The Mini is a small car An automobile, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally for the that was made by the British Motor Corporation The British Motor Corporation was a UK vehicle company, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation (parent of the Morris car company, MG, Riley and Wolseley) in 1952. Basically, it was the predecessor of British Leyland (BMC) and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s,^[3][4][5] and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout (that allowed 80% of the area of the car's floorpan The floorpan is a large sheet metal stamping that often incorporates several smaller welded stampings to form the floor of a large vehicle and the position of its external and structural panels. In the case of monocoque designs, the floorpan is the most important metal part establishing the chassis, body, and thus the car’s size. It serves as to be used for passengers and luggage) influenced a generation of car-makers.^[6] The vehicle is in some ways considered the British equivalent to its German contemporary, the Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle, also known as the Volkswagen Type 1, was an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003 with over 21 million manufactured in its air-cooled, rear-engined, rear wheel drive configuration. Its platform ultimately gave rise to successful variants, including the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and the, which enjoyed similar popularity in North America. In 1999 the Mini was voted the second most influential car of the 20th Century The Car of the Century was an international award given to the world's most influential car of the twentieth century. The election process was overseen by the Global Automotive Elections Foundation. The winner, the Ford Model T, was announced at an awards gala on December 18, 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada, behind the Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1927. The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile became popular. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened travel to the common middle-class American; some of this was because of Ford's.^{[citation needed]}

This distinctive two-door car was designed for BMC by Sir Alec Issigonis Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, CBE, FRS was a Greek-British designer of cars, now remembered chiefly for the groundbreaking and influential development of the Mini, launched by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1959.^[7][8] It was manufactured at the Longbridge The Longbridge plant is an industrial site situated in the Longbridge area of Birmingham, England. Opened in 1905, Longbridge was once the largest manufacturing plant in the world. During the 20th Century the site employed many thousands of people, central to the economy of the local area. Longbridge has produced a wide variety of products, and Cowley Cowley in Oxford, England, is a residential and industrial area that forms a small conurbation within greater Oxford. It has a population of about 16,500 people. Cowley's neighbours are central Oxford to the northwest, Rose Hill and Blackbird Leys to the south, New Headington to the north and the villages of Horspath and Garsington across fields plants in England, the Victoria Park / Zetland British Motor Corporation (Australia) British Motor Corporation was formed in 1957 when the Australian interests of the companies that made up the United Kingdom British Motor Corporation were amalgamated. In 1968, following further corporate changes in the UK, it was renamed Leyland Motor Corporation Australia which continued until closure in 1982 factory in Sydney Sydney is the largest and most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. With an approximate population of 4.5 million in the Sydney metropolitan area the city is the largest municipality in Oceania. Inhabitants of Sydney are called Sydneysiders,, Australia, and later also in Spain (Authi The Authi car company of Pamplona, Spain, was founded in 1965 as a result of a collaboration between BMC and NMQ (Nueva Montaña Quijano)), Belgium, Chile, Italy (Innocenti Innocenti, an Italian machinery works, was originally established by Ferdinando Innocenti in 1920), Portugal, South Africa, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. The Mini Mark I had three major UK updates: the Mark II, the Clubman and the Mark III. Within these was a series of variations including an estate car A station wagon is a passenger automobile with a body style similar to a sedan, or saloon, but with the roofline following the full, sometimes extended rear cargo area and sometimes an extra row of sometimes rear-facing seats, ending with a more vertical door than on a hatchback, a pickup truck A pickup truck is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area (bed) which is almost always separated from the cab to allow for chassis flex when carrying or pulling heavy loads.[citation needed], a van A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people. It is usually a box-shaped vehicle on four wheels, about the same width and length as a large automobile, but taller and usually higher off the ground, also referred to as a light commercial vehicle or LCV. However, in North America, the term may be used to refer to any and the Mini Moke The Mini Moke is a vehicle based on the Mini and designed for the British Motor Corporation by Sir Alec Issigonis. The name comes from "Mini"—the car with which the Moke shares many parts—and "Moke", which is an archaic dialect term for donkey—a jeep Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler. It is the oldest off-road vehicle (also sport utility vehicle – SUV) brand. It inspired a number of other military Light Utility Vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second oldest 4-wheel-drive brand. The original Jeep vehicle that first appeared as the prototype Bantam BRC became the primary-like buggy. The Mini Cooper and Cooper "S" were sportier versions that were successful as rally cars Rallying is a form of motor competition that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. This motorsport is distinguished by running not on a circuit, but instead in a point-to-point format in which participants and their co-drivers drive between set control points , leaving at regular, winning the Monte Carlo Rally The Monte Carlo Rally is a rallying event organized each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco who also organizes the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix and the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique. The rally takes place along the French Riviera in the Principality of Monaco and southeast France four times from 1964 through to 1967, although in 1966 the Mini was disqualified after the finish, along with six other British entrants, which included the first four cars to finish, under a questionable ruling that the cars had used an illegal combination of headlamps and spotlights.^[9] Initially Minis were marketed under the Austin The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The trademark is currently owned by Nanjing Automitive and Morris The Morris Motor Company was a British car manufacturing company. After the incorporation of the company into larger corporations, the Morris name remained in use as a marque until 1984 when British Leyland's Austin Rover Group decided to concentrate on the more popular Austin marque names, as the Austin Seven and Morris Mini Minor, until Mini became a marque A marque is a brand name, especially in the automobile industry. For example, Chevrolet and Buick are marques of their maker, General Motors (GM). A company may have many marques; GM has used more than a dozen in the North American market alone in its own right in 1969.^[10][11] The Mini was again marketed under the Austin name in the 1980s.

