Post by Villain on May 16, 2015 9:51:49 GMT
Great pictures Villain, thanks for posting
Do you know if the Mini's still exist?
Sam.
Sam - George's Mini is still with his widow Olivia and has been displayed at a couple of shows although not very recently. It was at Goodwood a few years ago when Damon Hill gave Ringo Starr a lift in it, it's also been to a Mini show around the same time which I missed due to working that day and it's eluded me ever since! It's the one Mini I would love to see and photograph in the flesh (not to mention own!).
Paul's is still around and has also been restored, I think it's still in America at present in a museum. Ringo's hatchback Cooper S spent some time in a museum and has been restored twice, it currently belongs to a British Mini Club member who lives in Stourbridge but he doesn't take it to shows anymore. I saw and photographed it in '94 at the Coombe Abbey Mini show, I'll post the pics later, meanwhile here's a post restoration shot of Paul's...
John's Radford Cooper S is the most elusive of all the Beatles Minis, they each had several, most of which have long disappeared. As I said in my post above John's Radford was registered the same day as George's which is why they have consecutive reg' numbers, LGF 695D (George) and LGF 696D (John). John was a notoriously bad driver and didn't use the Mini as much as his other cars which is one reason why photos of it are very scarce, the ones I've posted are lucky finds and it's current whereabouts are in dispute and have been for at least twenty years. One source says that it's in Dublin being restored while another says it was given to a family member then stolen in the late '60s and written off. It was a fantastic looking car with all black paintwork, black glass all round, the chrome bumpers and alloy wheels were also painted black and like Paul's car it had Aston DB5 rear lights. (For some reason, although it was in the Radford workshop at the same time George's had VW Beetle lights at the back, mounted horizontally). There is some very good news footage of John's Radford in the Beatles Anthology video shot by an ITN News crew on 20/12/66, John is seen being dropped off at the steps of Abbey Road by his chauffuer Alf Bicknall.
Here's Ringo's Mini in its original state as orderded by Ringo in 1966, the pic is taken at George's bungalow in Esher in very early '68, with George's car just behind it...
Ringo arrives at the hospital where his missus Maureen has just given birth to their son Jason in the Summer of '67...
Ringo sold the car in about 1970 and since then it's been modified and repainted in blue and silver, and then burgundy and silver (which it still is today), here's the interior...
Back to George's car...
In the car park at Abbey Road in early '67, still black, shortly after this it was sent off to have the pyschedelic paint job done...
Outside his bungalow in the Summer of '67...
A fan has her pic taken at George's gaff in the Summer of '67, despite having a very big garage George always kept the Radford under the willow tree to keep the rain of it...!
Parked up on Paul's drive in Cavendish Avenue in the Summer of '67...
I found these by accident when I was searching online for old music magazines, this is from a foreign mag which featured a fan's story about visting the Beatles on a trip to England in '67, the pics were taken at John's house in Weighbridge and George just happened to be there...
This is the Mini 850 that George bought for his missus Patti Boyd, it's a 1965 car reg'd 'GUU 707C' and they both used it for a few years. Painting a brand new Mini bright orange was the in thing back then and it also has a Webasto fabric sunroof and very rare and expensive 'Mk1 Cosmic' alloy wheels... this is the car that John, Cynthia, George and Patti had their first LSD trip in in November '65 after a house party at their dentists place, he'd slipped a tab into their drinks without telling them and as Goerge was driving them home in the Mini it started taking effect... ooh er missus...!
Moving forward to the Summer of '68 and George has just arrived at Abbey Road in 'GUU 707C'...
John (with George driving) in 'LGF...' in September '67 during the filming of 'Magical Mystery Tour'... this photo has been published many times over and is often wrongly captioned as being John's car... when John got together with Yoko Ono in the Spring of '68 George lent him the Mini so they could go and look at houses without Cynthia knowing about it (John was about to divorce Cynthia), John's old school pal Pete Shotton lived with them at the time and chauffeured them about in it for a fortnight while looking for a new place to live, Pete recalls that they had the state of the art stereo playing very loud while driving about and it must have caused quite a stir in the quite leafy areas they were looking around. At one house in deeply conservative Surrey, they pulled up in the brightly coloured Mini and the owner was dumbstruck when two long haired types got out and started wondering round his garden, he didn't recognise who they were until a photo of John and Yoko appeared in the Daily Mirror the following week...!
Just arrived at Abbey Road in 'LGF 695D' in the Summer of '68 with Eric Clapton who was there to contribute his guitar solo to 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' - a few years later George sold the car to Eric but bought it back again and since then it's always been in the Harrison family garage at Friar Park, Henley-on-Thames...
Before George died 'LGF...' was restored, at first George was going to have it repainted in black, just as it was when he first bought it but at the last minute he changed his mind and the pyschedelic paint job won the day once more. Some of the artwork was done differently this time around because the guy doing the work only took four photos before he started stripping the car; these being the last photos taken of it with it's 1967 paintwork intact...
The restoration...
More pics later