Mini magic through the decades: A brand with two distinct faces

In the history of motoring there have been many mass-produced cars that have risen above the herd; iconic little vehicles (for most of them I have in mind were little) that exceeded designer’s expectations and soldiered on for decades, loved by the public and cherished by the enthusiast.

After 63 years of internal combustion, the Mini turns electric. Electric Mini, the future belongs to you…

Cheekie chappie

The Volkswagen Beetle was one such car. As was the Citroën 2CV and the Model T. In Britain we had the Austin Seven, the Morris Minor, let alone all the exotica such as Bentleys and Aston Martins.

But the cheekiest chappie and one of the longest-lived is the Mini. If ever the overused cliché of “iconic” were justified, it would surely apply to the Mini. It was the car that defined 1960s motoring, the symbol of “swinging London”.

The little car was launched in 1959 by the ill-fated British Motor Corporation, manufacturer of everything and master of none. But they got it right with the Mini, thanks to the maestro, Alec Issigonis. The aim was to outmanoeuvre the 1950s fashion for bubble cars and compromised micro-cars by producing a real grown-up car that would carry a family, take up little road space and, above all, be affordable in an era when everyone aspired to own a car.

Above: Mini by name, mini in fact. This triumph of packaging, absolute Mini-malistic transport for the masses, soldiered on for over four decades. It is the second most influential motor car after the Model T Ford

Revolutionary

With its transverse engine, front-wheel drive, minute proportions and unconventional rubber-cone suspension, the Mini was revolutionary. It is acclaimed as the second most influential car of the 20th century, after the Model T but ahead of the Citroën DS and the Beetle.

Above: True enthusiasm

I first saw a picture of the Mini (or Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor as it then was) one bright August morning in 1959. I was a newly minted and very young bank clerk sitting in the staff room at the National Provincial Bank in Stratford Road, Manchester. The new car was all over the morning’s newspapers, having been launched the day before. Immediately, I knew I wanted one. This despite my having acquired a licence to ride a motorcycle only weeks before.

The Mini in its original form soldered on in production by the Rover Group — as BMC was then called — until 2000. By then it was a shadow of its former self and the last few years of production were marked by special edition after special edition. The ancient A series engine was choked by emissions control, gear and the power output was way down so the last-gasp Minis performed with all the excitement of watching paint dry.

Customising your original Mini is a by-product of dedication and enthusiasm. At the Brooklands Mini Day 2022, you could buy anything from a chromium-plated wheel trim or a pretty new leather gear-stick cover to a full, roadworthy vehicle

Blowing the skin off a rice pudding in Japan

Strangely, demand from Japan — where the Mini had achieved cult status — kept the now-outdated little car in production well past its use-by date. In Japan, the Mini’s performance was further throttled by the addition of air-conditioning. Slow does not begin to describe the performance of the last Japanese market Minis.

Slow, fast and fastest… The 101 to East Ham overtakes a collection of Minis and Concorde. All are “icons” in their own way

BMW acquired the Rover Group in 1994 and, although the takeover was ill-fated, BMW wisely decided to retain the Mini brand when it divested itself of the rest of the company in 2000. BMW saw the potential of the Mini as a premium small car brand, building on the valuable heritage of the original Mini and, in particular, the Cooper and Cooper S models. With commendable foresight, BMW saw the potential of the brand in the USA where the company has a very strong dealer network.

For the past 20 years, the BMW Mini has continued the tradition of the original Mini. It’s a very different car, certainly not so “mini” as the 1959 launch model, but it still enthuses a generation of keen motorists with its packaging, image, performance and handling.

Picking up the Mini mantle

The original minimalist Mini had been a fixture on the British and world motoring scene for the last 40 years of the century. It outlasted the shipwreck of the British Motor Corporation, shed its Austin and Morris disguises, and triumphed as a marque in its own right. Sadly in a way, the tiny car with its little wheels at all four corners outlived demand. The world had moved on from the oil crises of the late 1950s and 1970s. A little more space and comfort were in demand. And this was the opportunity for a bigger, more luxurious Mini.

Reader and Leica enthusiast, Chris Gow, photographed this stark reminder of the Mini’s progress from mewling infant to buxom middle-aged would-be replica in a supermarket car park. As he says, it serves as an illustration of how the modern world suffers from “bloatware”. A classic design, built for a purpose, gradually expands until it fills a completely different purpose. More Monster than Mini…

Over the past two decades, BMW has very successfully taken over the Mini mantle and developed a thoroughly modern version of the original Mini. It has all the design cues, including that central speedo, but it is a completely different car. This is perhaps no bad thing. It’s called progress.