Design and development

Designed as project ADO15 (Austin The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The trademark is currently owned by Nanjing Automitive Drawing Office project number 15), the Mini came about because of a fuel shortage caused by the 1956 Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, was a war fought by Britain, France, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956.^[12] Petrol was once again rationed in the UK, sales of large cars slumped, the market for German Bubble cars boomed. Leonard Lord, the somewhat autocratic An autocracy is a form of government in which one person possesses unlimited power. An autocrat is a person ruling with unlimited authority. The term autocrat is derived from the word autokratōr (αὐτοκράτωρ, lit. "self-ruler", or "one who rules by himself"). It is distinct from oligarchy ("rule by the few") head of BMC, reportedly detested these cars so much that he vowed to rid the streets of them and design a 'proper miniature car'.^[13] He laid down some basic design requirements: the car should be contained within a box that measured 10 × 4 × 4 ft (3 × 1.2 × 1.2 m); and the passenger accommodation should occupy 6 ft (1.8 m) of the 10 ft (3 m) length; and the engine, for reasons of cost, should be an existing unit. Issigonis, who had been working for Alvis, had been recruited back to BMC in 1955 and, with his skills in designing small cars, was a natural for the task. The team that designed the Mini was remarkably small: as well as Issigonis, there was Jack Daniels (who had worked with him on the Morris Minor The Morris Minor was a British motor car aimed at the family market. It was the work of a team led by Alec Issigonis, who would go on to design the successful Mini. The Minor was launched at the Earls Court Motor Show, London, on 20 September 1948. The prototype had been known as the Morris Mosquito, and some later models were called Morris Minor 1), Chris Kingham (who had been with him at Alvis), two engineering students and four draughtsmen. Together, by October 1957, they had designed and built the original prototype, which was affectionately named "The Orange Box" because of its colour.^[3]

