Garry Dickens wishes a happy 60th birthday to the Mini Cooper, which first came off the production line in September 1961.
Happy 60th birthday to the Mini Cooper, which first came off the production line in September 1961.
The original Mini was designed in 1959 by Sir Alec Issigonis (1906-88). The brief delivered to Issigonis by Leonard Lord in March 1957, the then head of BMC, was to create a miniature, four-seat, economical saloon-car, capable of big-car performance. This was in response to increasing popularity of the 'Bubble car', boosted by post-Suez petrol rationing. To Lord, they were not 'proper' cars – he detested them.
The car was designed, a prototype built by July 1958, with production beginning in 1959 for the August launch that year.
Meanwhile, John Cooper, a world champion racing-car constructor, had been attempting for a while to create a small, four-seat, fast road-car. His attempts in modifying a Renault Dauphine failed due to the car's poor handling.
When the Mini was launched, it was exactly the car Cooper was looking for. With modifications to the engine and gearbox and the fitting of front disc-brakes, Cooper transformed it into a 'mini sports car'. Cooper and BMC finalised a financial agreement and plans to put the car into production. It received interior and exterior trimming embellishments, with Cooper's name added to the badging. And so the 'Mini Cooper' was launched 60 years ago.
The car became a runaway success. A further developed and higher-performing Cooper 'S' would win lots of international race and rally awards throughout the 1960s.
The Mini Cooper not only enjoyed world-wide motor sport success; it also became the car to be 'seen in'. Celebrities, pop stars and royalty owned them – usually custom-built. Traditional coach-building companies, such as Radford, Hooper, Wood and Pickett, normally associated with building Rolls-Royce bodies, were commissioned to create bespoke luxury Minis for the good and the great.
From the early 1960, Minis were seen on roads, world-wide. They have become iconic – more so than any previous car. Generation after generation enjoy these little cars. But it’s the Cooper that’s most wanted; and so it continues, sixty years on.
A large factor keeping the original Mini Cooper alive is the film 'The Italian Job' (1969), itself an icon. In the caper film, about a bank robbery in Turin, the British gang makes its escape through the city in three Mini Coopers, the boot of each filled with stolen bullion. The escapade takes the Minis through traffic, shopping malls and sewers. They cross rivers and jump roof-tops, all at high-speed. The carabinieri are in hot pursuit! The film has a star-studded cast – not least Noël Coward – but the Mini Coopers are the real stars.
In 2001, a brand-new car replaced the original Mini. The company, then BMW-owned, launched the new car as a brand in its own right: 'MINI'. Traditionalists damned the new MINI. Much rivalry followed between owners of the original Mini Cooper and the new MINI Cooper. It is a very good car, though. Although not revolutionary like the original, it has many of its good qualities: it is a compact four-seater and has extremely good handling capabilities. Built at Cowley, Oxford, it has been extensively raced.
Early MINIs are a sought-after collector's item, just like the original. Although a truce now exists between owners of Mini Coopers and MINIs, the new car can never replace the original in the hearts of the public.
