Mini (classic) History

Designed by Alec Issigonis for the British Motor Corporation in response to the 1956 Suez fuel crisis, the original Mini launched in August 1959. Its space-saving layout — a transverse engine sitting above the gearbox, driving the front wheels, with a wheel pushed into each corner — freed about 80% of the car's footprint for people and luggage and became the template for nearly every small car that followed.

It was first sold under two BMC brands as the Austin Seven (soon Austin Mini) and the Morris Mini-Minor; the Austin became the Austin Mini in 1962, and 'Mini' became a marque in its own right in 1969. Across four decades and three corporate owners — BMC, British Leyland, and the Rover Group — roughly 5.38 million were built before production ended in October 2000.

John Cooper turned the economy car into a giant-killer: the Mini Cooper arrived in 1961 and the more powerful Cooper S in 1963, winning the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, 1965, and 1967 and cementing the Mini's motorsport legend. A new Cooper was revived for the classic car in 1990 and ran until the end in 2000.