MINI DOWN UNDER
50 Years of the Mini in New Zealand
Donn Anderson - $45

Tracing the history of one of New Zealand’s – and the world’s – best-loved cars.
Mini Down Under is the tale of the Mini in a small, isolated nation at the bottom of the world, a country whose infrastructure and lack of
public transport has long demanded high reliance on motor vehicles.
It is the story of how the first car of the modern era was rushed into local assembly and why New Zealand would offer more versions of the Mini than anywhere else on the planet.
At its launch in New Zealand in 1960, the Mini’s unique looks and ingenious mechanical underpinnings were the focus and it was promoted as being something very different. Yet this was not enough to guarantee it would be anything other than another small car. Initially it was not seen as an icon;however, its personality captured people’s imagination and it was in due course elevated onto a pedestal.

Author, New Zealand journalist Donn Anderson has been writing about motoring
for half a century – as long as the Mini has been around. He started his own car magazine at the age of 12, and went on to write for many newspapers and publications both in NZ and abroad. Anderson’s passion for the Mini began at an early age and he has followed the progress of the
British-designed car ever since. Anderson worked in motoring journalism in Britain in the early 1970s, and today divides his time between Auckland and London.