Happy Birthday - "Mini"

[Sir Limpsalot]

Yep, 50 years ago today 26th August 1959 the Mini first hit the streets. A clever design, remarkable for the time, it changed the face of motoring forever. Well, it did in Europe but I'm not sure how true that is where you live.
For a while it was the coolest car on the street. Forget Jaguars and Ferrari's, if you wanted to get attention you needed a Mini. The Beatles all drove them, as did Peter Sellers and Steve Mcqueen. Although his was the full on Cooper "S" (you guessed that, didn't you?).

The organisers of the Monte Carlo Rally, the biggest motor sport event in Europe back then, got so fed up with the Mini winning that they had to "invent" new rules to stop it doing so. Bastards.

Of course, it wasn't all good news. It hastened the decline of the "ride to work" motorcyclist, it didn't cost much more than a bike, could carry four people and kept you dry. Even if your journey took a little longer you saved time at the start and finish by not having to get kitted up.

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Si.

[1MPH]

HBMini

[BobFV1]

I really liked the "old" ones. There werre a bunch of them in Malaysia when I lived there in the late 90's - the Japanese had developed a little aluminum block engine for them that made some decent horsepower, but it still wouldn't run an A/C compressor!

[Dirty Doug]

I always thought the British Motor Corp. hit a home run with the Mini. It was the late Alec Issigonis that came up with the idea of turning the engine sideways. This was a new concept at the time and has now become almost common place. So HAPPY B-DAY MINI....

Dirty Doug

[Gord]

I love the Mini! I brought my 1964 Morris Mini Minor to Canada from the UK in 1999. "Bacon" (nicknamed after its English plate of BLT 711B) won Best of Class at the Toronto Triumph Club's British Car Day in September, 2000. I sold Bacon in 2004 to buy my first motorcyle - my 2004 R1150R. I miss Bacon to this day and am thinking I need to buy another vintage Mini (although my wife would have me sell Klink, my 2008 K1200S to make that happen!!!). I'll post a few pics when I am back home and have access to my photo files!

[GPM]

I had a Cooper S for a short while when I was in college back in the 70's. Of course, the cool factor of owning that was completely offset by the Austin America I owned prior to the Mini. Ended up with a 67 MGB, I kind of miss the 70's...

[JCsman]

I had a Cooper S for a short while when I was in college back in the 70's. Of course, the cool factor of owning that was completely offset by the Austin America I owned prior to the Mini. Ended up with a 67 MGB, I kind of miss the 70's...

You have me beat Harry, I had a Morris Minor and a very sorry Sunbeam Alpine. Plus I kind of missed the '70's.

But I came to well before 1980 was over.

[Wild Will]

One of my first memories is of our local gas station owner in New York, circa 1952, holding up the front end of my Mom's mini single handedly. I thought he was Superman, and made Dad take me to "Kenny's Esso" at least weekly to poke around and look for further clues as to this superman's real identity. I also recall you could see the Empire State building from our house on a clear day, although it was 45 miles away.

All hail the Mini, and Britain in general, because your Meriden twin's hit me hard when I was a lad, and took over a significant portion of my young life. Today I looked long and hard at the BMW/Triumph dealer's new black Thruxton, at $8,500 rand new. It's good I didn't ride it, because I already had a new Honda Rancher 4X4 in the pickup bed, and I'm certainly not as flush as Dean...

[DarthRider]

A classic bike buddy in Dallas had a *nice* Mini Cooper S in about 1988 or so. Fully restored but with a bit more "go" than the standard S (is that an oxymoron?), metallic blue bottom, Union Jack top, right-hand drive, the whole British Shebang!

We were cruising around one Sunday, stopped for a light in the right hand lane of a divided 4-lane.
Some yuppie tool pulled up in his new "Bimmer", looked over at us and gave us his best, and obviously practiced dismissive sneer. Then sealed his doom when he romped on the gas, obviously to show us it had a manual transmission and really meant business.
My bud looked over at me from the right-hand seat, grinned and said, "Watch this!"
When the light turned green, Biffy launched the Bimmer hard. Imagine his angst when, by the time he reached the other side of the intersection, the little Mini had lit the little front tires across the intersection, hooked 2nd with a loud "CHIRP!", and was driving hard towards 3rd...about 3 car lengths ahead!
The Biffster soft-pedalled the Mighty Bimmer, fell back and turned left, first chance he got.
Somehow I bet he "forgot" to mention his big race to Buffy when he returned to the MacMansion!:icon10:

[Gord]

Here are a few pictures of my 1964 Morris Mini Minor. These were taken at my previous abode in Churchill, Ontario. I brought the car over to Canada in the summer of 1999 with the help of Bank Garage (I believe they are now out of business). I kept the car until February, 2004 when I decided I wanted to take up two wheeled conveyance! The last picture was taken on the day Bacon's new owner came to pick him up. I am smiling, but in reality it was sad to see him go.

I bought the Heritage Certificate for the car, and was delighted to discover that all serial numbers matched and that the car's configuration was exactly as it was when it came off the production line (apart from the front grille which I believe was an after-market add on).

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