My Avatar, a.k.a. the bloke to my left (i.e. <---- for the females, I am married...) designed the original Mini (i.e. not MINI).
His goal was maximum interior space efficiency, low weight and handling over cars of the day (1959). I think Alec's masterpiece was far and away a more radical advance than the MINI is over anything else. He got 80% of the length devoted to the passengers vs the grubby bits, only beaten (slightly) by the Citroen AX as far as I know.
Is the BMW MINI an advance at all ? To be honest it struggles to be any kind of advance over an average European hatchback. Anyone who thinks it is hasn't driven a Peugeot 205, and that was designed as a "normal" economy hatchback, not a nerdy car for esate agents.
Anyway, I chose my car (the silver one in these vids) because it nails MINIs
and thats before mine gets mapped.
