The 1967 Hillman Minx was a tidy but quite conventional little car, and looks quite fetching in that tomato-soup red. Now, why this decidedly unflashy little car has attracted those five women, mostly brightly clad and carrying items that, frankly confuse me a bit. Well, just one really. Looking at the objects carried here, from left to right, we have a red shopping bag, a basket of what looks like easter eggs, a shopping bag with some sort of blue graphics on it, a set of keys (I think?), and a bouquet of flowers.
It’s the Easter basket that gets me. Maybe it is Easter? But do adults just walk around with egg baskets like that? It was the ’60s, maybe this was a thing?
There’s another strange thing in this brochure. This bit:
So, “zebra zone-toughened windscreen” means what, exactly? I guess “zebra zone” means pedestrian crosswalks, according to some UK slang I think I remember, but why would you want your windscreen toughened for that? The high contrast? Or because when you drive through one, with the careless aplomb of a charging buffalo, you want to be sure that those hapless goofballs crossing the street that are rolling over your hood and smacking into your windshield won’t actually break it? Is that why you’d want it toughened?
So many beautiful mysteries.
Imagine UNpadded sun-visors? Horror
Groupies were snappy dressers back in the day. They were all sired on the same ranch in Wisconsin.
I don’t care if that Bill Clinton guy drives it. No. Not gonna sit in the wet spot.
Heater with blower?!? whoa, slow down there buddy, this is supposed to be Hillman, not Rolls Royce. I’ll stick with my coal brazier thank you..
What I actually miss is the “fresh air ventilation equipment”. If I remember rightly, the left and right air outlets on my dad’s Mk I and II Escorts used to blow fresh air directly from outside, so, even with the heater keeping your nether regions toasty warm, you could still blow cold air on your face.
Sure, it’s fun to conjecture that’s a basket of Easter eggs. But I’m hoping it’s just a fruit basket.
Boy for being dressed-up, these women sure weren’t shy about digging into the human-sized bag of Cheetos huh?
…and data analysts are puzzled by a sharp spike in searches for ‘Zebrazone’. Some pundits posit it is in relation to the town of VistaView Acres attempting to limit the size of a proposed safari park through local zoning ordinances. Others perfunctorily poo-poo this idea. Perhaps we’ll never know.
“Zebrazone Toughened Windscreen” was what they did before they had laminated safety glass in windshields. The process put streaks into the windshield that were visible from the outside in certain conditions which looked like zebra crossings, hence the name.
Could “zebra zone” refer to the little dots around the edges of the windshield? I’d probably call it “leopard zone” instead of “zebra zone” because they’re dots, not stripes, but maybe British cars in the 60s had little stripes around the edges? I don’t know; that’s all I could come up with.
Had the same thought.
Research suggests that all ad agencies in the late sixties were staffed by Darens preoccupied with their beguiling, magical wives.
What the hell are “anti-burst door locks”?! Did other cars come standard with bursting door locks? Are there horror stories about people losing their hands when a door lock suddenly bursts wide open, like a Florida firecracker?
If I know anything about British build quality at the time ‘burst’ roughly translates to ‘disintegrates when actuation is attempted ‘
Doors used to open during crashes.
Then they designed them not to, and wanted credit for no longer tumbling your body on to the road.
One of the doors on my 1963 Spitfire usually sprang open when I did donuts. Also experienced it on a 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Maybe it’s that?.
Is that 5 women or 5 photos of the same woman in different outfits? Is she a time traveler? What does Easter have to do with time travel?
Talk about a bunch of random pictures of women LOL. 2 went shopping, one is on a easter egg hunt, and 1 or 2 going to a friends house with flowers
Stepford Minxes?
The close cousin of this car, the Iran Khodro Paykan, becoming the beloved national car of Iran and being built until 2005 would make for an interesting Autopian article, I think.
My father spent some time in the mid-70’s working in Iran just before the revolution there, and was given a Paykan as his car there. He still talks about it with affection to this day – and this from a guy whose stateside car was a much-beloved ’68 327 Camaro. There must have been something to recommend them beyond having 4 doors and being capable of moving under their own power…
These were briefly imported to the US as the Plymouth Cricket, and I keep my eyes out for one for sale, but they must have all gone to the great junkyard in the sky by now.
The Plymouth Cricket, holy cow. That’s a deep dive into the memory banks.
