MINI MOMENTS with The Community Brain at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2024

Mini Moments is a year-long celebration of the incredible tradition of design and innovation seen in the local areas of Kingston, Surbiton and Chessington.

This project focuses particularly on the Cooper Cars Company, which revolutionised both Formula One and rally driving in the 1950s and 1960s from its garage on Hollyfield Road, Surbiton. John Cooper’s rear engine cars transformed the future of F1, with Jack Brabham becoming the first race car driver to win the Formula One World Championship with a rear-engined vehicle in 1959 and 1960.

In 1961, the Mini Cooper was born after John Cooper spent two weeks hacking the design of Alex Issigonis’s Mark I Mini. Driven by Paddy Hopkirk, the car became an international sensation when it won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964 and again in 1965 and 1967.

121 Collective’s Mini Moments display at Hampton Court celebrates these extraordinary victories, with Hopkirk’s 1964 winning car, ‘33 EJB’, appearing in a distinctive Corgi Toys box.

Photographs are credit to Ana Rose Layose Delmo & Stuart Tree.