AUTO #24 Q3 / 2018
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UP FRONT Gallery News
AUTO ASKS The Big Question
by attaining 36.2mpg, while offering far more interior space and seating for two additional passengers. It was quieter, more comfortable, and quicker than the unwieldy, unlovely bubble cars, and it handled superbly. The public immediately took the Mini to heart. In 1959, BMC had built 430,000 cars and was the world’s fifth-largest motor manufacturer. Thanks to the Mini and its 1100 derivative, output would soar to 730,000 in 1964. By that time the Mini was being turned out at a rate of 6,000 per week and its classless, everyman image appealed to both cash-strapped workers and the elite in equal measure. It’s subsequent adoption, in the mid-’60s, as the city runabout of choice for Swinging London celebrities such as Paul McCartney and fashion model Twiggy only deepened its cachet. By 1977, four million models had been sold and its icon status was assured.
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SPORTING SUCCESS The legend of the Mini was not only built on the streets of London, however. Its eminent place in the annals of automotive history was made complete by its success in rallying. During the Mini’s development, motor sport team owner John Cooper, the man who had pioneered the positioning of the engine at the rear of race cars and whose team had become the first British constructor to win the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, took a prototype version for a drive. He was stunned by the car’s agility and its cornering ability. He convinced BMC that a racing version of Issigonis’ small wonder could be a winner and set about tuning the Mini. The car’s 848cc capacity was increased to 997cc with the addition of a longer stroke, while twin carburettors boosted power towards 60bhp. Straight-cut gears helped strengthen the transmission to deal with the
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Mini creator Sir Alec Issigonis in 1969 with the Mini after he had been conferred with his knighthood.
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added power, while disc brakes at the front helped to slow it from previously unseen speeds. “It was a beautiful car to drive,” says rally legend Paddy Hopkirk, who took the Mini to many of its greatest motor sport triumphs. “The traction you could get from the Mini, particularly in really tricky conditions, was sensational and the handling was incredible.” The competition Mini’s first success came not at the hands of Hopkirk, however, but with Pat Moss, sister of Sir Stirling, at the wheel. Moss gave the car its first win on the 1962 Tulip Rally, an arduous and well-attended Dutch international. A year on and the 1071cc Cooper S arrived. Not only did this car offer more power, but importantly it offered extra torque, allowing it to
‘Nobody gave the Mini a chance. It was up against Mercedes, Porsche, Renault. After Monte Carlo everyone wanted one’ PADDY HOPKIRK
Style icon: the Mini appealed to the everyman, but was also a must-have for the fashion conscious in the Swinging Sixties.
carry more speed through the corners. An entry for the 1964 Rallye Monte Carlo was announced with Hopkirk and co-pilot Henry Liddon driving. The Monte Carlo rally then featured one of the most intense, toughest stages of any event. The Bollène-Vésubie to Sospel section traversed the Col de Turini, not only a mountainous route – with multiple hairpin bends, often layered with compacted ice and fresh powder snow – but also a section run at night. It was here, in the most hostile of stages, that Hopkirk and Liddon sealed victory, with the pair exploiting the Mini’s superb poise to simply annihilate the competition. “Nobody gave the Mini a chance,” says Hopkirk. “It was up against the Mercedes, Porsche, Renault, Citroën and Saab. And here was this little Mini, which was originally designed to take midwives and district nurses around Britain. After Monte Carlo, everybody wanted one.” The next year, Timo Mäkinen and Paul Easter defended the Mini’s supremacy. In 1966, however,