The 1959 Mini Register is always on the lookout for people with experience of working with the Mini during the design, manufacture, launch and first year of production. As part of this quest, registrar Bill Bell came into contact with Peter Riviere, who was working as a motoring journalist for Autocar magazine at the time of the Mini's launch. Peter and fellow scribe Ronald 'Steady' Barker took the newly launched Mini on its first major public road test, covering no fewer than 8,197 miles through very unpredictable terrain. These days many of us take overseas travel in our stride but even now some of the areas they travelled through would be tough going. It should be remembered that this was in 1959, 57 years ago, before even the M1 motorway had opened in the UK, so it was an extremely ambitious project with a newly launched, tiny car of previously unknown character. Bill Bell and I arranged to meet up with Peter to find out about his epic adventure. Sadly 'Steady' Barker, a well-known and well respected motoring journalist, passed away in 2015.
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