Saw a Mini (original) on the Motorway today and thought its the definitive compact car.
Its surely Impossible to get anything built to the same size now due to safety regs? But it sure does make all other small cars look bloated with wasted space.
It must be the general expanding car bloat and weight that makes it look so small now, but didn`t they handle well on those rubber cones?
The startling thing to me is that the small size is starting to make them look more modern in concept than today`s offerings.
Any thoughts?
Regards
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I'd a 1963 customised 850cc and a 1974 998cc.Very noisy mechanically and uncomfortable. Spent most of my leisure time on service, repairs and removing rust etc. Learned a lot about DIY though.
Amazing size for a 4 seater but compared to a modern mini like a Getz or Panda much less civilised .Fine for short runs on twisty roads and speeds were apparently much faster and exciting.
[My Passat Estate takes the same '13 bends' route in Derbyshire with much greater ease than the Mini ever did.]
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"Spent most of my leisure time on service, repairs and removing rust etc. Learned a lot about DIY though."
Me too, just about every Saturday morning. Set you up well for the future though and saved a fortune on servicing as a result, right up to today.
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Any thoughts?
Yes, Fiat 500. I think you're probably right, but the Fiat 500 may be the closest thing to the old Mini. It comes out on the 21st.
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The only modern equivalent of the original concept is the current Ford Ka. Simple, no frills, low cost / high fun motoring.
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The only modern equivalent of the original concept is the current Ford Ka. Simple no frills low cost / high fun motoring.
Ah yes, and you've even got the rust :)
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Yeah .....a bit.......s'pose :-(
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And the Ka even had a pushrod engine with its roots in the 1950's until quite recently, although at least Ford didn't make you go to the aftermarket for the 5 speed gearbox claiming it was "technically impossible".
My first car was a 1976 Mini 850, and yes it was noisy, uncomfortable, slow, tiring, spartan, rusty, mechanically unreliable, a total pig to work on, and had no brakes worthy of the name. But the cars I've driven since that planted anything like the same grin on my face had Lotus and Cosworth badges on the back. That direct steering and bobbly ride, the hairtrigger throttle response and the sheer agility of the thing. I haven't driven a Mini for years, but I suspect I'd still enjoy it today. And yes, it always amazed people how much space was inside it, although in 850 trim, it was pedestrian to the point of "are we going to make it up this hill?" when loaded four-up.
My sister has an early 1997 Ka 1.3 and I get the same feeling when driving it. Kart-like handling, an engine which hides its lack of power with surprising mid range zip, and the ability to make 60 mph on a good B-road feel heroic as you play with its balance on the throttle and superbly weighted steering! The Ka simply adds refinement and the ability to tackle a motorway without breaking out the earplugs.
Take legal and marketing departments out of the equation and the BMW version is no more relevant to the discussion than a 5 series. A completely different car for completely different buyers.
Cheers
DP
Edited by DP on 15/01/2008 at 08:41
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The only modern equivalent of the original concept is the current Ford Ka. Simple no frills low cost / high fun motoring.
The BMC Mini was space utilisation like we've never see before, or since. See one next to a BMW Mini and you realise just how well the space was used. The Ka is just a fashion exercise on a Fiesta platform.
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Not denying the design led roots of the Ka, RT. Just suggesting that its raw concept is based on providing a pragmatic and utilitarian transport solution which bears comparison with the original Mini. Much more so in fact than its namesake successor.
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"pragmatic and utilitarian transport" could have been acheived by putting Fiesta mk1 back into production although I'll accept that Ka is much nearer the spirit of BMC Mini than BMW Mini, I never got the point of that.
Incidently, I saw my first BMW Clubman recently - they just look hideous - calling it Clubman whose naming rights they have, rather than Traveller is just taking the mickey.
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The mini most of us know was compromised in space efficiency. The mini as it rolled off the line in the late 50's wasn't.
The huge door pockets gave you masses of elbow room and storage space, thanks to the sliding windows and pull string door opener. Brilliant. - Lost of course to wind-up windows, door cards and fancy door opening links.
The single speedo in the centre with the full width and deep shelf underneath. - Gone in later minis
The space under the rear seat and front seats. - large enough for a suitcase in the back - gone in later mini's replaced by fancy seats.
