Innocenti Mini Traveller
Innocenti Mini Traveller
Cute Versatility
Not even Alec Issigonis, the original designer of the MINI, could have imagined such runaway success! Demand for all the possible MINI variants was so high that the Station Wagon version (The Mini Traveller) became the natural successor to the MORRIS Traveller.
The 1968 Innocenti Mini Traveller
This Traveller is a very unique Made in Italy car.
When Italy charged import tax on foreign goods, the Morris and Austin city cars couldn’t compete with local FIATs. Mr Innocenti, famous for the LAMBRETTA (the grandmother of the Vespa), got his factory near Milan ready to receive kits from the UK to assemble them in Italy and, upgrading the interiors to match Italian tastes, started selling the MINI as “Made in Italy”. And what a success it was!
Mine is a Mini t produced in Milan in 1968, a true European classic car. Learn everything about the Mini t (and the Mini Countryman) here.
Not just a British phenomenon after all
The first Mini Traveller and Countryman cars were built as small Estates, with “barn-style” double doors. Austin called it the Mini Countryman, while Morris branded it as the Traveller. It Italy, Innocenti called it the “T LEGNO” (“T WOODY”).
Prototypes of the Traveller/Countryman had been doing the rounds since 1959. But the first official Austin Seven Countryman was built at Longbridge on 15th March 1960. It was targetted at “the working man”, but ended up being adopted as a cute second car for the weekend or for mothers roaming around the city in style.
The Mini Traveller was actually put to work – heavy work – by local councils, electric companies, movers, bakers, and anyone else who had to carry a load for work … but always in style:)
How we met
My mom, Lillian Jacks, has always been a woman ahead of her time. In 1967/68 and ’69, she was a Mini Cooper rally driver and was crowned number 2 champion in Italy at Trofeo Innocenti. She was then invited to the World Championship in Egypt but her dad, maybe correctly, didn’t let her travel.
Her daily drivers were a beige and black Innocenti Mini Cooper and this Innocenti Mini T.
Bought new in 1968, and sold in ’74… I miraculously stepped into it in 2014, when I found it for sale again over the internet, near Venice. No need to continue with this story, am I right?!