The ADO15 used a conventional BMC A-Series Austin Motor Company's small straight-4 automobile engine, the A-Series, is one of the most common in the world. Launched in 1951 with the Austin A30, production lasted until 2000 in the Mini. It used a cast-iron block and cylinder head, and a steel crankshaft with 3 main bearings. The cylinder head for the overhead valve version of the Austin four-cylinder The Inline-four engine or Straight-four engine is an internal combustion engine with all four cylinders mounted in a straight line, or plane along the crankcase. The single bank of cylinders may be oriented in either a vertical or an inclined plane with all the pistons driving a common crankshaft. Where it is inclined, it is sometimes called a water-cooled Water cooling is a method of heat removal from components. As opposed to air cooling, water is used as the heat transmitter. Water cooling is commonly used for cooling internal combustion engines in automobiles and large electrical generators. Other uses include cooling the barrels of machine guns, cooling of lubricant oil in pumps; for cooling engine,^[14] but departed from tradition by mounting it transversely A transverse engine is an engine in which the crankshaft is oriented side-to-side relative to the length of the vehicle. This is also sometimes called an east-west engine. Most modern front wheel drive vehicles use this engine orientation , while most rear wheel drive vehicles use a front-to-back longitudinal arrangement, with the engine-oil-lubricated, four-speed transmission in the sump A sump is a low space that collects any often-undesirable liquids such as water or chemicals. A sump can also be an infiltration basin used to manage surface runoff water and recharge underground aquifers, and by employing front-wheel drive Front-wheel drive is a form of engine/transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longitudinal engine arrangement generally found in rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive vehicles. Almost all small front-wheel-drive cars developed since have used a similar configuration, except with the transmission usually separately enclosed rather than using the engine oil. The radiator was mounted at the left side of the car so that the engine-mounted fan could be retained, but with reversed pitch so that it blew air into the natural low pressure area under the front wing. This location saved precious vehicle length, but had the disadvantage of feeding the radiator with air that had been heated by passing over the engine. It also exposed the entire ignition system to the direct ingress of rainwater through the grille.

The suspension Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels. Suspension systems serve a dual purpose – contributing to the car's roadholding/handling and braking for good active safety and driving pleasure, and keeping vehicle occupants comfortable and reasonably well isolated from system, designed by Issigonis's friend Dr. Alex Moulton at Moulton Developments Limited, used compact rubber cones instead of conventional springs. This ingenious space-saving design also featured rising progressive-rate springing of the cones, and provided some natural damping. Built into the subframes, the rubber cone system gave a raw and bumpy ride which was accentuated by the woven-webbing seats, but the rigidity of the rubber cones, together with the wheels being pushed out to the corners of the car, gave the Mini go kart Kart racing or karting is a variant of open-wheel motor sport with small, open, four-wheeled vehicles called karts, go-karts, or gearbox/shifter karts depending on the design. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits. Karting is commonly perceived as the stepping stone to the higher and more expensive ranks of motorsports-like handling that would become famous.

Initially an interconnected fluid system was planned—similar to the one that Alec Issigonis and Alex Moulton were working on in the mid-1950s at Alvis. They had assessed the mechanically interconnected Citroen 2CV The Citroën 2CV was an economy car produced by the French automaker Citroën from 1948-1990. It was technologically advanced and innovative, but with uncompromisingly utilitarian unconventional looks, and deceptively simple Bauhaus inspired bodywork, that belied the sheer quality of its underlying engineering. It was designed to move the French suspension at that time (according to an interview by Moulton with CAR magazine in the late 1990s), which inspired the design of the Hydrolastic suspension system for the Mini and Morris/Austin 1100, to try to keep the benefits of the 2CV system (ride comfort, body levelling, keeping the roadwheel under good control and the tyre in contact with the road), but with added roll stiffness that the 2CV was very much lacking. The short development time of the car meant this was not ready in time for the Mini's launch. The system intended for the Mini was further developed and the hydrolastic Hydrolastic is a type of space-efficient automotive suspension system used in many cars produced by British Motor Corporation and its successor companies system was first used on the Morris 1100, launched in 1962; the Mini gained the system later in 1964. Ten-inch (254 mm) wheels were specified, so new tyres had to be developed, the initial contract going to Dunlop Dunlop Rubber was a British company which manufactured tyres and other rubber products for most of the 20th century. It was taken over by BTR plc in 1985. Since then, ownership of the Dunlop brands has been fragmented. Issigonis went to Dunlop stating that he wanted even smaller, 8 in (203 mm) wheels (even though he had already settled on ten-inch). An agreement was made on the ten-inch size, after Dunlop choked on the eight-inch proposition.

