Member Article

The development story of the BMW

The Mini was created by the British Motor Corporation in the 1950’s and released in 1959, then BMC morphed into British Leyland then into Austin Rover in 1982. Then Margaret Thatcher privatised AR in 1988 turning it into the Rover group and selling it off to British Aerospace, BMW finally bought the Rover group out in 1994 but this was not a success and BMW shut the factory in 2000 and sold off the company.

BMC was formed in 1952 but the Labour government of the late sixties wanted to make a huge super company like GM in America, some would say this huge expansion was the death knell of the british car industry!

The Mini is probably the most famous car in the world, designed by the one and only Sir Alec Issigonis, it has won many awards and was named ‘Car of the Century’ voting it ahead of such cars as the VW Beetle, Ford Model T and Citroën DS (Autocar magazine 1995)

It started to out life in 1959 as the Austin Seven but was quickly renamed the Mini

There have been various body styles such an estate (the Clubman) pickup truck and a mini moke (jeep like vehicle).

As Rover entered the ’90s, they realised that they needed to find a replacement for the mini, they were having issues with the A-Series engine which was unlikely to pass forthcoming EC emission regulations, drive-by noise ratings and as it had been replaced by the K-Series in the rest of the range, it was becoming uneconomic to produce it.

Rover only really got serious in 1993 with thinking about having to replace it.

These were some of the various prototypes: Issigonis 9X, Barrell Mini, Innocenti Mini, ADO74, ADO88 and the Spiritual concept.

Frank Stephenson eventually came up with the design for the new Mini.

He said ’’We wanted the first impression when you walk up to the car to be it could only be a Mini“

There was a lot of controversy between owners BMW and Rover regarding design.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Hugh Waddell .