One of the little things in life that brings me unreasonable glimmers of joy is this: finding people and cars that share a name. And I’m pleased to report that it’s happened again this very morning, when I found out that the car we know variously as the Austin Mini, Morris Mini-Minor, Austin Se7en, Austin/Morris 850, but mostly as just the Mini, was also known as the Austin Partner. Well, mostly just in Denmark, but still. And yes, there is at least one person named Austin Partner.
The human Austin Partner was born in 1871 and is best known for the very last thing he did: dying when the Titanic sank. Here’s a letter he sent to his wife just after the Titanic set off:
I HAVE GOT A MOST COMFORTABLE ROOM & AND THE SHIP IS QUITE THE MOST LUXURIOUS I HAVE BEEN ON, I HOPE SHE WILL GET THERE QUICKLY. WE NEARLY COLLIDED WITH A LINER COMING OUT OF SOUTHAMPTON – THE NEW YORK. SHE WAS MOORED CLOSE TO WHERE WE PASSED & BROKE AWAY FROM HER MOORING, WAS ONLY ABOUT 3 FT OFF US SUCH A SHAVE I WAS AFRAID WE SHOULD HAVE TO GO BACK WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN MADDENING.
Oh, Austin, you’re gonna wish it was just maddening, my man.
This does remind me of another car/person name matchup, one that remains my favorite, Lloyd Alexander. I wrote about this one for The Old Site way back when, and even made this chart, which I’m just gonna stick here because for some reason that article is always hard to Google:
(image credit: me, in the past)
In art school a classmate had an Austin Minor she named Jane.
I am pretty sure this article should have included the Jensen Healey. Two family car dynasties combining to form one failure using both their names.
But really for a car site that I LOVE, that claims to be all about little known makes and models i am surprised how the DDs I drove dont appear that often. Yeah we get a lot of Vdubs and such but here is a list of my rare now DDs
1. AMC Javelin i dont remember any mention
2. AMC Hornet saw a mention recently in AMC cars made.
3. Isuzu I Mark or Chevy Spectrum during the small car combination
4. Isuzu Vehicross. The best and one of the first CUVs ever made. 20 years later could pass as modern but crickets.
5. Isuzu Amigo- a better version of the GEO and GM small SUV.
6. The aforementioned Jensen Healey- a MG with a Lotus Motor. Real sports car but no mention.
Now i am not saying none of these have never been mentioned but given the rare cars mentioned 2 or 3 times a week I suggest lets think outside the box and include other rare makes and models. Instead of the same 10.
I know a girl with the last name Minor, hopefully she names a kid Morris some day.
I know of an actual family called Land – three children, Sandy, Dusty, and Candy.
One wonders whether there were ever any people named Isabella Borgward.
You sure about that, “pardner”?
I have a friend in Copenhagen that has a Danish Mini, his is called a Mascot
The Austin was called Partner. The Morris was called Mascot.
Same car, typical english badge engineered.
I don’t think we got any Rileys or Wolseleys of it here in Denmark.
I loved Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books as a kid and have reread them as an adult. Better than LOTR any day in my book. (Pun intended)
Something in this article has me puzzled. How did he send a letter after the ship had set sail? Was there a little mail boat that came by every couple days to collect mail? I need to know what’s happening here. Thanks for any help.
Titanic left Southampton and stopped in Cherbourg, France, to pick up more passengers before heading to New York.The boat that dropped the passengers off picked up the outgoing mail from Titanic, too.
Ok, that makes sense. Thank you so much for the information.
The Titanic also stopped at Queenstown (now Cobh, pronounced Cove) in Ireland before attempting to cross the Atlantic. Mail (and some passengers and crew) left the ship there too.
I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole today. I didn’t realize how many stops there were before they really got going. The number of screw ups that were involved in that whole situation is just mind boggling.
There are pictures of passengers taken on board that fateful trip. The most famous one is a child playing with a top, that was recreated in the movie. Gooooogle it.
And a handful of people only rode it across the channel, mainly some journalists and travel reviewers who just wanted to check out the ship then go home and write their articles.
De Mangler would have been a cool name for a car or truck.
Sounds more like the newspaper name for a serial killer or professional wrestler.
What? No mention of Ford Prefect? One a British car and the other a travel writer.
The first time I read that book, I had no idea about the car so the joke went right over my head. It must have fallen flat with most of the american audience.
If only he went with Ford Escort. Alas.
Arthur was the Escort. Though he really should have been called Camry.
Or Ford Fairlane?!
Torch, may we PLEASE have a chart for Austin Partner. I am having a terrible time choosing between the two.
Well, one of them had a pretty good life for 41 years before being done in by a combination of outdated engineering and questionable management decisions whereas the other was… ah. I see the difficulty.
This is one of the funniest comments I’ve read all week lol
Couldn’t it be argued that Lloyd Alexander the author had liquid cooling? Fluid system pumping to an externally facing radiator?
By Jove, you’re right!
In today’s Cold Start, Jason keeps it weird with Austin.
Yes but the same austin is no longer weird. A lot of healeys, the 3000 is my fave but sprite shows up here like a soda machine. Midget alot but mgtd, mgtc none of the best. How about Morgan?