Automobile Magazine has a fascinating article about taking four Minis (one classic three new) through France and following some of the old Monte Carlo Rallye circuit from the 60's. Here are a couple excerpts:

“It's been forty-one years since a brigade of Private and Works Minis first charged through this part of the world, conquering the impossibly grueling Coupe des Alpes Rally and claiming a spot in the hearts of garages of automotive enthusiasts in England and beyond for generations to come. From where we sit, hustling cover one-and-a-half-lane country roads and puttering through centuries-old villages, it's hard to imagine anything's changed in those four decades…

…As good as the modern Mini is on it's own, you really appreciate the brilliance of it of it only when it steps out with the car that is its bug-eyed inspiration. The sight is a rare and indelible treat for an American – considering the scarcity of old Minis in the States–and one that fixes the brand's mystique in ways no amount of clever advertising can.

When you drive the original back-to-back with a 2004 model, you realize, first of all, just how far the craft of automaking has come in forty-five years, in terms of occupant protection, level of equipment, and suppression of noise, vibration, and harshness. But you realize something else, too, something more surprising. Heated seats and xenon headlamps are all well and good, but it's the things that make a car a car–how it goes, how it stops, and how it turns–that truly defines a vehicle. And by that standard, the BMW-engineered iteration holds remarkably true to the car engineered by Sir Alec Issigonis. In an age when retro too often suggests nothing more than fake scoops or ovoid headlamps, the modern MINI stands apart. it embraces not merely the delightful appearance of it's forebear but its soul as well.”

Go check out the whole article at the newsstands (it's not available online).