Background
Alec Issigonis was a genuine free thinker – only a mind unshackled from convention could come up with the Mini in 1959. It wasn’t the first front wheel drive car, it wasn’t the first small car and it wasn’t even the first with an engine placed east-west across the engine bay. What makes it unique is a combination of all these things, plus more besides. And above all, apart from being eminently practical, it was as cute as a cart load of monkeys.
One of very few genuinely ground-breaking cars ever built, the Mini is rightly praised for its innovative engineering, handsome looks, surprisingly spacious interior, and giant-killing handling.
These attributes allowed it to provide transport for millions of families who might not otherwise have been able to afford to run a modern car, and in competition it slew all who were daft enough to compete against it. It won praise from private owners, professional rally drivers, vanquished competitors, pundits, and spectators, all of whom keep it close to their heart, even now, more than sixty years after it first came into being.
Introduced in 1959 as cheap, stripped-to-the-bones family transport to beat the oil crisis, it started life with an 850cc engine fitted transversely with the gearbox squeezed into the engine’s sump. Front-wheel-drive, the Mini’s original rubber cone suspension freed up yet more interior space – and endowed the diminutive British car with unholy roadholding and handling.
And this was the real reason for the Mini’s success at the hands of folk like Paddy Hopkirk: most corners could be taken completely flat, something generations of learner drivers discovered to their glee…
Originally marketed as the Austin Seven and Morris Mini Minor, it was given the Mini moniker in 1969. It evolved in true Darwinian fashion over the years mechanically too, gaining engine capacity and performance at an almost exponential rate.
It lost its rubber cone suspension in 1964 in favour of a very clever Hydrolastic arrangement; this change improved the ride a little – the somewhat bouncy ride had been one of the original car’s few weak points – while retaining its prodigious grip.
However, no matter what engine was fitted, whether the original 850cc unit or the later 1275cc, the power and torque outputs were always relatively – and deliberately – modest. But then the engine only had only to haul 686kgs, which means that the Mini is surprisingly quick, both in acceleration and braking. Cheap to run too, whether in fuel, insurance, or maintenance and repair.
Still much sought after, a whole new generation of collectors and enthusiasts is flocking to the mighty Mini – and while the Cooper and Cooper S models will always draw a huge crowd, many prefer the more simple cars which offer a cost-effective antidote to the bloated and depreciation-prone SUVs that clog our roads today.
