Below :  HCCSA members Margaret & Peter Tavener and their Minx Series IIIA.


Series IIIA prices: Special £995, DeLuxe manual £1093, DeLuxe automatic £1242
including sales tax – advert in Sunday Mail (Adelaide) 20 August 1960

• Series IIIA to IIIC all have identical body shells and grille shapes.  With the exception of the ADL (see below), all have identical rear lamp assemblies and rear number plate plinths.
• Series IIIA grille is chromium-plated steel.  It seems that, at some point during Series IIIB production, the grille material was changed to stainless steel.  Series IIIC grille is pressed aluminium.
• Series IIIA and IIIB have identical trim on the outside.  Twin stainless steel strips along the side of the body.  Door badges are "Minx" on saloons and convertibles.  Bumper bars are the classic shape shown in the pictures above.  The main (or perhaps only) differences between IIIA & IIIB are the abandonment of the old "spiral bevel" type differential in favour of the new "hypoid bevel" type, and a very slight increase in final drive ratio.
• Series IIIC has the new "C" cross-section bumpers.  Door badges are "1600" on saloons and convertibles, to indicate the new 1592 cc engine.  Single stainless steel strips along the side of the body.
• Estate cars of these models were not fitted with door badges.

It seems the Minx Series IIIC wasn't split into "De Luxe" and "Special" versions as previous models had been.  However, Rootes Australia chose to do something very different.  The normal Minx (basically a successor to the Series IIIB De Luxe) was sold as the "Special" version, while they re-decorated the Singer Gazelle Series IIIC with the "Hillman" name and a Minx grille – naming it the Hillman Minx "Australian De Luxe" (ADL).  Series IIIB type bumpers were retained for the ADL.
Attractively priced at £999 (just 80% of the price of a Minx Series I in 1956), the ADL seems to have sold in healthy numbers, unlike the Special version (which was nevertheless a very decent car).  Excess stocks of the IIIC Special version remaining in Adelaide in 1963 led to a local derivative named SS70.