MINI enthusiasts have appealed for former workers at the Cowley plant to help them find out more about the car’s early history.

The first Mini rolled off the production line in Oxford in 1959, but two years earlier work began on the prototypes of the iconic car.

Now Mini-collector Tanya Field and Bill Bell of history group the 1959 Mini Register are trying to find the workers who played a crucial role between 1957 and 1959.

They hope to create an online database of their stories ready in time for a Mini exhibition due to come to Oxford some time in 2016.

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Mrs Field, who bought her first Mini 26 years ago, said there was a lot of hidden history at the Cowley plant still to be discovered.

The mental health worker from Headington explained: “Former employees do not necessarily think we are interested in them but the info they have is part of the jigsaw.

“They might think what they know is insignificant but it will be hugely significant to us. You think because these people worked at the plant in the late 1950s they might not be with us anymore.

“But when you go out and start doing stuff with cars you find people in their 80s and 90s who worked at Mini.”

Mrs Field, 43, owns 10 Minis with her husband Jason and sons Kieran, Jamie and Daniel.

Last year she and Jason drove from Oxford to Turin in their 1990 Mini Cooper to raise money for children’s charity Variety. In 2013 Mrs Field helped organise a cavalcade of classic cars theough Oxford to mark 100 years of car production at Cowley.

She said: “I think Minis are great fun to drive.

“They have an absolute charm when you look at them.

“When the Mini was first built it was at the edge of motoring technology.

“It was designed for the ordinary person.”

The memories of former workers will be stored on a website hosted by the 1959 Mini Register.

The register was set up 10 years ago to help people find out more about the 1959 models of the car and find parts and spares.

Founder Mr Bell, 44, from Chester, Chestershire, said: “The plant had test engineers and a driver and they went out all over the place testing the prototypes.

“We would love to hear stories of things breaking or why things were modified.

“All the little stories about the development and how they came up with the finished article are what we want to collect.

“Hopefully we can get all the info we can gather and we can put it on the website and it will be there forever.”

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