1970 Hillman Minx

The seller grew up in Dartford in Kent with Bill and Doris as his next-door neighbours, and he remembers them taking delivery of this Tahiti Blue Hillman Minx when he was 13.

It quickly became Doris’s pride and joy, and she used it every week for the five-mile round trip to do her shopping – but if it was raining, Bill would take her in his taxi, something he also did during the winter to keep it away from salty roads. Always garaged, they also used it once a year to visit their son who lived in a house called ‘Redlands’ near Chichester.

Their fastidiousness was such that Bill even refused to use a hosepipe on it as he said it encouraged water to collect and rust to form, so he washed it using a bucket and a sponge, a practise the seller continued after he bought the car from Bill in 2012.

A charming if commonplace story – until you learn that Bill and Doris were the parents of none other than Keith Richards of Rolling Stones fame.

Our seller met Keith more than once and says he’s a lovely bloke; so much so that he bought our seller’s mum a pot plant as a thank you after she gave him some advice. (He also showed him his brand-new LED watch, you know, the one with the red numerals that only appeared when you pressed the button. This technological tour de force made such an impression on the teenager that he remembers it still, half a century later!)

While some cars have a history, others like ‘TKP 593H’, have provenance, and whether you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Stones fan or simply someone who appreciates how rare it is to be able to buy such a pampered and well-documented British classic, this Hillman Minx has an awful lot going for it. 

The Tahiti Blue coachwork (paint code 136) has survived the rigours of the past five decades with admirable aplomb; yes, it’s a bit flat overall but that simply leaves the car’s new owner with the freedom to choose whether to have it professionally polished – or whether to honour its history by leaving its gentle patina alone.

Because those years of fastidious curation have paid off as the Minx still boasts its factory-fitted panels. These still align with 1970’s shutlines and an absence of ripples along its flanks; a car is only original once and this one is still resolutely original.

The decades included the odd spot of conservation: Preservation not restoration, if you like, and we’re pleased to see nothing more than localised repairs on the front corner of both front wings, although the chip behind the offside wing mirror has been left.

Other small chips can be found on the leading edge of the nearside rear door and the front edge of the driver’s door. There is also a small area of rough paint on the trailing edge of the latter panel, a small dent in the boot lid, and blistering along the lower edge of the nearside front wing. All were assessed and found to be too minor to be worth repairing.

That’s the extent of the flaws we found though, which is remarkably for a car of its age.

The good news continues because the tyres are still crossplies rather than the radials most owners would have fitted. Rare these days, it’s what the Minx would have left the factory wearing and what the suspension was tuned to work with, so we applaud the seller decision to maintain it correctly.

Camac 5.60-13 BC110s, they were fitted in July 2013 and have very good tread left on them. 

The original steel wheels had been repainted in the wrong colour, so it probably won’t surprise you to learn that our seller refinished them in their original shade before reuniting them with their original hubcaps, whose chrome retains a healthy lustre.

As you can see, the badges are still in situ and shiny too, and the glazing is pretty much flawless. A Goodwood sticker adorns the rear screen, a Doris-era Rolling Stones decal remains in the nearside rear window, and a badge for the Hillman Owners’ Club is fitted on the opposite pane. 

The remnants of an antifreeze sticker are in the offside top corner of the windscreen, a ‘JAN 71’ tax disc occupies the nearside lower, and a ‘TRIPLEX ZEBRA ZONE’ one remains in the middle; together they suggest this is still the original toughened glass windscreen.

The lamps lenses are also free of chips and cracks, including the matching Lucas headlights and taillights, and the boot and door seals remain firm and plump. 

The black optional headrest you see in the boot belonged to Doris.

Optional headrests? Well, yes because this is an authentic bare-bones, base-sec model that lacked carpets and a glovebox from the factory too – but that’s how life was back then. 

Which also means that instrumentation is limited to a speedometer, an odometer, and gauges for fuel level (marked in both litres and gallons; we were clearly trying to be good Europeans back then) and coolant temperature. Backed up by a small array of warning lights – none of which illuminate when the car is running, by the way – what else do you really need?

The steering wheel is a two-spoke, thin-rimmed example of the breed, and the four-speed gearknob sits on top of a gearlever that’s trimmed with a simple rubber gaiter, which in turn is screwed into simple rubber floor mats. All are in a good condition, with only an appropriate level of wear to the white-on-black gate lettering.

The seat facings are all very good too, and the material is the vinyl that burned the back of our legs on those long school holidays. 