Over the last 60-odd years, the Mini brand has captured the hearts of enthusiasts. There are Mini clubs all over the world, and the spartan 1960s models consort happily with the latest electric Minis.

One of the biggest annual Mini gatherings takes place at the Brooklands race track and museum in Surrey, southwest of London. This year’s outing on March 27 attracted vast numbers of cars, from those made in the early sixties to the latest very desirable models. I dropped by with my “eventing rig”, the Leica SL2 and 24-90mm Vario-Elmarit, to grab a few shots of the colourful displays. When you see a 2022 Mini alongside a 1962 model, you realise that the brand name has a whole new meaning. Mini it may be, but mini it is no longer.

I am grateful to John Shingleton for adding his valuable background knowledge to this article.


Read more from John Shingleton here

Visit John’s blog, The Rolling Road

John Shingleton with his Mini in the Outback



20 COMMENTS

  1. I thought this was a photography experience site – I stand corrected 😅.

    I always wanted a mini but women seemed to look better in them.

    • Correction: it’s a site where the long-suffering editor writes about whatever takes his fancy and enjoys editing articles by many contributors. Anyone is free to offer a photographic experience…. I think I used the word “eclectic” in describing the blog somewhere! Mike

  2. Minis apart one of the frustrations of the modern era is finding an old favorite road and discovering that the corners have been neutered or average speed cameras have sprouted along every inch of the way.

    Hog’s Back apart, the old A272 heading west was a gem, as was “The Cat and Fiddle” road in the Peak District, or the undiscovered A153 from Horncastle to Louth along the shoulder of the Wolds, and the fast and furious B6403 from Colsterworth to RAF Cranwell.

    Yes, I miss driving in England as it used to be.

  3. I only had a Mini in my Scalestrix. Remembering now that toy of infinite plastic roads with metal rails. Fantastic! I think my favorite was an Aston Martin. And my dream was a Jaguar E that never got. And never will have for real

  4. First car I ever drove was a grey Mini in the late 1960s. It belonged to a friend and he just pulled up outside Donnybrook Church about 3 miles from home and threw the keys at me and said ” now you can drive yourself home”. No license, no insurance and no lessons, but I knew the basics of driving a car from watching my father and I got the thing as far as my house. Never told my parents, though.

    On to the high point of the Mini for me, which was Paddy Hopkirk winning the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in a red and white Mini. I met Paddy at the opening of a motor show in Dublin about 10 years ago and I told him that he had been one of my boyhood heroes. He replied “you’re still only a boy”. Last time I checked Paddy was 88 years old (89 next month), so I suppose I will always be a boy to him and he will always be the ultimate Mini driver to me.

    I don’t know anything about the ‘new’ Minis, but the original one will always have significance for me.

    William

    • Paddy Hopkirk was a client of mine for a brief time in the 1970s. He was then marketing those tiny plastic mirrors which stuck to the rear-view mirror and offered a wide-angle view. Plus other “Hopkirk” accessories, as I remember. Lovely guy, he was running his business from home at the time so I used to visit there, probably somewhere in Surrey not far from Le Chef’s Hog’s Back.

  5. Lovely reminder of the single-minded and inventive greatness of Issigonis. No committees and no market research design clinics to finesse away every distinguishing feature.

    My brother-in-law owned a “slammed” Mini Cooper S and it was an absolute joy to drive around the backroads off the Hogs Back between Guildford and Farnham, yumping over small bridges and slewing through sharp-angled corners. You could be Paddy Hopkirk on the Monte, or leading Sir John Whitmore through corners at Silverstone, the David against the Goliath with the Galaxy 500. Fun times!

    • Ah, the Hog’s Back. Unfortunately, the Hog has long gone, what with overzealous speed limits and hordes of cyclists riding three abreast. But I also remember happy times on the Hog’s Back, times when I was out testing the latest motorcycles for my weekly national magazine, The Motor Cycle. Those were happy days when I could leave work and say that I would be “out roadtesting” on the morrow. The term covered a multitude of both pleasures and sins…

      Mike

  6. My very first car was a 425cc left-hand drive 2CV (aka the Ugly Duckling) bought in Germany shortly after passing my german driving test. When my driving instructor heard what I had on order he said: “Ach Herr Nicholson, kaufen Sie Sich doch einen WAGEN !!!” (buy yourself for goodness sake a CAR!)”
    Shortly before marrying my Danish wife, I bought her a mini traveller to replace her Fiat 600 and bring her back to England in style. Eventually the 2CV had to go and was replaced by…….? A mini saloon and we became a two-mini marriage. So closely married were we that driving to work one day, my wife behind me in the traveller, I had to brake suddenly, and her mini ran into mine! Fortunately neither car was badly damaged and both ran on sweetly until the saloon had to give way to a pram.

