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The design and development of the much loved British icon, The Mini was all the work of one genius man, Sir Alec Issigonis. He designed it to be small, economic and cheap car with safe handling. The Mini was born out of necessity at a time as a result of the Suez Crisis occurring in 1956. It caused a massive fuel shortage that resulted in Britain re-introducing petrol rationing. The large cars of the time were fast loosing their popularity and the ‘bubble' car was on the rise. These mostly were imported from German manufacturers.

In 1956, the BMC decided something must be done there and then. Some ideas and measurements were sketched and a remarkable assembly team was bought together and by 1957 they had built their first prototype. The BMC would own what was to be the most popular car of the century until their merger with Leyland Motor Corporation, which itself had merged with Jaguar, Austin and Morris. Together they became British Leyland and Rover joined the company in 1967.

This was to be the end of the traditional company, Rover. The Solihull based company drowned their heritage beneath famous industrial relations and managerial problems that beset the British motoring industry throughout the 1970's.

The design was revolutionary for its time: front wheel drive, a transverse engine and the gears mounted in the engines sump. The entire transmission and engine unit was contained on sub frames and fitted perfectly and compactly under the tiny bonnet of the Mini. It was only just over ten feet long but could amazingly carry up to four people and a small amount of luggage.

The Mini was launched onto an unprepared public on the 27th August 1959. It wasn't an immediate hit, people thought it a very odd sight. It wasn't until the Queen was seen driving around in one in the early 60's that the public began to take notice of this little dream-machine. Before anyone knew what was happening, the Mini was suddenly the car to be seen in. Overnight it became a ‘classless' car that could be seen parked outside an inner city school or outside the Dorchester. Some well-advertised Mini purchases by Film and music stars ensured its celebrity status. It was the car of 60's swinging London.

The Mini also made an unlikely good racing car. Once news of how well it handled got to the John Cooper Grand Prix racing team, they decided to become involved. They built a succession of performance models of Mini and went on to win many rallies, including the famous Monte Carlo, as well as succeeding in road circuit racing. The Mini's fantastic power to weight ratio coupled with its excellent handling made it a force to be reckoned with, even when competing with cars much bigger and more powerful. This just goes to show that size isn't always everything!

The success of the original Mini carried on like this for the next three decades, after which time, sales began to slump. Although the Mini had by now, been assembled with different sized engines, it was the introduction of the Mini Cooper which helped the company out its slump with its release in 1990. The new style had leather seats, an even more powerful engine, alloy wheels and a white roof. It sold very well in Britain, Japan and France.

It is widely regarded that the Mini's produced towards the end of the 1990's, specifically after September 1996 had the best and biggest changes ever made to the car. Main differences included larger doors with concealed hinges, the sliding windows were replaced with winding ones and the suspension was reverted from Hydrolastic back to rubber as a cost-saving measure.

By 2000, Rover was still suffering losses and the company was split up between BMW, Phoenix and Ford. BMW retained the Mini name and the design specifications for the new model. Rover were granted the rights to finish the production on the old style Minis and the last one ever rolled off the production line on October 4th, 2000. It was given to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust the following December.

Now that the final Mini was sold by Rover, the name was given back to BMW who wasted no time in releasing the newer version. Although technically unrelated with the older version, the new Mini retains the classic transverse four cylinder, front-wheel drive configuration and many of the same style elements

Mini Car Insurance Models

Cooper Cooper S One