Press Photos (1)

I have a small collection of original BMC press photos, from the heyday of the Traveller and Countryman. These photos were produced by BMC and were sent out to the press to be used to illustrate press releases and articles. Sometimes they have the typed press release on the back of the photo.  Some just show a plain photo of the vehicle, and I suspect these were often a bit of a rush job to get a picture out there, whereas others are more artfully composed and often show the vehicles in an interesting setting and accompanied by glamorous models. Most of the photos are in black and white but sometimes they are in colour.

At present the I only have two prints of early internal tanked cars. There are others available but I haven't found any that are reasonably priced. This picture shows an early Austin Se7en Countryman. You can tell from the picture that it is a light colour and its not white, so it must be speedwell blue. Actually I know it is because this is one of a sequence of pictures taken at the same time, some of the others show a young family in and around the car and at least one of them is in colour.

The picture below is nice ans shows a tartan red Countryman being loaded by young woman while her husband, helpfully watches on. Of interest are the bags that are being loaded. They look like they could be the bags offered as accessories by BMC in the early sixties. The basket in particular looks like the style that were designed to fit into the side storage bins in the back seat. Identical repro baskets are available from the 1959 Mini register.

Although its not possible to clearly read the registration number of each car, they both seem to have the UK 3 letter and 3 number type which were used up until August 1962. Both cars are internal tanked, built earlier than October 1961, so the pictures must date from around 1960 or '61.