Beschreibung:

The Mini Moke is a vehicle based on the Mini and designed for the British Motor Corporation (BMC) by Sir Alec Issigonis. The name comes from ""Mini""-the car with which the Moke shares many parts-and ""Moke"", which is an archaic dialect term for donkey. The initial design was a prototype for a light military vehicle in the style of the American Jeep, but its small wheels and low ground clearance made it impractical as an off-road vehicle. It was subsequently offered in a civilian version as a low-cost, easily maintained utility vehicle. The Moke finally achieved success as a beach buggy-becoming a popular 'cult' vehicle in the Seychelles, Australia, the United States and many tropical resorts in the Caribbean. Mokes were first built at the Morris factory in Oxford before production moved to BMC's Longbridge, Birmingham plant, and eventually overseas. 14,500 Mokes were produced in the UK between 1964 and 1968, 26,000 in Australia between 1966 and 1981, and 10,000 in Portugal between 1980 and 1993 when production of the Moke ended. In 1990, British Leyland (by then called Rover Group) sold the ""Moke"" name to Cagiva-a motorcycle manufacturer in Bologna, Italy. Production continued in Portugal until 1993, when Cagiva transferred the tooling to their factory in Italy with the intention of restarting production in 1995-which they never did. Since Cagiva did not own the ""Mini"" name, the 1,500 cars they built were sold simply as ""Mokes"". This brought the total production run of Mokes and Moke derivatives to about 50,000. This car was sold new to Jersey where it was originally offered for hire to visitors to the Channel Island. After a short period, the cars were snapped up for use by the hugely popular Jersey event called the Battle of Flowers. The Battle began as a flower parade, but along the route the flowers were torn off and thrown to the spectators. They threw them back, and the Battle was born. The Battle of Flowers remains a popular event, attracting thousands of people each year. It takes place on the 2nd Thursday of August, with a moonlight parade the following evening. Visit www.battleofflowers.com for more information. This Moke has been used sparingly in its lifetime. The Battle used this car only once annually with the car being dry-stored the remainder of the year. This seriously low use accounts for why this car shows such low mileage of fewer than 16,000 miles. This car is a sound, but not concours example and we would suggest that some simple attention given to the paintwork of the car would increase its curb appeal no end. With that said, it wouldn't take much to bring this late model back to first class condition all round. Mechanically the car is in good order, and although I have only travelled a short distance in her, the drive is accurate and more spritely than you may perhaps expect from its 998cc engine. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that the car is missing its front bumper bar in the photographs; however we are promised faithfully by the vendor that this will be rectified prior to the auction. This is a very attractive and sensibly priced Lot. Bidders should take note that, if successful, a purchase tax of 17.5% of the hammer price is payable on this Lot if it does not return to Jersey.