World’s oldest unrestored Austin Mini fetches £40k

1959 Austin Mini Seven went for £40k

The oldest unrestored Mini in the world was expected to fetch £12-15k in auction last week. It actually went for £40,250.

Just a couple of weeks ago we reported that the oldest unrestored Mini in the world was going under the hammer at the Bonhams sale at the RAF Museum in Hendon, expected to fetch as much as £15k.

We said that seemed like peanuts for such an early example of a Mini – one of the first eight to be built – especially as it was more or less complete with matching numbers.

It turns out our words we somewhat prophetic as XLL 27 – a Farina Grey 1959 Austin Mini Seven De Luxe – actually went for a rather more grand £40,250.

There’s every chance that someone with deep pockets will lavish time and money on the little Austin Seven and turn it in to a pristine example of what BMC we churning out in 1959. Only it won’t be – it’ll be much better.

And then we’ll perhaps have lost one of the last examples of a really original Mini in existence. Which seems a bit of a shame.