This Ex-Top Gear Mini Could Be Yours

With Jeremy Clarkson’s Ecuadorian racing green Alfa Romeo 75 going under the hammer tomorrow, the same company that’s selling it, Iconic Auctioneers, has another former Top Gear star car lined up and ready to auction off later this month.

It’s a classic Mini, although not the one driven by Hammond in the India Special, or even the one launched off a ski jump in the Winter Olympics Special. In fact, you might be disappointed to learn it doesn’t hail the Clarkson-Hammond-May era at all, but it does come from what most would agree was the show’s second-best modern iteration.

That was the one fronted by Chris Harris, Paddy McGuinness and Freddie Flintoff. In fact this car featured in that trio’s very first episode, where the presenters bought examples of what they’d had as their first cars and took them on a gruelling trip across Ethiopia.

Like so many others, Harris cut his teeth behind the wheel of an original Mini, and bought this 1990 1.0-litre Rover-badged example for the challenge, during which it racked up a fair few bangs and scrapes.

Viewers of those later series might remember the car then being used as a piece of set dressing along with the other two cars from that episode, McGuinness’ Mk2 Ford Escort and Flintoff’s Porsche Boxster. Since the show came grinding to an indefinite halt in unfortunate circumstances, though, the Mini’s been part of a private collection.

During that time, it’s been kept in a running and driving condition, although it’ll surprise precisely nobody to learn that it doesn’t have an MOT, and hasn’t since 2019. It is showing only 36,400 miles, though, and despite its less-than-ideal condition, the general appetite for classic Minis plus its TV provenance means Iconic reckons it’ll fetch between £8000 and £10,000 when the online auction ends on 28 August. As a reminder, in the original episode, the presenters had a budget of £4000 to buy their cars.

If you fancy a classic Mini restoration project, then, and absolutely insist it must have been driven across Ethiopia on the telly, this is quite literally the only car for you. The auction is open now, with bidding up to £900 at the time of writing.