2 replies to this topic

[mab01uk]

Interesting film clip below...as seen on Sporting Minis.

"They were all eventually destroyed is often the answer but the six Cooper S's supplied to Paramount by the factory did survive filming by all accounts. Well this little clip linked below from a 1970 Dunlop film shot in Trafalgar Square might give a clue to one of the cars which was driven back from Turin by stunt driver David Salamone. Apparently BL did request the return of all six (three were still in very good condition) including this one NOC 74F which was never seen again. So what did the factory do with them....what happened to NOC 72F, 73, 74, 75, and 76F and MON 795F?"
(Note: The three Minis pushed down the mountain hillside were just old engineless shells if you look closely)



David Salamone remembers driving the white Mini Cooper S (NOC 74F) seen in the Dunlop film below (at 1m 45sec approx.) after he finished filming the Italian Job but then it went back to B.M.C. and he never saw it again.
NOC 74F was one of six Cooper S's supplied by and returned(?) to BMC, the G reg number plates used in the movie were all fictitious at the time, although they were eventually issued and sold as personal plates for £9400 by the DVLA in 2003 and later sold on for around £20k and used on replica I.J. Minis.
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Vive Le Sport - 1969 groovy swinging sixties short film from 'Gannet Films' advertising Dunlop SP Sports radial tyres and the Mini Cooper S:-


The thread on 'Sporting Minis' linked below....I lost count of the number of times Pete F had to point out and explain the three I.J. Minis often seen today at shows, etc are replicas!!  Some are still disputing this in link below despite the owner of the cars having publicly stated they’re replicas! What more proof do some need? I suppose at least it makes a change from the frequent disputes over the 'Works Mini' re-creations....
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To clarify : any Italian Job replica Minis currently out there, including the set with the movie registration numbers on (released by DVLA in 2006 as cherished numbers) don’t have any connection to the original movie cars.
Also check out Mathew Field’s book, ‘The Self Preservation Society- 50 Years Of The Italian Job’ for a detailed account on the whole film.

Edited by mab01uk, 03 June 2024 - 07:00 PM.

[mab01uk]

Quotes below from the book "Self Preservation Society" by Matthew Field.
 
(Page 222) :-
David Sallamone: 'After the jump, our mechanics repaired those cars and bodged them together again for further filming. There were small kinks in the roofs, both sides. The way we serviced those Minis on that film, it was like 24 Hours of Le Mans, we kept them going by any means possible.'

(Page 244) :-
David Sallamone: 'At least three of them (out of the six hero Minis - NOC 72F, NOC 73F, NOC 75F, NOC 76F, MON 795F) had kinks in their roofs. The chassis had bent. The three cars used for the roof-top jump had serious suspension damage, the bodies had kinked. You could still drive them, but BMC would never have been allowed to sell them. So they must have been destroyed. The second set was ok and there was talk of doing a promotional tour with them and I had agreed to do it. But it didn't happen, and I never saw the Minis again.'

NOC 74F can be seen fleetingly in Dunlop's promo film, Vive Le Sport (1969) - complete with leather bonnet straps and Cibie lights. However their is no trace of any of the six hero Minis at this point. 'F' Reg was 1968 but the production team put 'G' plates on the cars so that they were contemporaneous with the film's release in the summer of 1969.

 

[RichMPiBlue]

This video sheds some light as well on what happened to the original cars;