This Side of the Pond

A convoy of 60 Minis wiggled their way through the serpentine streets of Oxford last week to mark the 60th anniversary since the first of them rolled off the assembly line. My family has a history with the iconic British motors, and I see a surprising number of them here in Wyoming, but I have yet to claim a Mini of my own.

Even so, they are my all-time favorite vehicle (unless you count my childhood bicycle, which I loved more than life itself). They are sprightly, instantly recognizable and pleasingly quirky.

My first memory of a Mini is quite specific. In this snapshot, I am eight years old, squished into the back seat of my mother’s bright red Mini with two of my friends on the way home from school. It’s an elbow-to-elbow situation because this car was not designed for passengers to extend either legs or elbows.

We are small, but so is the Mini, and the road we are traveling is steep. It’s rush hour, so we can’t get a run-up to the slope, and my mum is deeply concerned that we aren’t going to make it to the top.

To solve this dilemma, we come up with the ingenious solution that we will all lean forward until we’ve cleared the crest of the hill. I don’t know if it actually helped, but the perky little motor struggled its way to the top despite the fact (if I recall correctly) that it was powered by two cotton reels and a hamster.

My mum was surprised when I reminded her about that Mini, because she’d somehow forgotten its existence. To her, the word “Mini” brings back memories of her own youth, when she owned a green version that was her pride and joy.

She says that one of the things she loved best about her Mini was the fact it had a racing car steering wheel. I can only assume the mechanic who installed it had a strong sense of irony.

That one couldn’t get up the hill by her house on an icy day either, and she wasn’t even in charge of a school run. No wonder her toes automatically curl when she spots an incline.

You’d have thought she’d have chosen something a little beefier when she reached motherhood, but once you fall in love with the cheeky little beggars, it seems that no amount of common sense can talk you out of getting another one.

My dad’s most prominent memory of my mum’s first Mini comes from the time when they were dating. The way he tells it, she wasn’t the most considerate car owner in the south of England.

He recalls meeting her at a seaside hotel for dinner. She was late, of course, and he watched from the window as she pulled into a parking space overlooking the water.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been nothing to think twice about, but this happened in the middle of a storm. My mother parked, exited and left her Mini to deal with waves splashing over the sea wall that were taller than the car.

(Of course, as a Mini is only about two feet high, it doesn’t take much in the way of imagination to see how that might happen.)

You can guess who had to go deal with the situation. Yep, my dad, clad in his best dating suit and freshly shined shoes, was obliged to fight through walls of salt water to take the car somewhere less damp.

I think you can also guess from which side I inherited my eternally impractical nature.

As I hadn’t been born at the time, I never witnessed my grandfather’s adventures when he borrowed that Mini, but he sure had some tales to tell. He said he decided it was not the car for him while driving down the motorway.

Because he was only going at around 35 mph on the downhill stretches, it wasn’t hard for other vehicles to catch up. Some of us might associate the Mini with the classic chase in The Italian Job, but it’s easy to look like you’re going fast on tiny, thin streets.

At some point during this journey, a semi truck pulled alongside my grandfather and he realized each of its tires were bigger than his entire vehicle. I’m not sure he relaxed inside a Mini ever again.

My grandfather was a teller of tall tales, so I can’t guarantee the truthfulness of this next memory. On the other hand, from my own experiences, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

The story goes that he was driving on a rainy day when he came upon a flooded bridge over a river. It didn’t look too dangerous, so he drove across it anyway.

He made it to the other side just fine, but he also discovered that “watertight” is not a word that applies to a classic Mini. It wasn’t so much the water sloshing around inside the car that bothered him as the fish that swam past his knees.

The Mini is a lot sturdier these days, but I was still talked out of purchasing a metallic sky blue one as my first car on this side of the pond. The husband argued that it would be impractical (pfff!) because it would only take one winter storm to bury the car completely, so I would only be able to drive it in the summer.

He convinced me instead to purchase a Pontiac. Nothing against my little motor – she has been a stalwart friend for half a decade – but she definitely isn’t a Mini. She’s also really bad at maneuvering on snow, which means I can only drive her in the summer. Much like my mother, I’m not convinced the practical option was the better choice at all.