The boot lid with its swing down number plate so you strap loads of stuff on it and in it andf still be legal - Gone in later minis.
You could really take 4 people and their luggage (with some thought to distributing it around the car) on a holiday. Stunning design and attention to detail far beyond its time.
All lost along the lifetime of the mini. I remember my first holiday in a mini. It was 1964, I was 10 the car was 4. To my young eyes this felt modern, fresh and clever. To my old eyes a 1960 mini still looks fresh and young and clever. It turned into a cramped and overweight imitation of itself.
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I bought my first car in 1976. It was a 1968 Wolseley Hornet. For those who don't remember them they were the sort of nerdy / WI version of the Mini with a silly wee boot grafted on the back. Good kit though including leather interior and wood dash etc.
I had set my heart on a "proper" Mini which was cool, but my Dad persuaded me to have the Hornet as it was a lot cheaper, being deeply unfashionable. I like to think it was "character building" as I tooled about in my Noddy car while all my mates had motorbikes and lairy Escorts ( bendy aerial compulsory) and the like. The wee car was actually a hoot to drive in the way of all early Minis or Mini derived vehicles. It just didn't really cut it in the testosterone laden mind of a seventeen year old. It was fairly quickly replaced with a really dishevelled Triumph Spitfire which was much loved but taught me hard early lessons in the economics of car ownership. That was replaced by a Mk1 Escort which I still maintain was the car I really learned to "drive" in. Anyway, 36 cars later I can now look back with great fondness on the little Wolseley and sort of wish I still had it for a toy.
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>The mini most of us know was compromised in space efficiency. The mini as it rolled off >the line in the late 50's wasn't
I drove a new style mini recently and was surprised how cramped it was inside. The most annoying thing was my head touched the roof which it never did in the original! No way could I live with one but an original Cooper for weekends would be great!
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I have had two. Nobody's mentioned its ability in the snow. A few times I got home when many others were floundering and awaiting a tow truck or to pluck up the enrgy to walk.
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"I remember my first holiday in a mini. It was 1964, I was 10 the car was 4. To my young eyes this felt modern, fresh and clever. To my old eyes a 1960 mini still looks fresh and young and clever"
Absolutely spot on AE. Mate won £500 on premium bonds in 1966(ish) and bought a brand new (basic) Mini - off we went to Spain for camping holiday with 2 other mates in a MG Midget for a month. We took almost all of their "gear" in the Mini along with ours. Fantastic holiday, fantastic little car, never missed a beat.
Only 40 years ago? Seems like yesterday!
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The only modern equivalent of the original concept is the current Ford Ka. Simple no
frills low cost / high fun motoring.
What about the new Tata cheap car? Who knows if it'll be fun to drive but the use of interior space is impressive. It's got the thinnest seats since a 1950s car!
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Maybe Gareth Maybe. The proof of the Tata pudding, should it make it to these shores, will be whether the back seat is accomodating enough to facilitate....er... recreational activity........this I seem to recall ( being told ) was always the acid test of.....um.....entry level cars ;-)
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Maybe Gareth Maybe. The proof of the Tata pudding should it make it to these shores will be whether the back seat is accomodating enough to facilitate....er... recreational activity........this I seem to recall ( being told ) was always the acid test of.....um.....entry level cars
;-)
I'm sure that won't be an issue. If you can persuade a girl to come for a drive in one, the rest should be easy by comparison.
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>>It was a 1968 Wolseley Hornet.>>
My great uncle had one, his was slightly earlier, I reckon around '65, 'C' reg I think, it and the almost identical Riley Elf were the most refined variant of the Mini.
I had a '68 Beetle, would have prefered a Hornet any day, hindsight and all that.
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Yes - but at least a Beetle was quite sort of cool in its day. Trying to be a teen macho in a Hornet was a tough call !
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My great uncle had one his was slightly earlier I reckon around '65 'C' reg
I think it and the almost identical Riley Elf were the most refined variant of
the Mini.>>
IIRC, there was an 'even more refined' variant under the Van Den Plas badge?
An old girlfriend inherited a Hornet which rusted away before her eyes.
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IIRC there was an 'even more refined' variant under the Van Den Plas badge?>>
Mmm ... I can't find any reference to this by Googling - maybe I dreamt it! There were VdP Allegros - a classic example of attempting to polish a turd!
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My Dad had a Van Den Plas Princess 1300 auto as his retirement present to himself ( the forerunner of the Allegro ) It was coincidentally a rather odd shade of brown !
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thats was the Austin 1100 variant tho wasnt it?
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The original Mini I most enjoyed driving was a pick-up with the "magic wand" gear lever. We installed fruit machines and juke boxes and with one of these in the load area to stabilise the car it handled like a dream on the back roads of Lancashire.
I now drive a new Panda 4x4 and find it reminds me a lot of those old Minis, not very powerful or fast but can be chucked into corners and comes through without tears.
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Yup, Vanden Plas versions of the 1100 and 1300, not the Mini.
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Now the austin 1100 type was a very fine car for space utilisation and a comfy ride to boot.
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You are right AE, they were big inside. My father had had a succession of Volvo 144s and 244s prior to his VDP 1300 and we were amazed that the smaller car gave little away in terms interior space to the "big" Volvos. Quite quick and decent handling too for its time.
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Now the austin 1100 type was a very fine car for space utilisation and a comfy ride to boot.
What might have been !!
If BMC and successors had continued development of the 1100 & 1800 ranges by putting the gearbox in it's proper place and a better attempt at OHC than the E/O series then history might have been different.
The disadvantages of gearbox in the sump of a 3-bearing engine was tolerable in the original Mini - but not in the larger models - not one of Issigonis's best moves.
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"IIRC, there was an 'even more refined' variant under the Van Den Plas badge?"
Perhaps you were thinking of the Radford Mini which was one of a large number of non BMC variants produced at the time and detailed on the link below:
mk1-performance-conversions.co.uk/variants.htm
I had a 1966 MK1 Mini Cooper in the early 1970's and it was a great car, enormous fun to drive.
I recently drove one of the new Minis, a Cooper S which was around 2 years old and was not at all impressed. Poor build quality and not that quick for what it is meant to be. The complete antithesis of the original Issigonis concept of a small car with plenty of room inside in that it is a fairly large car with hardly any room inside.
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Perhaps you were thinking of the Radford Mini which was one of a large number
of non BMC variants produced at the time and detailed on the link below:>>
Thanks, Designer, but I think I had just been mistaken, my car knowledge don't extend to such esoterics as the Radford ;-)
While we're mimsing along down Memory Lane .......... back in 1975, my mate had a rare BL 1100 van which was based on the 1100 estate - apparently, this one came from a BL employee. Production wasn't continued because the hydrolastic suspension wasn't suited to the loads lugged by tradesman.
For that season, matey and I used to race a 750 Morgo Triumph sidecar outfit at Darley Moor and the 1100 van was needed to tow the outfit on a trailer to the circuit. Matey was a metalwork teacher and an ace bodger and I remember one frantic night trying to work out why the trailer lights weren't working - and we were due to leave bright and early next morning. It eventually dawned on me that, in welding the tow-bar to the said van, he had completely fused the back part of the wiring loom together! It's amazing how quickly I learned how to analyse and rewire the back end of an 1100 van!
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Defo the Mini - the only car that you could convert from left hand drive to right hand drive without needing much more than new headlights, and a new driver's side floor mat. The carpet was already cut for the steering wheel, the switchgear simply unscrewed and was moved intact to the other side, steering rack simply reversed. Took us an afternoon to do the whole job! (Car was bought in Denmark and shipped to UK when the owner came back home).
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What might have been !! If BMC and successors had continued development of the 1100 & 1800 ranges by putting the gearbox in it's proper place and a better attempt at OHC than the E/O series then history might have been different.
I feel they did - I owned a couple of Princesses and they were better than the land crabs, their only fault (appart from the build quality) was a lack of a five speed gearbox - that 2.2 was a lovely engine!
BTW agree with others re the 1300, it was so much more comfy than the escort and viva.... and handled better in standard trim!
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What was wrong with the O series range of engines?
I know the E series was a bit asthmatic due to it having a narrow bore centre and long stoke.
I thought the O series (Princess,Ambassador,SD1,Ital,Rover 800,MG Montego/Maestro) was a pretty good attempt at an OHC
Compared to the camshaft eating Ford Pinto of the time and the sludgy upping CVH it was smoother and more torquey.Admittedly the vauxhall/opel family 1 and 11 engines of the time were pretty good.
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I had a second hand Austin A30 with 848cc engine and spent most of my time servicing it every 3,000 miles. There were so many grease nipples to attend to and gearbox and rear axle oils had to be changed as well, quite often.
Still like many people here, I learned all my basic and then advanced car repair skills and maintenance on this type of 'simple' car where virtually everthing could be done by the enthusiastic car owner. I removed starter motors and dynamos so often in order to service these - mind you, I was a young fit (ish) man then!!
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i've always been a bit of a car buff.....in the late 60's/early 70's we went on a family holiday to Spain....and over there i saw a thing called an Austin Victoria, which was basically an Austin 1100/1300 with a much bigger boot (like a mk1 Escort) ...didn't look out of place and even though i was quite young, I wondered why they didn't sell the same thing in Blighty
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I know you have all been writing about the original Mini- yes, a fantastic bit of packaging, and great fun to drive. Had a '61 850cc for some years. Terrible rust-bucket, as were the 1100/1300 series, but I wish one could still enjoy the good ride these offered- but now we would miss the modern high gearing, economy and relative quietness of practically all modern cars- to say nothing of the better corrosion resistance and- who has to tinker with an engine nowadays? What about the Triumph Herald? had one for 17 years. Not as good as a Mini to throw about, but what a practical little family car! Easy to work on, built like a Meccano set, good boot, economical and stylish.
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Had an 850 mini and a Morris 1100 and loved them both. The mini in particular was fun because 60mph felt like 90. What was almost legal felt very illegal.
Has anyone here driven a minimog?
My understanding is that someone around 1970 chopped the front off a mini cooper, attached a primitive "swing arm" (as in the rear suspension from a motorcycle) and a simple tapered body and entered it into sidecar races. It was promptly banned since it proved so fast as to upset the competition. It was then raced in sports car classes with the same result. I probably have the details wrong - can anyone fill in the blanks?
It turns out the most effective configuration (from the perspective of handling) is three wheels - two in front - with a strong forward weight bias and front wheel drive, although rear wheel drive can be very effective, too, and vastly simpler.
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Son's mate has a very late Mini Cooper with wheelarch extensions and fat tyres on Minilite wheels. Looks the business but son reports it is noisy, uncomfortable and thirsty next to his 12 year old Citroen AX. Much more street cred in the Mini though.
Mum had a Mini in 1959 with all the features that AE describes. I could have told him about the comfort and the noise but very surprised about the poor consumption.
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Hd an A30: easy to run but very narrow if front: nmy shoulders hit the door. Uncomfortable but for £30, I could could not complain.
Anyone going gooey over Minis should try getting in the back when over 50 years of age. It's not fun.
My Yaris is better built and incomparably more comfortable and easier to drive and MUCH more comfortable..
My memories of Minis are gearbox whine, rubber couplings (an early one) disiintegrating at 11pm at night half way to Scotland, rust, balljoints failing and radiator fan whine.
As for the rust: the only bit that did not rust was the roof.
I have zero love or nostalgia for badly built carp.
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When we were married in 1974 I got SWMBO a £300 1965 Mini-Traveller as a runaround. It never missed a beat in the three years we had it, and her current MINI reminds us strongly of it. Her word for it is 'responsive' - a good description of the quick reaction to steering input and also the nippiness of the response to the accelerator (obviously greatly superior in a MINI but honestly the '65 Traveller wasn't bad by the standards of its time). The Ford Ka that she had 10 years ago is the only other car she's had with that same quality.
The other thing they have in common is that we got most of that £300 back when we sold the Traveller, and the MINI One that we've just traded in for a new Cooper was (at 20 months old) worth 80 % of its cost new - it was on a 2-year PCP hence the quick change.
MINIs have their detractors, not least on this forum - but with that retention of value they are better value for money than they look. We tried various alternatives before getting the first MINI One: but this time the only choice SWMBO wanted to make was between another One or the Cooper.
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