The Peeing Mini

[Cheleker]

There are two commonly used Mini "symbols" in SAMOA. One is featured on the hats, for instance. Looking at a Mini from the right front. Normally red in color. That one's history is known.

The other I call the Peeing Mini. It shows a dark roof/light body Mini going around a cone in an autocross with the right rear wheel off the ground. I know it was taken (and reversed) from a photo of Al Beebe running his first Mini in an autocross, a black and white '66 Cooper S. It has to date, I guess, 1968 or 1969. What I don't know is who first used it in a SAMOA newsletter or regalia?

Any ideas?

[BIGSHOT]

I always liked the image. Some years back when I found it on an old mimeographed newsletter, I cleaned it up and converted it to an EPS file and proposed some uses. Dave Baughman put it on a hat and on our notepads, but it didn't get much farther than that.

Funny thing is, I don't have the electronic file handy, but there's a hard copy sitting on top of my newsletter pile right now. I don't even remember why I put it there.



It may have had other uses (besides the old newsletter and Al's current avatar), but that would have happened before I became a member in aught three.

Dan

[Cheleker]

Good information. So, it sounds like it first showed up in an early newsletter. (I don't remember it being used for anything else in the olde days.)

I'll have to take a stroll through the older newsletters to see if I can trace it back.

Al does have a photograph copy of the original. I wonder which autocross it was and who took the photo.

[BIGSHOT]

Check out this brief evolution. It appears the design you're asking about first showed up in January 1970. I can't show you that issue because the copy I have is so faint, but the clean example here is probably from '70 or '71 (it's undated).

Anyway, this is where I found the graphic.

Dan

[Cheleker]

Good find! I should be able to confirm a date from the club's newsletter files. You've saved me a lot of digging.

[Cheleker]

Not as easy as I thought! We are missing 1969 newsletters from July, September and October.
From what I can find, the "clean" example, as Dan called it, is from August 1969. By November 1969 it was back to the cartoon version. December was a variation on the November '69 cartoon. January 1970 was back to the "clean" version, but only for one month. The rest of the year varied and settled in to a standard front page for three years starting in January 1971. Several changes were made starting in 1974 through October 1975.

In November 1975 Steve Ludwig came up with the first version of the Mini emblem similar to the one still around (used on hats). At that time the Mini was viewed at the left front, and the Seattle Area Mini Owners Association lettering was in a different set up. In June 1977 the current version of the Mini emblem showed up on the front page of the newsletter. I believe Ed Sauer made the changes, but that is not confirmed, yet.

It appears that the peeing Mini had a short life in the newsletter.