The story
History
William Towns had worked at Rootes and at Rover before going freelance, and drew the Aston Martin DBS of 1967 and, later, the wedge-shaped Lagonda; he died in 1993.source 1source 2source 3 In 1972 he built his own proposal for a new Mini and called it the Townscar, a pun on his name.source 3source 1 It was a neat box with wedge touches, built around the Mini’s 10 in wheels and A-Series engine, and about 750 mm (30 in) shorter than a Mini.source 1source 3source 2source 4 It had a single door, at the back, so that it could park end-on to the kerb, as the Smart Fortwo would much later.source 3source 2source 4 Inside were four seats, two facing forward and two at the back facing each other; the Dutch magazine that wrote about it in 2018 has the back pair facing backwards.source 3source 2source 4
British Leyland liked it, bought the prototype and the commercial rights from Towns, renamed it Minissima and showed it on its stand at the 1973 London Motor Show.source 3source 1source 4 Hagerty writes that it rather stole the show from BL’s new Austin Allegro, and that crash regulations kept it from production; the Mini itself went on until 2000.source 5 Hagerty also has the Townscar shown first and bought after, the reverse of the other accounts.source 5source 3
The Microdot
Towns tried again with the Microdot, shown at the British International Motor Show in 1976: three people abreast with the driver in the middle, glass panels that lifted instead of doors, and a 400 cc petrol engine driving a 3.5 kW generator, a hybrid. It was 2.03 m (6 ft 8 in) long and weighed 457 kg (1,008 lb).source 6source 1 In 1978 Mallalieu Engineering, of Wootton near Abingdon, built a version on a cut-down Mini chassis, with opening doors and a nose 150 mm (6 in) longer to take Reliant’s aluminium engine. It sought money from the Post Office pension fund, which declined after doubts from a government scientific adviser; the project stalled in 1980, and Mallalieu Microdot Ltd was dissolved on 23 June 1987.source 6
A car to drive from a wheelchair
The Minissima’s design came back later in the 1970s, as a prototype for disabled drivers. GKN Sankey, working with Fred Hart, an engineer from Ford, moved the driving position to the centre and fitted a fold-down ramp at the back, so that a wheelchair user could roll in through the rear door and drive away without leaving the chair.source 3source 4 Towns simplified the styling for production, and in 1978 the car won a Design Council award. It needed government support, though, and its costs were too high to get it.source 3source 4 It belongs to the long British story of invalid carriages, as one of the few cars driven from the wheelchair itself.
GKN sold the rights to Elswick, a British bicycle maker, which built the car as the Elswick Envoy from 1981 to 1987.source 3source 5source 4 It was previewed at the National Rally for Disabled Drivers in 1981, where a production car was the winner’s prize, and advertised as the car you can drive from a wheelchair.source 5 It had Mini 1000 Automatic running gear and a glass-fibre body made by Reliant, and the driver’s special Vessa wheelchair locked into place behind steering mounted in the middle, neither right- nor left-hand drive.source 5source 7 A basic Envoy cost £7,228 in 1984. Fewer than 200 were made.source 5
The last and most successful car that could be driven from a wheelchair.
In 2007 the disabled artist Nancy Willis made a 24-minute film about her own Envoy for Channel 4, Elegy for the Elswick Envoy, and it shared the prize for best documentary at Aspen Shortsfest in 2008 (more in microcars on screen).source 3source 5source 7 Her car is now in the Science Museum Group’s collection, so Towns’s end-on town car, which British Leyland never built, survives in the form that reached the road.source 7