Are you sure the Plymouth Cricket wasn’t a rebadged Hillman Avenger rather than a Minx/Hunter?
I’m not sure of anything, all I ‘know’ is what I’ve been able to find using the google-machine. The Avenger and Hunter were built at the same time, and looking at the specs they’re extremely similar in all dimensions save length – the Avenger was shorter by a few inches. Looking closely at pictures though I think you’re right: the Plymouth Cricket was an Avenger, which had sort of semi-fastback styling, while the Minx/Hunger/Paykan had a more traditional sedan rear window and trunk. Whether the difference stopped there or if they were mechanically dissimilar under the skin is beyond my ken.
I couldn’t imagine a car company selling two cars so similar to each other today side by side, but I don’t think a more granular car market has ever existed on earth than in the UK in the 60’s through the 80’s. I recall seeing a documentary at some point describing how much status was conveyed by having a slightly higher trim company car than your neighbor there at one time, it sounded kind of nuts.
Yep, got it in one, it was nuts. There were 3 different “makes” of exactly this car (Hillman, Humber and Singer) and a Sunbeam with a fastback. There were different trim levels in the same make, then there was a hieracrhy in the makes. Similarly with BMC (Austin, Morris, MG, Wolseley, Riley, Vanden Plas – they were even worse). The Avenger was a smaller car intended to compete with the Ford Escort (then a rear wheel drive) and was actually quite good, though few people thought so at the time. It had a completely different engine and gearbox to the Hunter range (confusingly also known as “Arrow”). There was only a single make of Avenger, “Hillman”…..except the company got sold and it was also known as the Chrysler Avenger and the Talbot Avenger. And they also used the basic design but with only 2 doors and a glass hatchback as the Chrysler (then Talbot) Sunbeam. (Yes, the model name was the same as the old car company name.) There was also a (very desirable, really) Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, which I think takes the record for having the most car makes in its name.
They all got bought by Peugeot who gradually closed everything down, like they’re doing with Vauxhall.
You did sy it was nuts.
I think the documentary is the BBC’s “From A to B; Tales of Modern Motoring” from 1993 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niA9fFdvp8E – absolutely incredible stuff where the trim level of a company car can cause grown men and their wives to break down and cry, and a different rep can rattle off exactly the trim level and engine capacity of every company car he’s ever had.
The picture was obviously taken in Stepford because only a Stepford wife could be pleased with this car.
Also, I hope everyone remembered to mentally pronounce zebra as ZEB-rah, not ZEE-bra.
The ’67 Minx was a major improvement over my ’59!
I couldn’t pick up ONE girl with it, but the new model attracts FIVE!
They’re all representations of the same woman.
Yes, whether she’s attending an Easter egg hunt, going to a fancy lunch, shopping in posh stores, doing green-screen video work, or going to a funeral, the Minx can do it all!
No, I think there are two Doris Days and three Inga Stevenses.
Well, that would be a full house.
I’m going to honest here and say that I find the weird static action poses they are all assuming to be more confusing than the Easter basket.
Those aren’t Easter Eggs. That bougie woman is walking around flaunting her Fabergé egg collection, which explains the phony smile on her face at having to get into that car with her proletariat friends.
There are six minx (minxes? My autocorrect tried to sub in Minnesota) in the top pic.
The tomato saucy colored car just seals it.
Saucy minx. Minxes. Get it?
Green Dress: Oooh… Look at my new Hillman Minx!
Red Dress: I love the color!
Grey Dress: It’s soooo adorable, couldn’t you just die?
Blue Dress: And look at that interior… Why, four of us will be in complete comfort!
Black Dress: Wait.. four? Don’t I get to ride in the car this time? I brought flowers! Is this still because I slept with Damian?! Fine. Everyone else gets to ride in the Hillman. I hope you choke on the f**king fumes.
They are bringing offerings to the Hillman, to ward off unfortunate encounters with it in the zebra zone.
Also, we were on the same track with interpreting that phrase, although I was picturing zebras tumbling across the hood, perhaps during a reckless bit of rallying through a safari park.
“Zone Toughened Windscreen A special windscreen in which the area immediately in the line of the driver’s vision is treated to resist fragmentation upon impact. Was popular during the transition from safety glass to laminated windscreens.”
That’s all I could find