Letter of the month
I was that mystery man!
IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when an old pal of mine, a former Austin apprentice like me, called me up and told me that Octane magazine had mentioned a ‘Mr J Pugh, of Sambourne, near Redditch’ as being the first owner of the oldest surviving Mini Cooper S, ‘732 HOP’ [cover feature, Octane 235]. Was I the mysterious J Pugh?
Yes, I was! My one-time Austin colleague, Neil Morrick, had correctly guessed that I might have bought the Mini when it was sold from the Longbridge press fleet, since employees were often given first choice of de-fleeted cars. At the time, probably in 1963, I was happily taking part in motoring events in my splendid pale blue Frogeye Sprite but, when my wife announced that she was pregnant with our first child, I started wondering what kind of family car I could get that would still give us a competitive edge in our local rallies.
The answer was,
