ShortNorth wrote:The car in the original picture is DEFINITELY a 1953-54 Mark VII Hillman Minx – I owned a 56 Minx, which was pretty similar, except the chrome side strip ran the full length of the side, and there was a chrome side spat just in front of the rear wheel-wells – they were known as the ‘Gaylook’ Minxes. The 55 model introduced the vertical teeth with the horizontal bar across the middle – the earlier cars had small horizontal grill bars only – up to Mark VII

The second photo of the one you are calling a 1953 model is a 1955 model, but the base model – Mark VIII (released in the UK in 1954, but 1955 in Australia) – it was the first Hillman with an OHV motor at 1390cc. About a year or two after I bought it (second-hand in 1963), I blew the motor up – got a nice low mileage 1592cc motor out of a later model Minx from a wrecking yard – made mine go just that bit faster – I widened the rims from 3-1/2 inch out to 6 inch with big fat Michelins and upgraded the suspension and braking to match the bigger motor. All up gave me about 10mph increase in top speed over the standard Minx. I quite liked that Minx, until I fell in love with the new 1967 Hillman Hunter – but that’s another story !

PS – my 56 Minx was all green just like the picture above – the paint name was Gisborne Green – most other 56 Minxs were two-tone cream/green, cream/blue, etc.