A dozen things you (probably) didn’t know about the Mini – looking back at more than 60 years of one of Britain’s best loved diminutive classics…
…by Dave Moss.
- It took three years to produce half a million Minis – the 500,000th rolled off the production line on 12th December 1962.
- The Mini was the first car to win the European Rally Championship.
- The Mini has been made in different forms in Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Belgium, South Africa, Chile and Venezuela.
- The record for a Mini “cram” was 26 people, performed on Noel Edmonds ‘Late late breakfast show’ in 1986.
- The Mini was voted the “Greatest car of all time” by Autocar and Motor magazine in March 1991.
- Its reputed that Joanne Westlake was the first person to be born in a Mini.
- Ringo Starr had his luxury Radford-built Mini converted into a hatchback – so he could get his drum kit inside.
- Before it finally switched to fuel injection in the 1990’s, Mini engines used more SU carburettors than any other car in the entire 90 year history of the SU company.
- When the last car was built in 2000, the Mini had been in production for well over a third of the entire time the motor industry had been in existence…
- At its sales peak, Mini production lines were fitting 2.4 million wheel nuts a year.
- At one stage the Austin version of the Mini was going to be badged the Austin Newmarket.
- The original Longbridge Mini assembly line was 220 yards long, and had 57 workstations. Each job took 2 mins 24 seconds, so building an early Mini took a little over 2 hours, 16 minutes.
