Spotted in Bar at Stansted Airport Last Weekend

I guess the toaster's bust, then...oh well, I'll have a large brandy instead.

Build the bloody thing

It's hard to believe, but, the Mini (the original Mini that is) is 50 years old this year, and, I have to say, it still looks great for it's age.

Sometime in the mid 1970s my aunt and uncle (Joyce and Gordon Wilkins) held their 25th wedding anniversary party, being motoring journalists this, naturally enough, contained one or two notables from the world of motoring. I was 7 years old and was allowed to say hello to a few people before being packed off. At one point my aunt led me over to a corner of the room and up to a group of old men who were laughing loudly and smoking.

"Alec, this is Christopher"

"Hello young man"

A thin figure with a large nose wearing a tweed suit stood before me; glass and cigarette in one hand, the other was being offered down to me. He smelt like the inside of our drinks cabinet. I shyly shook his hand, mumbled something I really cannot remember and was then led away again. This man had, many years before, sketched out the first design for the Mini on a napkin in a restaurant in Switzerland; this man was Sir Alec Issigonis. I only met him the once, but, was deeply impressed by him and loved his little car; I vowed the moment I could reach the pedals, I would own a Mini.

Bare and basic, the Morris Mini-Minor was launched to an unappreciative market (it didn't sell well in its first year) in August 1959. The teething problems suffered by Mini owners were probably the result of the rushed nature of the project, when BMC boss, Sir leonard Lord, was first taken out in the car he said to Issigonis "Build the bloody thing". My family owned a Mini Pick-up (see my post "This Little Mini Went To Moscow) which leaked and rotted and grew moss in strange places. They were not the most reliable of cars ,but, we grew to love them all the same ( Unreliability + cute looks = character).

So it had its problems, and it didn't take-off initially, so why was/is it such a special car. Well, the concept was brilliant, Issigonis twisted the engine through 180 degrees (or transverse), so it was running across the car, and placed the gearbox underneath it. This freed up space for the passengers and their luggage inside. Also, it was front wheel drive. The car really took off and became "cool" when the rally boys got hold of it- and later when the likes of Peter Sellers were seen driving them around swinging 60s London. Mini went from cheeky urban runaround to icon of the 60s. The key to its rally success was first and foremost its handling, together with more than a little magic from John Cooper.

There were many myths about the Mini, my favourite is that on the early Minis the copious door buckets were designed by Issigonis to hold bottles of gin - or maybe it was bottles of milk, I know which I prefer. Well, let's all raise our metaphorical glass of dry Martini to Sir Alec and to the Mini; Happy Birthday!