High mileage Peel is a one-owner car

Some great old pictures and tales of another Peel Viking Minisport owner were sent over to me by a reader of this blog recently. He got them from the Robert Tierney, who owns it since new! The car is based on a 1960 Mini 850 De Luxe and was retired from general use in 1986 with 489,000 miles on the clock. Yes - 489 thousand miles. That's about 25,000 miles a year for 20 years in a row!

Tierney wrote: "Later on the roof was painted white to reduce the heat in summer. The black and white pictures show the enlarged boot - this often caused consternation to those overtaking as they though they were only passing a Mini Van! It used an 1100 engine with 3.44 diff ratio and latterly changed primary drive gears. At an indicated 80 mph (speedo was for a 3.77 diff ratio) mpg was around 50 and the car was fitted with 2 x 5.5m gall tanks - so she had a very good range. We had 2 children at the time and had a Messerschmit 3-wheeler. We were known as the only 2-car family in which the largest car was a Mini! I am currently building an extension to the house but refurbishing the Peel is the next project - it's not for sale."