Photos courtesy Classic Car Auctions.
Up until a few years ago, fans of the British television series The Prisoner believed only one of the four Mini Mokes built for the show had survived. That is, until one of those fans found a second hiding out in a barn in the Netherlands, and later this month that barn-fresh Moke will head to auction.
As modified by U.K.-based coachbuilder Wood & Pickett for the show, the Mokes didn’t depart from Mini’s beach-buggy template all that far, featuring red-and-white striped canopies and a painting of a pennyfarthing on the hood. While Wood & Pickett did use the Mokes for publicity photos when new, the four gained the most exposure as the Village’s taxis during the show.
For most of their screen time, the Mokes wore simple “taxi” license plates, but as Jeff Koch pointed out a few years back, a production error during one episode of the series revealed one of the four Mokes’ license plate: HLT 709C. It was that Moke that Olivier Bos came across in 2011 in Holland, where it had sat since 1974, reportedly stashed away by a member of the show’s production crew.
Over the previous 30-something years, much of the interior had gone missing, but it still had its distinctive top and pennyfarthing painting. He said at the time that he had planned a restoration, but the Moke remains unrestored and will instead cross the block as part of Classic Car Auctions’ CarFest South sale. Classic Car Auctions noted that the Moke has yet to be fully documented as appearing in the show, but most Prisoner fans seem to have accepted it as a genuine Prisoner Moke.
The Moke is expected to sell for between £11,500 (about $18,000) and £13,500 (about $21,000).
The Classic Car Auctions CarFest South sale will take place August 29 at Laverstoke Park Farm in Overton, Hampshire. For more information, visit ClassicCarAuctions.co.uk.
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