Nuffield, which meant Morris, Wolseley and M.G., disappeared when it merged with Austin in 1951 to form the British Motor Corporation or B.M.C. British Leyland came into being in 1968 when B.M.C. was taken over by truck and bus manufacturer Leyland Motors. The new management immediately launched a savage programme of cuts, and the Riley brand was one of the first things to go. Leyland knew that there would be an outcry, so stepped up Riley production over the last 18 months; this meant that dealers could absorb the late rush of sales, and keep ‘new’ Rileys in stock until the start of 1971. Which means that it would be fairer to say that the Elf was based on the B.M.C. Mini, not the Leyland Mini. Although late Elves had a few Leyland badges, ‘Leyland Minis’ began with the Mark III of 1971.

The idea of the Elf/Hornet was well-received in 1961, but customer feedback meant that the Mark II was introduced within a year. With the basic 850c.c. engine, the Mark I was just too slow, and it didn’t have the full-width walnut dash of the later cars; only the central instrument panel. This makes the Mark I in the ad. incredibly rare, by the way.

The longer tail did not, strictly speaking, give any increase in luggage capacity, but far better luggage protection. The original Mini’s bootlid was just deep enough that you could carry a suitcase, by using the bootlid as a shelf, and strapping the luggage down. The rear number plate was hinged at the top so that when a suitcase was being carried it would swing down and still be visible. The drawbacks were that the numberplate would flap about when you drove over a bump, and that if it rained then your luggage got soaked. Alec Issigonis, who designed the Mini (and hated the Elf), argued that the average user would only ever use the boot for their shopping, so why increase weight and fuel consumption by having a big boot which was usually empty?. Some agreed, some didn’t.

Elf and Hornet performance was, in fact, fractionally worse than that of the Mini because the extra weight was not off-set by any increase in power. This was normal practice for Wolseleys, but Riley enthusiasts grumbled justly that the least they had expected was twin carburetters. B.M.C. are said to have carried out some mad experiments with supercharged Elves which led nowhere, so only the Hornet has any competition history, having been raced by Alec Poole and rallied by Paddy Hopkirk.

One last bit of trivia: the names came about because the B.M.C. top brass decided to re-use the names of sports cars from Riley and Wolseley’s illustrious, albeit distant, pasts. Wolseley’s only production sports car had been the Hornet Special, so that was easy, but with names for the Riley they hit trouble. The obvious contender was ‘Sprite’, the name of Riley’s last and most numerous two-seater before the war. But B.M.C. had just used it for the new, small, Austin-Healey. The Sprite was preceded by two closely-related sports models, so they were considered next; ‘M.P.H.’ was obviously out, because of the Elf’s deliberately minimal performance, so they settled on ‘Imp’. Only to discover that the Rootes Group had already registered ‘Imp’ as a trademark for their own new small car. Nobody was using ‘Elf’.

Hope this is vaguely interesting, keep up the good work! J.