A Look Back at the Original 1959 Classic Mini w/Photo Gallery
There are countless stories on this website, in books and magazines about the launch of the original Classic Mini 60 years ago. But sometimes photos themeslves tell the story. What you see here is the answer to a late 50’s fuel shortage and some brilliant engineering. Because of the fuel rationing at this time the market for German bubble cars boomed, even in countries like Britain where imported cars were still a rarity. The Fiat 500, launched in 1957, was also hugely successful – especially in its native Italy.
As you can imagine British Motor Cars (BMC) wanted in on the action. Leonard Lord, the somewhat autocratic head of BMC, reportedly detested these cars so much that he vowed to rid the streets of them and design a ‘proper miniature car’. He laid down some basic design requirements: the car should be contained within a box that measured 10×4×4 feet (3.0×1.2×1.2 m); and the passenger accommodation should occupy 6 feet (1.8 m) of the 10-foot (3.0 m) length; and the engine, for reasons of cost, should be an existing unit.
Alec Issigonis, who had been working for Alvis, had been recruited back to BMC in 1955 with a brief from Lord to design a range of technically advanced family cars in the same innovative spirit as his earlier Morris Minor to complement BMC’s existing conventional models. Issigonis had set out design projects for three cars – large and small family cars and a very small economy car. His initial work was on the largest car, designated XC9001, with the smallest car, XC9003, having the lowest priority despite it being Issigonis’ greatest personal interest. With Lord’s dictum to produce a bubble car competitor and his revised design requirements being laid down in October 1956, work on XC9001 stopped and XC9003 became the priority. 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), Chris Kingham (who had been with him at Alvis), two engineering students and four draughtsmen. Together, by July 1957, they had designed and built the original XC9003 prototype, which was affectionately named “The Orange Box” because of its colour. Leonard Lord approved the car for production on 19 July and XC9003 became project ADO15.
The rest is history. There’s plenty more to dig into around the brilliant design and engineering in that original 1959 Mini but for now let’s look back at an excellent example plucked from the BMW archives. It’s all original with plenty of hard earned patina.
Parts of the above history is courtesy of Wikipedia
The ‘Old English White’ Morris Mini-Minor featured is a very famous Mini – it was in fact the first Mini to roll off the Cowley Production Line in Oxford on May 8, 1959 and was never sold. 621 AOK was used as an everyday hack by engineers to carry them around the vast Cowley production site. Eventually the Mini became a little worse for wear, but rather than sell it, BMC decided to keep it and in due course it was fully restored by a group of apprentices, and is today kept on show at the British Heritage Motor Museum, and duly rolled out from time to time on special occasions.
A showcase in space utilisation – 80% of its 10ft length is given over to passenger accommodation – nothing like it before or since has ever been built for production. Together with its transverse mounted front engine and front-wheel drive, gearbox in sump and a wheel at each corner, as a concept it was a revolution. Unfortunately, the decision was made to sign it off for production, and thus began a domino effect which ultimately brought the British motor industry to its knees. No one since, including BMW, has ever been able to make decent money from building small Minis.
<p>The featured ‘Old English White’ Morris Mini-Minor is a very famous Mini – it was in fact the first Mini to roll off the Cowley Production Line in Oxford on May 8, 1959 and was never sold. 621 AOK was used as an everyday hack to carry engineers around the vast Cowley production site. Eventually 621 AOK became a little worse for wear, but rather than sell it, BMC decided to keep it and in due course it was fully restored by a group of Cowley apprentices, and is today kept on show at the British Heritage Motor Museum, and duly rolled out from time to time for special occasions.</p>
<p>A showcase in space utilisation – 80% of the Mini’s 10ft length is given over to passenger accommodation – nothing like it before or since has ever been built for production. Fatefully, the decision was made to sign it off for production, and thus began a domino effect which ultimately brought the British Motor Corporation to its knees. No one since, including BMW, has ever been able to make decent money from building small Minis.</p>
<p>With the sun rising in the East heralding a new dawn and the prospect of a joint venture, maybe – just maybe – the future is looking bright for building a commercially viable all-new all-electric small MINI, pencilled in for late 2022.</p>
<p>Slightly off topic, but having previously been resident in the City of Oxford for almost a quarter of a century, I recognise all the locations depicted in the adjoining photos. In the header photo behind the Mini is the Eagle and Child pub.</p>
<p>The Eagle and Child Public House was built around 1680, and from late 1933 became the regular meeting place for the “Inklings”, an Oxford writers’ group which included CS Lewis (Alice In Wonderland) and JRR Tolkien (Lord Of The Rings).</p>
<p>Did the original mini have a full spare tyre, would be my main comment on the modern bmw mini.</p>
<p>Runflats are awful on a car. if you get a flat “old” school you would changed the flat for the spare. Take the flat to be repaired. On your way.</p>
<p>The current Mini has runflats. Noise, poor handling, prone to punctures, etc… No one likes them.</p>
<p>If have a flat you use a can of gue that destroys the tyre and you have up to 80 km to get home before the runflat destroys itself. If you have a Cooper you can go with space safer.</p>
<p>This may be safe in urban areas, but country or rural the old school method was safer and more environmental.</p>
<p>So will the electric mini have space for a “full” spare tyre?</p>
<p>After 60 years some automotive changes runflats or space safer spares have been a backwards step compared to a having a full spare tyre.</p>
<p>Just my thoughts.</p>
<p>Completely agree. The links below to Autocar’s video hot hatch comparison, prove the point. The Cooper S is well and truly spanked by the Ford ST and Toyota Yaris because it is on runflats.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-video/video-hot-hatch-track-battle-ford-fiesta-st-v-mini-cooper-s-v-toyota-yaris-grmn" rel="nofollow ugc">https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-video/video-hot-hatch-track-battle-ford-fiesta-st-v-mini-cooper-s-v-toyota-yaris-grmn</a></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/NMfxma5aVxM" rel="nofollow ugc">https://youtu.be/NMfxma5aVxM</a></p>