had a mini 850 new in 1968 . had a new mini van in 1972 .£550 including radial tyres . went to donnington park to the 25 th anniversary of the original mini. remember seeing the first ones in the showrooms 1959 / 1960 .as a10 year old boy . now 74 in march this year. my mum was an insurance agent collected the money house to hose .the mini was the best car in snow ,they would go anywhere.
minis have feelings too.. I remember seeing that advert when I was a kid.. so now that im 25 I have one currently being restored but these old films give me a boost in getting it done perfect :-)
No longer own that particular mini as it was stolen, all that time and effort for nothing, now I own a mk2 escort but I still have the urge for a proper mini and so the escort will be for sale very soon
I have very fond memories of the original Mini, a car that will never be repeated. it was bought by celebrities and the common people alike. The modern Mini is nowhere as groundbreaking as the original. Thank you Issigonis for giving us a motoring icon that transcended social classes. Princess Dianna drove one of those....
For a long time, when I wanted a "new" car, I looked for a mini, but they were always too much for my price bracket. I have had some nice cars, byt still wish I had owned one. Enjoyed the doc, thank you.
An uncle of mine who was a somtime actor,English and resident In LA sold British Imports new and 2nd hand mostly Jaguars,MG's Austin Healeys, and anything else that he could gets his hands on that the West Coast folk took their fancy to. All this inbetween bit parts in Maverick and similar TV stuff where an English accent was required. He sold loads of cars to the Hollywood folk as well. He came over and spent Christmas 1959 with us ,turning up in a n Austina7 mini which he had picked up from the factory on that Christmas eve morning.It was right hand drive,He was having a batch order of about 30 lefthookers knocked on out in suitable colours for LA. He was not an Austin Dealer ,but maybe they hoped h might become one. I think he spent the first 3 months of 1960 in uk and had the use of thay mini the whole time. It might have taken 3 month tp ship the order to The West Coast,proably SF ,I do'nt know, He died in the Uk in the early 2000's and into his 80's he was still turning up on uk tv in bit parts. That 1959 mini saloon was kinda primrose yellow, not the best early mini colour! I should he was an average actor and a better car salesman in
A great upload! I have a 1998 classic Mini Cooper MPi rebuilt over the last 6+ years and worth 7k+. It's garaged a lot in our front mini garage, but when I do take it out it shines.
I have a 4x4 Merc that gets me around in great comfort but for which I care very little. I also have a '93 restored customized 1293cc mini that is noisy and uncomfortable but an absolute pleasure.
I worked at British Leyland for 17 years after Stokes, later Lord Stokes was brought in. He had led the very successful Leyland Trucks and Buses and from what we were told was asked by the UK government to take over BMC. In any case, the Mini was bloody magic, does anyone here recall Mini Sport in Padiham Lancs?
The boss of Rover declaring that the Minis in the Italian Job were Coopers....most weren't being copirs and last we saw of the Minis being chucked out the back of the coach were 998s
Still remember the first time I drove a mini, a company minivan, reg. 5 UPD, an early 60's one. Some County Councils were running out of registration numbers by then and started re-issuing deregistered ones before the suffixes were introduced in 64.
My old floor start , long gear shift ,clapped out 850cc Mini van , had the reg 604 FWD, wish I still had the number plate , let alone the vehicle. :-) Ran out of fuel, those tanks would rust along the join, drove about 2 miles on the battery and starter.
I have to put my rose tinted glasses on to watch this, all I remember is dreading the MOT because it was always A pillars, sills, subframes, window frame, subframes mounts, floor pans and boot floors all turning to dust, radius arms, ball joints, subframe rubber mounts and exhaust mounts all falling to bits. Add to this the stupidly placed bypass hose, the poor heater, rattling timing chains and the flipping constant oil leak from the gear selector you could never cure even though you had four or five seals down the shaft I remember them slightly differently.
@@marymoffatt2060 sorry Mary yes I forgot that one, just remembered the battery box rotting through and the battery hanging through the floor, the piece of compressed cardboard, yes compressed cardboard used to stop rain spraying onto the distributor that used to, well, believe it or not, used to get wet and rot and fall off so the dizzy got wet and would not start or would misfire, the p*ss poor lights that resembled candles in front of mince pie foil trays, the exhaust cotton reels that always used to break, still, good old British product 👍🏼
@@bonkeydollocks1879 And many of its features were incorporated in the Austin 1100, with their knocking breathless low geared motors almost constantly lined up to be overhauled in the operation where I earned pocket money in 1975. Subframes coming loose as the body mounts rotted, the juddering engines needing a brace bar, wet feet from rainwater swilling around the footwells, and always copious amounts of fibreglass and filler in the sills and wings. Was any family car really any better though in the 1960s and 70s? Fords, Vauxhalls, Hillmans and anything Japanese, or French were all rot boxes and only Volvos and Mercedes saw 60,000 miles without open heart surgery? And don't start me on the Metro which was supposedly the Mini's successor- Waxoyling my mother's new one didn't stop holes appearing around the headlights at 5 years old. The irony now is that cars don't rust, but you can't fix anything much under the bonnet on your driveway any more.
I was the passenger in one when a loaded Dump Truck made a right turn across the lane in front of us,it literally drove up and over the front end. He didnt motice anything amiss and kept going.#writeoff Mini
My first car when legal was an original Black 1275 with MG metro engine ,webasto roof , bucket seats even a rear wiper it handled sublimely in the lanes. CHM 181V
It is forever amazing that these numbties got this half right in the end. I think Issigonis was the only one who knew what he was actually doing. Management was totally baffled.
