Many of us know the Austin “Mini” motor-car in its current luxury incarnation – a BMW in drag so to speak. Yet few know of the mini’s humble beginnings and its influence that it has had on the auto trade far and wide.
Yet the tiny and almost puny Austin Mini with its small in relation 4 banger engine won the famed Monte Carlo Rally three times running – in the years races of 1964, 1965 and lastly in 1967. Quite a feat for such a diminutive and scaled down automotive product of its time. On top of that the fourth victory was snatched from the mouth’s of the Austin clan only by a small infraction on the roadway.
Not only small but the Mini proved to be quite a fearsome competitor on the competitive rally circuit. Auto racing is the ultimate test of both a vehicle’s mettle , endurance and overall reliability that auto owner’s can expect during the lifetime of owning the product. Racing pushes the vehicle’s engine, power-train and its basic reliability and performance to the max. Unbelievably the little Mini won 3 major Monte Carlo events in a row , only having the fourth true win denied to it on a technicality. It seemed that the driver Timo M Skinen’s car was disqualified in the auto rally race after he took the “checkered flag”.
Yet this little mutant of a car not only had a low cost and external size, it held an innovative design that even though tiny in size it could seat 4 adults and perhaps 5. The secret was an adoption of front wheel drive with a transversely mounted engine and transmission. Now held as the standard, at that point in automobile history most autos were “rear wheel driven” with a large drive train running down the middle of the floor of the vehicle taking up passenger space and adding weight. Rear engine vehicles are simpler to build and maintain and less expensive to design, engineer and install at the factory level. Yet the heavy drive train not only adds weight to the vehicle, requiring a larger and heavier engine, it also takes away from interior passenger space. So the innovative design of the Austin Mini had great merit in allowing for a smaller vehicle, with a smaller engine that had a reasonable interior seating space, and had reasonable pickup all with less cost, and overall auto owner and motorist’s driving costs and budget.
Hence it is no accident that the Austin Mini became such a favored and revered role model for future designs and implementations along the path of the development of smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles.