Yesterday’s rally to Bathurst was significant, the carnival co-ordinator Craig Watson said as the drivers and their cars parked on Pit Lane, Mount Panorama.

“It is 45 years since a Mini won at Mount Panorama in 1966,” Mr Watson said. “The drivers of the winning Mini were Bob Holden and Rauno Aaltonen and we have Bob driving a car in the carnival.

“We started with ‘The Homecoming’ on Sunday with a static display at the old BMC factory at Zetland.”

Mr Watson said Mini enthusiasts taking part in eight days of events spent Monday on a Catalina Cruise to the racetrack near Penrith.

On Tuesday they attended a Mini Drive-In Night at Mona Vale to see some of the Mini’s best moments, also featuring Mini Mokes and variants.

Drivers of Minis took a Sydney sight-seeing drive on Wednesday before arriving yesterday in Bathurst.

Today the carnival returns to Canada Bay, Sydney, for the Oz50 Mini Dinner where the former BMC competitions department manager, Bob Holden, the 1966 Bathurst 500 winner and 1967 class winner, will be the guest speaker.

After the dinner the drivers and their cars will head from Sydney to Wakefield Park, Goulburn, for what should be the biggest show of Minis ever in Australia.

Mini enthusiast Neil Craw-

ford, of Bairnsdale, drove from Victoria to take part in the Oz50 Carnival driving a 1967 Mini De Luxe, one of three Minis he owns.

“It was a car I saw on the side of a road 15 years ago,” said Mr Crawford, a first time Mini owner in 1961. “Since buying the De Luxe in 1967 I’ve got two other cars – a 1969 Cooper S Mark II and 1966 Cooper S Mark I home in the shed.”

Asked what it was he liked about Minis, Mr Crawford said “they’re just fun to drive”.

“You see a Mini and you have just got to have a drive, they’re sensational,” he said, agreeing with another Mini owner’s description “of flying by the seat of your pants” in the low-slung little cars.