MORRIS MINI COOPER MK1 - PETER SELLERS

If you were a celebrity in the sixties then a modified Mini was the cool car to own, and that trend was started by Peter Sellers’ 1963 ‘Wicker Mini’, modelled here.

Sellers asked Rolls-Royce dealership HR Owen to customize his Mini and they commissioned Hooper (Motor Services) Ltd, the spares and servicing arm of the former coach-building firm, to modify the car. It cost £2600 (when a standard Cooper was £679) but featured up-rated leather seats, electric windows and the famous hand stencilled wicker-work effect on its sides. Sellers used the car in the Pink Panther film ‘A Shot in the Dark’. Buy it now

VANGUARDS - AUSTIN MINI COOPER S 1275 MK1-STEVE McQUEEN

McQueen bought his Mini from Hollywood Sports Cars and had it taken straight to Lee Brown’s custom shop. He didn’t like the green body and white roof so had the car refinished in medium brown metallic with a beige roof. Brown also chromed and then reversed the wheels to widen the track, fitted a wooden dash, a fold back sunroof and had trimmer Tony Nancy re-cover the seats in brown vinyl. The engine was ported and balanced. McQueen never had front number plates on his cars as he felt it spoilt the clean look.Twenty years later Lee Brown spotted an advert for the car and bought it back, so he now owns the car he originally customized for the film icon. Buy it now.