Geek Out! The spy who snapped me

In early 1959 a Swedish newspaper encountered a Mini prototype cold-weather testing on the streets of Stockholm, several months before the car was announced. The paper ran a picture of it later that week, accompanied by a strangely coy paragraph which declined to identify the car, noting only that ‘from the instruments, controls and other things one might be able to draw certain conclusions, but we should be careful…’

And this was the state of car spying in the 1950s. A rare thing, based entirely on encounters on public roads, and carefully worded to avoid upsetting car company bosses.

By the mid 1960s, however, car sales were booming and some media realised that revealing future plans wasn’t impertinent. In fact it was legitimate consumer journalism since it could stop readers from wasting cash on models that were about to be replaced. And for readers who weren’t in the market for a new car, there was still the thrill of seeing something that was supposed to be secret.