Of course, the windows wind up and down by hand but if you rolled yours down to let the cigarette smoke out without asking permission the driver would invariably bellow “put that bloody window up!” – but then the 1970’s fuel crisis meant that petrol consumption was more important than actual consumption.

Speaking of ‘elf ‘n’ safety, the front seat belts are simple Rootes-branded static belts; as for the rear seat, who would’ve paid extra for those in the era of the three-day week?

The headlining is still clean and taut, and the central light is as attractive as it is effective. 

In fact, everything works exactly as it should, and the only flaws we found are a loose horn cover, a small split in the nearside footwell mat, and discoloured trim at the base of the windscreen.

As for the boot, it might be simply trimmed but it is also in the same great condition as everywhere else. It hosts a full-size spare steel wheel that’s fitted with a crossply tyre and a warning triangle, and lifting that little lot out reveals a solid floor, albeit with a few small areas of surface rust here and there. 

The sump was removed in November 2014 so BD Engineering could assess the condition of the big end bearings. All were found to be in good order, so it was buttoned back up with fresh oil and a new oil pump and pressure relief valve to try and cure the low oil pressure it was suffering from.

It didn’t, so the seller commissioned them in August 2015 to put the problem to bed once and for all by rebuilding the engine. The bill for this came to a little under two thousand pounds, at which point the odometer read 38,062 miles.

It has now covered just 40,000 miles, although the odometer now reads 1,531 miles because the old one had to be replaced in 2016. Of course, the original speedometer was retained and is included as part of the listing. 

The waterpump was also replaced in 2018, and the ignition system was professionally converted to Accuspark electronic ignition in 2019. There are more invoices on file for an ignition coil, points, and condenser in 2017, coolant hoses in 2016, for rebuilding the carburettor and the rocker shaft assemblies in 2015. 

The seller has always run it on Super unleaded taking care to also add half a bottle of Redex per tank; as a result, the Hillman starts, runs, and drives every bit as well as you’d expect.

The bonnet is opened by pulling the lever behind the front bumper above the letter ‘K’ on the numberplate. The engine bay itself is as charmingly original as everything else; the battery and fanbelt might be new but the rest is as it would have been when Bill was checking the coolant and oil for Doris on a Sunday morning after hand-washing it.

The wheelarches and floorpans are undersealed, but the vast majority of this appears to be original and there to protect rather than obscure. It is flaking off in places, so it would be prudent to get it touched-up – and replace the rusty rear exhaust silencer – if you intend to use the car. 

Some of the edges of the bodywork have lost their paint too, and this has also been touched-up. Whether to tidy this up further is now in the hands of the car’s next owner – but then no-one ever said that making the decisions needed to curate a piece of history would be easy.

The Minx does not have an MoT certificate. 

The recent Vehicle History Check is clear, and it comes with two keys: The large one opens the doors and operates the ignition, while the smaller one opens the boot.

The history file includes a copy of the previous logbook with Doris’s name on it. Its second recorded keeper was Bill, who put the Minx into his name when she sadly passed away. 

The key ring and tax disc holder are the originals that Brown's, the local Rootes dealer, supplied with the car when it was new. 

It’s also managed to hang onto the original Owner’s Instructions booklet plus the stamped service history booklet that records work all the way up to 2011.

The service history continues via invoices, including those from BD Engineering for the jobs we mentioned earlier. There are also invoices for parts purchased, plus a bunch of expired MoT certificates and a couple of tax discs.

NB: It also comes with a few spares; please see the photos for details of what is included. 

The owner has taken his much-loved Minx to places such as the Goodwood Revival, where it has always attracted a great deal of interest even when parked alongside far more expensive machinery.

But then cars like this transport us back to our childhood in a way exotica never can: We might have had Lamborghini and Ferrari on our bedroom walls, but it was cars like this that took us on holiday.

Of course, nostalgia aside, the other huge advantage of running a modest classic car is the price: We expect this one to fetch somewhere between £10,000 and £12,000 – or the cost of servicing a poster child. 

And all of this is without calculating the worth of its links with the greatest rock band ever to cut a record, grace a stage, or throw a TV out of a hotel window: If you’re a fan, it’s priceless.

Viewing is strongly encouraged, and this lot is located at THE MARKET HQ in South Oxfordshire. Viewings are STRICTLY BY APPOINTMENT and we are open weekdays (apart from Bank Holidays) between 10am - 12pm or 2pm - 4pm. To make a booking, please use the ‘Enquire About This Vehicle’ button on the listing. Feel free to ask any questions, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.