I remember reading last year that four brand new minis were found in shipping containers near hull , they had been destined for delivery to turkey ( the country not the chicken ! ) but were left behind due to some paperwork cockup and then left in a yard and forgotten. They were discovered when the unopened containers were sold for scrap , the landowner thought they were empty :-(
The rot started when Accountants took over the running of Motor Manufacturers from Engineers, if a car is popular with the public it will support the companies bottom line even if each one only makes a small profit. Killing the Mini signed a death warrant. BMW have a cheek calling the new Mini a Mini, just cashing in on a legendary name. Mini it is not as far larger with less space inside.
Apart the fact that the Mini never made money, they sold at less than cost, if it was a Cooper it lost even more due to a royalty fee going to John Cooper 😎
You've had my 1959 story,I myself have never owned one,I started driving in I968 despite the fact that they were on nearly 10years old even the worst examples ( described by others as real buckets of rust) they were not cheap,and risky tor that reason, If you really love them ,it was best to buy new or nearly new,but that money could get somthing a bit more intreresting and as a young fellow of that time,who still lived at home,it had to be,bench seat column change, which of course mean't romance in the dry and warm. I am sure many a slimfit couple began their relationship in a mini,but for myself ,they could cramp style. The mini was a great town car,a great country laner,but too much of an acoustic box to be driven a lot on motorways of the day. People did of course and I was inclined to hire one or two as they were a cheap option was a weekend away. No more to say except I do miss them,and we can not count in the BMW offering as that is just somthing different. Paddy Hopkirk did great things to and with the mini/cooper etc.
In 1976 I had a 1966 Mini ... purple with a white roof. 10 years had taken its toll on the silly rear suspension/subframe bushes. Front Pipe to Manifold clamp always coming loose because engine steady bar bushes were shot. Glad to see the back of it when my FORD Capri arrived.
Nuts and bolts economics didn't kill the Mini as it never made any money anyway. Occupant and pedestrian safety done for it. Emissions compliance could of been managed given time and money but, the shell could never be reworked to satisfy safety regs.
Owning quite a few and working at longbridge in 1980 I really believe the biggest mistake they made was not building a factory in every part of the world producing minis for every country
The Mini, just like the Model T, the 2CV and the VW Bug, were designed with a purpose in mind - the purpose of providing a cheap and economical form of transport for the people. Today´s car design has the purpose of earning huge profits - and that´s why we still drive expensive, costly to maintain and stinking petrol cars.
What comes across to me, that alot of the manufacturing and processes seemed to have been done on a wing and a prayer; .probably then no surprise that BMC eventuality met its destiny and disappeared
FFS The Rover boss saying BMC forgot about fwd..... Erm millions of ADO16 best selling car nearly every year in the 60's and early 70's, Austin 1800, Maxi, Triumph 1300, Toledo
A FWD car needs Constant-Velocity U-joints for steering, and these had always been bulky double-cardan units. Then some boffin decided that those were not good enough for the control rods in British nuclear submarines, and paid a million pounds for a special machine to make the Rzeppa pattern. This compact unit was the key to the whole FWD revolution.
Two cars I have never driven - a mini (original) and a Reliant three wheeler. I am 66 yrs by the way, so I have driven/owned a vast number of different cars.
@@horsenuts1831 Having nearly rolled my 1956 Reliant I sold it for a Wolseley Hornet Mini, what a difference ! My favourite 3 wheelers have to be the Berkeley T60 and the Bond 875 . I had two 875's , extremely stable an extremely fast ! Many T60's had Mini engine transplants too !
@@horsenuts1831 I nearly rolled my Reliant in 1972 so exchanged it for a Wolseley Hornet Mini, what a difference ! My favourite 3 wheelers though were the Berkeley T60's and the Bond 875's. Many T60's interestingly had Mini engine transplants . I've had two 875's, ( Hillman Imp engines ) very stable and very fast !
@@adrianpolley9419 OHH! Posh. A boot and wood trim. Don't forget the Riley Elf. The Imp. I'd rather forget, first extra on any Imp, two concrete blocks in the front, so you had some chance of the direction you wanted.
Why the hell was the mini sold as a Morris, Austin, Riley and Wolseley. Having such big mouths in the British industry, they sure as hell do NOT know the first thing about business. Sell one thing under four different companies gets you to divide the profit by four. Daft as a brush.
great design, innovative & killed the bubble car in one swoop! shame they didnt refine it at all. nightmare to produce. made zero profit for the company and it leaked like a sieve on launch because no one thought of testing it in the rain. its a classic alright ;) also a ******* to work on. anyone whos had one will recall scraped knuckles in the winter trying to fix the thing. jack knight designed the gearbox in a weekend. the a-series engine was never updated in 50 years. crash protection was zero. just ask marc bolan. i had a mini as my 1st car and learned things like rubber washing up gloves fashioned to fit the ignition leads though and stretch over the dizzy kept the engine running in the rain. Another one of those didnt bother to test thing. Ironically BMC had some of the most talented engineers in the country. Alas political infighting meant great ideas and solutions fell on deaf ears.
Only the Yellow Marigolds! Never the pink ones, you had to have some street cred. Cut the fingers of fto go over the dizzy, the finger bits over the plugs,
Well, prior to 1979 we were the third largest producer of cars in the world. Then came Maggie sodding Thatcher. Yes, the British motor industry had it's problems, many of them management rather than worker issues, but the Tories sold us out (quelle surpise).
Willy Morris, really, what a misogynist, racist, homophobic arsehole. No wonder Issigonis buggered off to Alvis right away. Thank God, Leonard Lord was able to get him back. I don't even care for the stuff Morris did after his retirement. It's all charitable, but has a really foul taste to it when you know about this episode.
