Moke History

The name comes from “Mini,” the car with which the Moke shares many parts, and “Moke,” an archaic dialect term for donkey.

The first Mokes were manufactured at BMC’s Longbridge, Birmingham plant, with 14,518 produced in the UK between 1964 and 1968. 26,000 were manufactured in Australia between 1966 and 1981, and 10,000 in Portugal between 1980 and 1993 when production ended.

The Moke gained much popularity as a beach buggy and was often rented to tourists in tropical island resorts such as Mauritius and Barbados.

On Magnetic Island, off Australia’s Queensland coast, Moke Magnetic still operate a large fleet of Australian-made Mokes for hire to tourists.^[30]

Mini Mokes can still be seen around the town of Victoria, Seychelles, as it is still a popular mode of transport for tourists and can seat four people in relative comfort.

In 2016, Moke America, LLC^[39] introduced an electric Moke vehicle (eMoke) in the United States. The eMoke is an all electric Low-speed vehicle (LSV) assembled by Cruise Car Inc. in America from parts made in China. This uses the design developed by Chery subsidiary Sicar Engineering and MOKE International.