  7. I learned to drive on a powder blue mini in in 1964 order to take the ferry to Paris for our honeymoon- put up in what must have been a brothel by the old Les Halles market still in action – no sleep for three nights… but the beginning of a research career in France that still goes on!

  8. An excellent example of ongoing evolution, just like the Porsche 911 and Leica M series.

    My only experience in the arena was driving an original Mini Cooper forty or more years ago in New Zealand (twin fuel tanks – what was that about?). Somewhere on the north island it developed an electrical gremlin which meant that it would stall if it dropped below 3,000 rpm (electric fuel pump needed a continual supply of enuf voltage). Driving back into rush hour Auckland across the big bridge whilst keeping it revving at 3,000+ was a stressful experience not to be repeated.
    But it was a great week with that car. When we got back to Australia my wife forbade me buying one. Because I’m kinda tall she said that I looked ridiculous driving with my knees up around my ears.

    That said, it is good to see that Minis today still have some of their original DNA e.g. wheels positioned close to each corner. Great for roadholding and handling. Very obvious when looking at John Shingleton’s blue pride n joy in the car park after coffee this week.

  9. Sadly the original Mini grew less clever as it grew older. For example, those wire door pulls and sliding windows left room for door pockets big enough to hold bottles of wine (as specified by designer Alec Issigonis). When wind-up windows and a ‘proper’ internal door handle (with its linkage to the catch at the rear of the door) appeared on the Mark 3 version, the door pockets disappeared (though the Australians managed to keep both on their locally built version of the Mini). The hinged rear number plate – which let you use the open boot lid as an extension to the tiny boot, while still staying legal – also vanished early on, mainly for cost reasons. Costs also killed its replacement with a hatchback version designed by Issigonis in about 1964, well ahead of the ‘pioneering’ Renault 5 – but BMC then British Leyland then Austin-Rover were all experts at shooting themselves in the foot.

  10. Snap, I was here too taking pictures with the SL2S and the M10. A shame it was such a cold day but enjoyed watching a bit of the hill climb. Got similar pictures to yours and certainly the newer minis were all incredibly customised.

    • Hi Christina,

      What a coincidence. I can count on the fingers of one finger how many times I’ve seen a Leica in the wild during a Brooklands meeting. If I’d noticed, I would have definitely come over for a chat. If you see me there in future please do come and say hello.

      Mike

    • Yes, will do. I generally try to keep out of the way of other photographers as I don’t want to spoil their shots!

  11. I remember the minis racing at the Monte-Carlo rallye when I was young. I had a model-car of the mini in the late 60s with other conic cars like the VW beetle or the Citroen 2CV. I quite like the new miniiteration. The closest experience I had of travelling in a vintage car was with a vintage 2CV back in the late 70s. From memory it was e really slow car which could not go past 30 mph when going uphill and the suspension system on French secondary roads was like crossing the channel with a gentle swell.

  12. My brother got a mini just after they came out ..shrouded button on the floor to start the engine (current directly to the solenoid!) and strips of string (like on the contemporaneous London buses) to open the (two) doors (..or to ring the bell on a bus).

    The original Minis tended to die in the rain – that transverse engine had the distributor cap almost sticking out of the front of the grille ..so the rain went straight into the electrics! An add-on ‘after-sale’ rubber boot, to cover the distributor, fixed that, though.

    My brother and his friend Henry spent a weekend, I remember, sticking acres of felt to the inside of the engine compartment – especially to the flimsy bonnet (‘hood’) – to cut down the almost-deafening engine noise, transmission noise and tyre (‘tire’) noise. After that, it was quite a likeable little car!

    I’d spend hours in our garage, pretending to drive it ..though my feet could hardly reach the pedals!.. and pushing the enormously long and wobbly gearstick hither & thither, not knowing if I’d actually got it in gear or not ..till there was a reassuring ‘thunk’ as the gears finally meshed.

    It was basically an £800 metal box to take on the road from A to B ..with a reasonable chance of actually arriving at B..!

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