If you went to Magnetic Island, off the
coast of Townsville, in the 1960s through to the 1980s besides the
natural beauty of the place you would be struck by one phenomena: the
Mini Moke.
It seemed every second car on the
island was a Moke – with good reason. They were an ideal tropical
resort vehicle. They swarmed over the island like a disturbed ants
nest. With the island's narrow roads between the bays and laid-back
tropical lifestyle the rag top Moke fitted into island living like a
G & T at 5.00 pm.
Locals drove them and the resorts hired
them out to tourists, yellow, white, red and blue ones usually with
the roof gone raggedy and a wheel wobble that told of endless runs to
Radical and Horseshoe Bays. In fact on the island the diminutive Moke
took on cult status and was one of the 'must' do's for island
visitors. Thankfully, you can still hire a Moke on the island.
It was the same on many other tropical
islands world-wide, particularly in the Caribbean. The Moke signified
you had arrived for your holiday. No more closed-in car with heavy
steel doors. No doors, just clear plastic side curtains that remained
rolled-up as long as there were no tropical downpours. To get in you
simply hopped over the box-shaped sides – that housed the petrol
tank and the battery - into the front or back pews.
The Moke was a derivative of the Mini
designed by Sir Alec Issigonis for BMC, the British Motor
Corporation. It was no-frills motoring at its basic best. Initially
the Brit designers thought the Moke would make a good military
vehicle. But, its lack of power, size, small wheels and poor ground
clearance put paid to that idea. So, it was developed as a fun
passenger car. Notice we are not using the word safe.
The first Mokes were build at the
Morris factory at Oxford and used the same running gear as the basic
Mini. Production later moved to the BMC Longbridge factory, but the
real interest in Mokes is in Australia. The reason for this is
simple. We made more Mokes than any other country, including England.
In all the Poms built 14,500 Mokes, Portugal
produced around 10,000 and at Leyland's Zetland factory in Sydney
26,000 Mokes rolled down the production line between 1966 and 1982.
The first Moke hit the British market
in 1964, but the vast majority were exported. In Australia they were originally sold
as the Morris Mini Moke, but in 1973 this was changed to the Leyland
Moke. Most Aussies simple called them Mokes or Mini Mokes. They
started with the same 10 inch wheel as used on the British models,
but these were soon upgraded to 13 inch wheels, the idea being that
they could undertake some soft off-road work, including beach work. A
variety of engines were used from the 998cc, 1098 cc and then another
998 cc imported engine to meet anti-pollution requirements.
Then came the Moke of all Mokes. The
Californian. This had a 1275cc engine and more bling than Dame Edna.
The fuel tank was taken out of the left side box and a new tank
fitted under the rear of the car. The Californian was decked out with
colourful roof and seats. This was an export model, but Leyland
brought back the Californian in 1977 for domestic sales. It also had
wider, spoked wheels, extra impact bars and all-in-all looked pretty
sexy. While we made 26,000 Mokes, once again many were exported and
in fact were a pioneering for Australia in motor vehicle exports. The
Moke was not really a suitable car for the traffic or climate of a
Sydney or Melbourne.
Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and
the larger Queensland islands were a different matter though. In the mid 1970s there was even a ute
version Moke on the market with a tray of 1.50 m x 1.45 m ideal for
light farm use or on golf courses and work machines in resorts. We notice one Magnetic Island car hire
business, Moke Magnetic still has 65 Mokes for rent ($73 a day) and
these mostly came from Mt Isa, where they were used in the mines.
A tip when driving a Moke. Firstly,
despite the rush of wind and engine roar, you are going a lot slower
than you would think. It's like the rush from driving a go-kart. The
stats tell us it will take you about 24 seconds to reach 100 km/h. We found our featured 1980 model car the South
Coast Restoration Society's annual pioneer rally at the northern end
of the Gold Coast in July 2009.
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