed steel with box sections (for the fuel tank, battery and storage). Sounds great, doesn’t it?  

Unfortunately, there were some flaws that rendered it unfit for service. Originally it only had 10-inch wheels and a ground clearance not much higher than that of the classic Mini (about 16.2 cm). Coupled with the 37bhp 948cc engine in the front-wheel drive vehicle, this meant that rough terrain or a steep incline would prove an insurmountable challenge. Even though BMC would give it bigger wheels and create a four-wheel-drive version – with a second engine in the back – the fundamental problems couldn’t be overcome. By 1963 it seemed like a once-promising career was over before it started.  

BMC didn’t want to give up on the car just yet. They thought it could have a chance in a different market, as a commercial vehicle for farmers. Hence, they named it “Moke” after an archaic word for mule. However, the optimism was short-lived, as the British government classed it not as a commercial but as a passenger vehicle, which meant that it attracted higher taxes, which was a huge problem. It seemed like the Mini Moke bet on the wrong horse and it would have a short, basically non-existent career. 

MY NAME IS MOKE. MINI MOKE.

But then a completely new opportunity knocked on the door. BMC had been experimenting with beach cars before, with a collection called the Mini Beach Cars. Designed without B-pillars, windows, or doors, they were meant to be driven to and from a yacht, around a beach, or through a golf course. This world was distant from the Moke’s original market of rugged service and hard labour. But the car effortlessly made the leap from the fields to the seaside. This was probably partly thanks to the car simply being cool enough to transcend all target demographics. Anyone could look great driving it, and it was super fun to drive.

And it was attainable, with the original price in 1964 being only £405, with the caveat that things such as passenger seats, grab handles, a heater, windscreen washer and a removable canvas top were optional equipment. This might have been more of a strength than a drawback. With the Moke being as basic and stripped down as physically possible, but also highly modifiable, it allowed manufacturers and audiences to add things to it easily, making it their personal little car. All of this added to the rough and tumble charm. The Mini Moke had a price point that made it available to anyone, but a style money couldn’t buy.  

Perhaps that explains why it also managed to carve out an important place in pop-culture history. It first gained international recognition when the Beach Boys – at the height of their fame – posed with one during their 1966 international tour. It made its small screen debut in the hit British television series The Prisoner a year later. It got a further bump, as it appeared in multiple James Bond films, namely: You Only Live Twice (1967), Live And Let Die (1973), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). Interestingly, it was only a Bond car once, in Live and Let Die, when Roger Moore drove a stylish version of the car on the fictitious island of San Monique. In the other movies, it was the car used by the baddies. The San Monique Moke helped popularise the Moke across places like Hawaii and the Caribbean.  

It would receive another flash of the spotlight years later as well, when the legendary Brigitte Bardot drove her dogs across St Tropez, France, in her Mini Moke. Of course, there were many more appearances across series and films, because just like the classic Mini, you could put this car basically in any production and it would instantly provide some style and charm.  

MAKING MANY MINI MOKES.

With such an illustrious career both on and off the screen, it’s no wonder the Mini Moke would constantly be in production after the first one rolled off the assembly line in 1964. A total of 14,518 cars were produced until 1968, but only about 1,500 were sold to UK buyers. The Mini Moke and British weather didn’t make the ideal pair. It found greater success across the globe, from the US to the Seychelles and all the way to Australia.   

The latter would have such a huge demand for the cars that in 1966 BMC set up a manufacturing plant in Sydney to build the car. Around 26,000 Mokes were built in Australia until 1981. The Australian Moke did receive some changes, such as ditching the Mini seats for canvas hammock-style ones, to better fit customers’ down unders. But there were also other advancements, both technically and design-wise. Probably the most famous was the Mini “Californian”, a special export version of the Moke with Mini’s well-known 1275 cc engine. There was also a pickup version of the Mini Moke in 1975, as well as one modified for railway service. Just like the Mini, the Moke proved quite versatile.  

As the production in Australia was winding down, British Leyland (Mini’s owner at the time) moved manufacturing to a subsidiary in Portugal, where about 10,000 Mokes would be produced between 1980 and 1993, with regular updates keeping the car fresh.

NO SIGNS OF RETIREMENT.

Being a hugely modifiable car helped the Moke carve out a strong and long career for itself. Whether it was the car of choice at a five-star hotel in Barbados, or whether it was the beach car for surfers somewhere in California, the Moke always seems to be loved by everyone. Almost three decades of production is very admirable for a car that almost never was. Interestingly, a “Moke” is available today as well. Rover Group had sold the name “Moke” (without the “Mini” attached) in the early nineties, and since then, various cars under that name have popped up around the world. Just goes to show how beloved the Mini Moke still is. And that is really the most that any car could ask for.