So an Italian & a Brit walk in to a bar.

"The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock" (jukesjukesjukes)
11/30/2016 at 15:47 • Filed to: None

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! A Innocenti De Tomaso Mini 120.

Its also a late Birtish Leyland model, in April of 1982 Daihatsu took over and renamed them Innocenti Tre Cilindri.

DISCUSSION (4)

jimz > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock
11/30/2016 at 15:52

So basically, put British and Italian together and you get a car which doesn’t work at all?

especially with the lack of spark plug wires.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock
11/30/2016 at 15:55

It kinda looked like a smaller shoddier wannabe version of a Renault5 turbo. I want it.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock
11/30/2016 at 15:56

Me likey dem gaugeys

AuthiCooper1300 > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock
11/30/2016 at 18:32

Styled by Bertone (or more to the point, Marcello Gandini while he was working there).

Actually developed in the UK but for some strange quirk of BL they never wanted to sell it – let alone build it– there (it would probably have worked). Maybe some clause in the contracts with Innocenti, which more or less was going to give up the ghost right then. Or maybe they feared it would clash with the Metro (still in the future then).

The 120 version is interesting because it got basically a 1275 Mk3 Cooper S-spec engine and gearbox (bar the twin carbs, if I remember correctly). Meaning: 11-stud head, bigger valves, better quality connecting rods, nitrided (or at least tuftrided) crank etc. I think they even had an oil cooler (stock, not optional). Although the engines were manufactured in Britain and sent to Italy hardly any of those parts were ever fitted to British-built Minis or Metros. The rods in particular never saw service in any other A-series engine and are quite righly called “the Innocenti conrods” by those interested in these esoteric matters.

But the really fantastic thing is that it had the Cooper S close-ratio gearbox.

Quite a chic accessory for the girl about town, in France and Italy at least.