MINI magic…

30th July 2010

By Anthony Peacock

Mini (or MINI, under its new incarnation) has a history that is full of fascinating contradictions. The car is a British icon, but it was actually designed by a Greek – the legendary Sir Alec Issigonis – and is now owned by Germans.

As for being mini-sized, the new Countryman is over a metre longer than the original. It’s also the first Mini to sport five doors and the first to boast four-wheel drive: handy for the World Rally Championship.

From its inception in 1959, the Mini was designed to break new ground. Issigonis, a man accustomed to tearing the rule book to shreds, once famously said: “An expert is somebody who tells you what you can’t do”.

The result was a car quite unlike anything that had come before, with front-wheel drive, unrivalled packaging, and a classless image that meant it was driven by everyone from the Queen of England to John Lennon.

The reason was that it prioritised function over form, giving it a timeless quality that had nothing to do with social status – in the same way that both aristocrats and dustmen are happy to use the same design of fork. It’s just the most practical way to put food in your mouth.

This design-driven approach meant that the car covered ground in the most efficient way possible. Without intending to, Issigonis had penned what was pretty much the perfect racing and rally car, thanks to a combination of low weight, supreme roadholding and direct handling.

The only thing not quite all there was the power. But there was a solution to that. A friend of Alec Issigonis, John Cooper, saw the potential and began installing tuned engines to create the Mini Cooper in 1961. Homologation for rallying quickly followed, and the factory-backed Mini Cooper took part in its first international events in 1962, using a 997cc engine that put out a mighty 55 horsepower.

More upgrades came the following year, plus the move to a 1071cc engine, and then the Mini really hit the big time. But acceleration from 0-100kph was still about 13 seconds, as opposed to under four in a modern World Rally Car. As the Mini’s most famous exponent, Paddy Hopkirk, once said: “It was simply an astonishing car. The only thing was that it couldn’t really keep up with the more powerful cars on the straights or uphill. But downhill – nothing was quicker. It was David and Goliath.”

The Monte Carlo Rally made the Mini a legend, where it took three wins in 1964, 1965 and 1967. It really should have been four, but the team was disqualified in 1966 on a technicality, handing Citroen victory. Now the Mini drivers will get their chance for revenge in 2011, 45 years later…

But the Mini was actually quick everywhere. It won events that were as varied as the RAC Rally in 1965 with Rauno Aaltonen, the Circuit of Ireland with Tony Fall in 1966 and the 1000 Lakes with Timo Makinen in the same year. It also won its class on numerous occasions at races from Brands Hatch to Sebring. Unbelievably, the Mini even won the Acropolis Rally in 1967 (thanks to Paddy Hopkirk) despite many of the Greek rocks being considerably bigger than the actual car.

Factory Minis stayed rallying right up to the 1970s, with the last notable success being Hopkirk’s second place on the Scottish Rally in June 1970. Since then, Minis have competed regularly on historic events, with the very last World Rally Championship event for a classic Mini being the 2003 Rally Great Britain, when amateur crew Neil Burgess and Jim Holder won their class in a car called ‘Mildred’. This was despite the co-driver slicing his finger open while trying to fix a broken alternator, requiring a number of stitches at service on Saturday night.

The Mini’s real triumph though has come from being more than a car but instead a part of popular culture. This is due to a number of influences – rallying being a key one – but also to thanks films such as The Italian Job.

Michael Caine, for all his loveable roguishness and insistence on only blowing the bloody doors off, is not the real hero of the film. The stars are the three red, white and blue Minis, driven by a trio of “chinless wonders” who nonetheless manage to outwit the entire Italian police force, not to mention a monstrous traffic jam. In this film there is nothing the Mini cannot do – and that includes driving through sewers, down cathedral steps and across exhibition centre roofs.

No other team has ever come into the World Rally Championship with such a weight of heritage behind it. Now it’s up to them to use it.

And the drivers could also take note of another of Sir Alec Issigonis’s quotes, when it was pointed out at the launch that the original 1959 Mini was somewhat lacking in crumple zones.
“I find that it’s much easier to drive without having an accident,” was his conclusion.