the short MINI history

The Mini was introduced on the 26th August 1959.
The head of BMC (British Motor Corporation), had asked Alex Issigonis to design a car that was big enough to carry four adults and their luggage as a response to the rising popularity of the German VW Type 1.
So, Sir Alex Issigonis managed to design a car only 10 feet long with ample room for the four adults.
In order to achieve this he had to transverse the engine and the Mini was in fact the first production car with front wheel drive and a transverse engine.

The Mini on the picture is a slightly rally modified MK. II Cooper S.

Today this is the most common solution in small and medium size cars. So one can say that the Mini was quite revolutionary at the time.

However if a car weighing only 620 kgs shall carry from one to four persons with luggage there is bound to be problems using a conventional suspension. The wheel travel would be to much.
Issigonis designed a new rubber cone suspension system so that the car only sank only a few inches even with four heavy adults on board.

The suspension was not the only problem.
Issigonis was not allowed to design a new engine for the car, so an ordinary BMC A-series engine used in among others, the Morris Minor, was the engine to be used. On one of the prototypes, a special engine, in fact an A-series engine cut in half, making it a two-cylinder engine was tried. Without success. This prototype had the engine placed in a "conventional way, and the grille was very similar to the grille of the Austin A35.

A special gearbox was designed and bolted to the engine where the oiltray normally is, and the engine used the same oil both in the gearbox and the engine, which made many people sceptical, myself included. But it really isn't a problem, you have to change the oil more often than you do do on a modern car. And you should use straight grade oil (SAE 40). The modern multigrade oil is not suitable for this construction because the "mixmaster" effect of the gearbox makes the 10W-30 oil a 10, maybe 20 oil, after some time.

The gearbox/engine idea Issigonis actually got from an old submarine.

In the beginning there were some problems with oil leaking onto the clutch, leaking doors etc. But it eventually sorted out and the Mini is still in production after 39 years, hopefully at some time breaking the Volkswagen type 1 production record.

Another oddity with Sir Alec Issigonis was that he didn't make room for a radio in the Mini. It's not room in the Mini today and it certainly wasn't in the sixties. The reason was that Issigonis didn't like radios in cars and deliberately didn't make room for one.

For those of you really interested in the Mini, there are many good books written on the subject.