Britain’s Mini Going Topless

It symbolized the Swinging Sixties and gave its name to the miniskirt. Now, after several reincarnations, Britain’s beloved Mini motor car is going topless.

With 5,262,000 Minis manufactured, parent company Rover Group, a unit of British Aerospace, is chopping off the roof and for the first time offering a production-line convertible model.

In its 34 years, the Mini has been a pickup, a van, a jeep and a luxury car, as well as the family runabout. It has survived the psychedelia of the 1960s and the ecology consciousness of the ‘80s.

Little more than a four-seated, box-shaped go-kart with a speedometer, basic warning lights and tiny 10-inch wheels, the Mini was the automotive gadget of choice for the likes of film stars Peter Sellers, Britt Ekland, Princess Margaret and assorted bell-bottomed rock stars of the 1960s and ‘70s.

In Britain’s Swinging Sixties, short-skirted dolly birds, as the politically incorrect phraseology of the time had it, slipped in and out of the driving seats of their Minis. The car gave its name to the skirt, and the miniskirt was born.

The convertible, which will sell for about $16,000, may boost the Mini’s image, but not sales. Rover will build only about 15 a month.