MINI MAXIMUM

• Published date: 24 August 2023
• Publication title: Central Otago News

FIRSTLY, a belated apology. It was the early ’80s, my first car, my first serious girlfriend

We had been to an evening movie in Invercargill before heading to my cobber’s workplace for the night, a pig farm near Riverton. I drove my forest green 1000cc Mini on the unfamiliar country gravel road with the bravado of youth and was not the first person to miss the unmarked right-angle corner.

The farmer had become so frustrated with cars wrecking his fence that he had protected it with a hefty log hidden in the grass. It worked perfectly. I overshot the corner, roared into the long grass, jerked the wheel to avoid the log and rolled the car onto its side. The fence remained intact.

I blame adrenaline kicking in as I impolitely clambered over my girlfriend, forcing open her door to exit the wrecked car. Sorry, Jo.

Back on four wheels, my green Mini had pride of place outside the theatre for the first screening of Goodbye Pork Pie. In the hilarious 1981 movie an unlikely pair drive a stolen bright yellow Mini the length of New Zealand, while being chased by bumbling police.

You would not believe how well my Mini performed on the way home from the cinema.

A few years later, Jo and I were back into Minis, identical racing red Mini Coopers, for wedding cars. And a while after that, about three kids later, my new partner Jane and I bought a Royal Tce house that featured in the film — the Pork Pie Mini hid in its garage, before smashing out through closed doors for a final dash to Invercargill.

So, when the Otago Mini Car Owners group emailed to ask if the paper would like to cover their Coast to Coast, Sunrise to Sunset rally, 406km from St Clair to Haast, I smiled. Why not?

The boss didn’t take much convincing. The News, in Alexandra, had bought a new Mini pickup in 1971 to use for deliveries and it sported the appropriate number plate, ODAILY. It had long since been superseded and was languishing in a storeroom, unused for years.

Warrant of fitness, registration, grease and oil change, battery charge, wheel alignment (one front wheel was ahead of the other), a wash, top up the fluids and fingers crossed, ready to go.

Nineteen Minis lined the St Clair seawall. Car owners from Auckland, Blenheim, Rangiora, Oamaru, Dunedin and Te Anau huddled together on a clear but bitterly cold mid-winter morning, making introductions under a pretty red sky.

The first leg to Roxburgh was probably the furthest ODAILY had been driven in 10 years.

It managed the Lookout Point hill...