John Lennon (1940-1980). His mini is shrouded in mystery. There is footage of John Lennon getting out of a Mini at Abbey Road (see BW pictures on the sides). This was in December 1966 (thanks Mike Weaver).
That Mini, LGF 696D was in fact his own Mini built by Radford, which as far as anyone knows was stolen at some point (there are a lot of stories about this Mini ..).

It is Black in colour including the wheels, bumpers and seats. Heritage Records say it's an Austin Cooper 'S' built on the 14th of February 1965 and despatched to Car Mart Ltd. of London on the 3rd March 1965.

The picture above (thanks to Scott/Barry Jarlett) shows John Lennon passing his driving test on February 15, 1965. According to my source, he passed his driving test in the Mini pictured in the background and not the car from the promotional pictures with the other Beatles. More on this Mini in the 'Interesting facts/stories' section.



About LGF 696D: The log book shows it was registered in London on the 8th February 1966 as LGF 696D, that is almost a year from when the car was built, but the Beatles were in the States most of 1965 which could explain this.

The small colour-pictures on the right are of John Lennon actually driving his Mini (with custom-made interior). The other pictures on the right are of John Lennon arriving at Abbey Road Studio's.


Above is a picture of John Lennon, sitting in George Harrison's psychedelic painted Mini at West Malling Aerodrome. Many publications use this picture erroneously stating that this was John's Mini. For a start, he's sitting in the passenger seat !

It also seems that along with this Mini George's Mini (which was green at the time not yet psychedelic) and the Ringo Mini (LLO) and another Mini (also with a LLO --- D number) which was Paul's, were registered and may have been a gift from the record company. The current whereabouts of this Mini is currently disputed. One source claims to have the car, the other source claims to have the logbook.

More pictures of the Psychedelic painted Mini in the George Harrison-section.

INTERESTING FACTS / STORIES

Lennon was a notoriously bad driver. Read about his accident in Scotland here.

It is said that before the Lennons went to live in the US about 1971 they gave a lady that used to clean for them a White Mini, maybe a 1967 one. I'm looking for confimation on this one. The story goes this was a Mini Yoko Ono owned. These stories turned out to be incorrect. Below is new information regarding this Mini.

December 2009 (thanks to Scott): New info from Barry Jarlett, whose mother was John's housekeeper in Weybridge where the mini was registered to him. Barry's dad bough the mini from John and then gave it to Barry (third and fourth owners in the log book). Barry says it was white off the production line, but Lennon had it sprayed black. It also had black windows. One of the plates was a replacement when Barry got it in 1966 - I don't know which one. We have two, one yellow and one white! Barry has a photo of Lennon passing his test in this car! He kept the original sun visor as Lennon had scribbled names and numbers etc on it. He is convinced that Lennon only ever had two minis despite what "legend" has it on the internet. Barry commented that the info reproduced on my site about Lennons housekeeper (Barry's mother) getting a mini from the Lennons in 1967 wasn't so!

About the log-book (see below): The name is clearly John Winston Lennon, and the address matches his of the time - Kenwood, St Georges Hill, Weybridge. The name and address are written in a different hand to the signature, which doesn't seem to match any known Lennon signatures. It is assumed that his official signature was his "own" as such and that he used a different style for signing photo's etc - I have no proof of this but find it hard to believe that the Lennon of March 1965 would allow an official document to be "forged". And of course it would make sense to have two different signatures to avoid fraud. The car was registered by Red Bridge Garage in March 1964. Lennon took ownership on 1st March 1965 and sold the car on in March 1966 to a Bernard William Jarlett who we assume is the husband of Dorothy (Caretaker at Kenwood). In March 1967 the car passed to Barry Jarlett. The thing about all of this is that none of this matches up with any "accepted" version of the Lennon/Beatles/mini saga. In our mind, this IS the first mini Lennon owned.



From an Interview with Chris Hutchins, NME March 11, 1966, answering the question wether he worried his money would not last him his lifetime: "I thought about this a while back and decided I'd been a bit extravagant and bought too many cars, so I put the Ferrari and the Mini up for sale. Then one of the accountants said I was allright, so I got the cars back".

In a book about Paul 'Many Years From Now ", by Barry Miles, it says that on the 8 Nov 1966 John turned up at the Indica Gallery were they were setting up Yoko's exhibition, and she tried to get John to take her with him when he left, but he said 'no' and climbed in the back of his black-glass chauffeur-driven Cooper S-Mini and speeded off.

In a 1964 Beatles Monthly it says that John bought his wife a Mini (it must have been for his wife only John did not pass his driving test till 1965). This story was confirmed later in an NME article of December 4, 1964; quote: "and Cyn's (Cynthia Lennon) got the Mini - she's just passed her driving test"..

From 'Lennon 2006, page 266': When she (Cynthia Lennon) passed her driving test Lennon bought her a white Mini, and then a gold Porsche. One day she found a red Ferrari in place of the Mini, as Lennon had traded the Mini in for the Ferrari (which was for himself as he had recently passed his driving test) without telling her. Lennon later bought her a green Volkswagen Beetle.

© Arno Kempers