back	May 25, 2009 RSS

Revival of an “illuminated” car

Millions are familiar with it from the Magical Mystery Tour film by the Beatles; today it resides in the garden as an unusual sculptural monument: the 1965 Mini Cooper S that George Harrison had decorated with sacred Indian motifs. Now the restored car, the favourite of the ex-Beatle who died in 2001, has returned to the limelight as the model for a new "illuminated" MINI which his widow Olivia is auctioning in June on behalf of the Harrison charity The Material World Foundation. The new MINI is similarly covered in the kind of symbols from Indian mythology that George Harrison loved: chakras, the energy centres; yantras, the bridge between the gods, the cosmos and the self; lotus blossoms, symbols of purity; and the god Shiva on the roof of the Harrisons' Mini, who protected them both on their spontaneous jaunts. "George was never very interested in material things," says Olivia Harrison, "but he loved this car." Read Josephine Grever's full story on George Harrison's Mini in MINIInternational London.