Three-quarters front view of a Yellow, 1965, Austin Mini Mk1, on display at the Deal Classic Car Show 2022
The Mini is a two-door compact city car that was produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original Mini is considered an icon of 1960s British popular culture. Its space-saving transverse engine and front-wheel drive layout – allowing 80% of the area of the car's floorpan to be used for passengers and luggage – influenced a generation of car makers. The Mini came about because of a fuel shortage caused by the 1956 Suez Crisis. Petrol was once again rationed in the UK, sales of large cars slumped, and the market for German bubble cars boomed, even in countries such as the United Kingdom, where imported cars were still a rarity. The Mini was marketed under BMC's two main brand names, Austin and Morris, until 1969, when it became a marque in its own right. The Morris version was known to all as "the Mini" or the "Morris Mini-Minor". This seems to have been a play on words: the Morris Minor was a larger, well known, and successful car that continued in production, and minor is Latin for "lesser", so an abbreviation of the Latin word for "least" – minimus – was used for the new even smaller car. One name proposed for the almost identical Austin version was Austin Newmarket, but it was sold as the Austin Seven (sometimes written as SE7EN in early publicity material – with the '7' using the letter V rotated anticlockwise so it approximated the number 7), which recalled the popular small Austin 7 of the 1920s and 1930s. Until 1962, the cars appeared in North America and France as the Austin 850 and Morris 850, and in Denmark as the Austin Partner (until 1964) and Morris Mascot (until 1981). It was introduced in Australia as Morris 850 only (not "Austin"), and then later as Morris Cooper and Morris Cooper S versions, as well. The Morris name Mini (Mini-Minor) was first used for Austin's version by BMC in 1961 when the Austin Seven was rebranded as the Austin Mini.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Betteshanger Country Park, Sandwich Rd, Deal
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -door, -quarters, 1071cc, 1960s, 590, 1965, 2-door, 2022, alec, austin, betteshanger, bmc, brisish, british, car, city, classic, compact, cones, corporation, country, crisis, culture, deal, drive, engine, front, front-engine, front-wheel, front-wheel-drive, hydrolastic, icon, iconic, issigonis, kg, layout, longbridge, mini, mk1, monocoque, motor, park, plant, popular, rubber, saloon, sandwich, seams, shell, show, sir, suez, suspension, system., transverse, view, welded, yellow
