Riley Elf Mk.III (BMC) 

At the start of the Mini's development, the Suez crisis played a role. Oil and fuel became scarce and expensive, and bubble cars and mobility scooters dominated the street scene. Car manufacturers had to contend with sharply reduced sales. The British Motor Corporation (BMC) and all the brands that belonged to it - Austin, Morris, MG, Riley and Wolseley - were also having a hard time.

Shortly after the appearance of the Cooper, BMC also came out with the Riley Elf and the Wolseley Hornet. The Mini Cooper was sporty; the Riley and Wolseley were more luxury-oriented. Riley was traditionally a sporty, upmarket car brand, and it lacked a small model in the harsh early 1960s. And Wolseley, as a manufacturer of luxury models, also needed a small one at this time.

So it came down to the fact that almost all of BMC's brands wanted their own version of the Mini, also because they were all still represented by separate dealer organizations. So the Mini was already there as the Austin Seven and Morris Mini Minor, but a model for Riley and Wolseley had to be more distinctive.

On October 12, 1961, BMC launched the Riley Elf and the Wolseley Hornet. They were Minis with some of the sportier Cooper technology and a real ass with separate trunk lid - an almost conventional model, in other words. Both were embellished with vertical taillight units, a vertical grille with side grills and lots of chrome trim. The Wolseley even had an illuminated logo in the grille. The interior was more luxuriously appointed, with a real wood dashboard and interior panels, and more luxurious fabrics. That they featured the technology of the Mini Cooper was no luxury, because the little sedans were a bit heavier than the spartan Mini as it was intended.

This model has a 1967 registration number, KFC 382F a year before the Riley brand merged into British Leyland Motors in 1968. Another year later, British Leyland announced the end of Riley production.