Sliding windows allowed storage pockets in the hollow doors; reportedly Issigonis sized them to fit a bottle of Gordon's Gin.^[7] The boot The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage, luggage, or cargo compartment. Trunk is used in North American English and Jamaican English; boot is used elsewhere in the English speaking world. Trunk is also primarily used in many non-English speaking regions, such as East Asia. In earlier usage, a boot was a built-in lid was hinged at the bottom so that the car could be driven with it open to increase luggage space. On early cars the number plate A vehicle registration plate is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies the vehicle within the issuing region's database. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, while was hinged at the top so that it could swing down to remain visible when the boot lid was open. This feature was later discontinued after it was discovered that exhaust gases could leak into the cockpit when the boot was open.

The Mini was designed as a monocoque Monocoque is a construction technique that supports structural load by using an object's exterior, as opposed to using an internal frame or truss that is then covered with a non-load-bearing skin or coachwork. The word monocoque comes from the Greek for single and French for shell (coque). The technique may also be called structural skin, stressed shell with welded seams visible on the outside of the car running down the A and C pillars Pillars are the vertical supports of the greenhouse of a closed automobile body. They are referred to with letters, such as "A-pillar", "B-pillar" and so forth, moving from the front of the windshield to the rear of the car, and between the body and the floor pan. To further simplify construction, the hinges for the doors and boot lid were mounted externally.

Production models differed from the prototypes by the addition of front and rear subframes to the unibody to take the suspension loads, and by having the engine mounted the other way round, with the carburettor A carburetor or carburettor (Commonwealth spelling) is a device that blends air and fuel for an internal combustion engine. It was invented by Karl Benz before 1885 and patented in 1886. It is colloquially called a carb (in North America and the United Kingdom) at the back rather than at the front. This layout required an extra gear between engine and transmission A transmission or gearbox provides speed and torque conversions from a rotating power source to another device using gear ratios. In British English the term transmission refers to the whole drive train, including gearbox, clutch, prop shaft , differential and final drive shafts. The most common use is in motor vehicles, where the transmission to reverse the direction of rotation at the input to the transmission. Having the carburettor behind the engine reduced carburettor icing Carburetor icing is an icing condition which can affect any carburetor under certain atmospheric conditions. Carb icing occurs when there is humid air, and the temperature drop in the venturi causes the water vapour to freeze. The ice will form on the surfaces of the carburetor throat, further restricting it. This may increase the venturi effect, but the distributor A distributor is a device in the ignition system of an internal combustion engine that routes high voltage from the ignition coil to the spark plugs in the correct firing order. The first reliable battery operated ignition was developed by Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co. and introduced in the 1910 Cadillac. This ignition was developed by was then exposed to water coming in through the grille. The engine size was reduced from 948 cc to 848 cc; this, in conjunction with a small increase in the car's width, cut the top speed from 90 mph The mile per hour is a unit of speed, measured in Imperial units expressing the number of international miles covered per hour (145 km/h The kilometre per hour is a unit of speed or velocity, expressing the number of kilometres traveled in one hour. The unit symbol is km/h or km·h−1; however, the colloquial abbreviations "kph" and "kmph" are sometimes also used in English-speaking countries, in analogy to mph, although these are not in accordance with) to a more reasonable (for the time) 72 mph (116 km/h).

Despite its utilitarian origins, the classic Mini shape had become so well known that by the 1990s, Rover Group MG Rover was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000—the heirs to BMC—were able to register its design as a trade mark in its own right.^[15]

Show All>>

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Economy Car: Blogs
• Economy Car: Dictionary
• Economy Car: Encyclopedia
• Encyclopedia
• Search Terms
• Economy Car: Images
• Images
• Answers
• Economy Car: Answers

Most Popular Pages:

• Dacia Logan: Encyclopedia
• Pajero: Blogs
• Search Terms
• Nissan Skyline: Blogs
• Daihatsu Mira::Gallery: Encyclopedia
• Kit Cars and Replicas: Images
• Curling: Answers
• Ford Explorer 4x4 Sportrac: Images
• Metric System: Images
• Dacia Logan: Blogs

Related 'Mini' Searches: