New Mini [antikvár]

Unmistakeable from any angle, and with so many obvious cues lo earlier Minis, the new Mini had the sort of face that seemed to make everyone smile. (David Wigmore) ntroduction There were times when I wondered why I was writing a book about the new Mini, for the new model seems to bring controversy with it. For every classic Mini-owner ready to love the restatement of an old ideal, there are diehards ready to condemn the new car before they have even sat in one. Milhons of people, out there, are convinced that the only way to replace an original Issigonis-type Mini is to build another one. On the other hand BMW, who now own the brand, are sure that their painstakingly developed alternative was the only practical way to tackle the task. For years, in the late 1990s, many of us knew that a new-generation Mini was on the way. After all those years, we accepted that as inevitable. Accordingly, it was only after BMW sold off Rover, but retained the Mini brand, that I realised how much it must mean to them. If this large German multi-national car-maker, which no longer had anything to prove, was ready to sink so much into a new motor car, and to start selling it in the world's most competitive market place - the United States - I knew that there was a story to tell. Cars like this do not develop themselves. What follows is not merely a trawl through existing press material, and the second-guessing of other opinions, but my own deep research into the origins of the new Mini. The story, which really began in 1993, is neither simple nor a fairy tale - but it shows how a famous marque survived in the face of awful financial and commercial crises. It shows how (and why) it needed mighty financial muscle, and stubborn resolve, to bring it to the market place. It is, I hope, the definitive story of the birth of a vitally important new car. Yet this is not a complete story. One year, two years, three years into the future, there will be more Minis on sale - and BMW hopes that this saga will run and run for decades to come. Meeting a phenomenon It was a wet November Friday, and the British traffic was awful. I was faced with driving the new Mini, for the first time, in bad-tempered commuter traffic. To meet the new Mini Cooper I had already driven for 150 miles in an air-conditioned, leather-upholstered Jaguar, and the contrast was worrying me. It was not the ideal way to be introduced to a controversial new car. I need not have worried. The Cooper was quick, comfortable, well-equipped -and everyone else seemed to be smiling at me. Of course, I should have expected this. Here was a new car which the British public was willing itself to love. In the past I had owned Minis, they had owned Minis - in fact almost everyone I know seemed to have driven a Mini at one time or another. All of them, all of us, and especially myself, wanted to know what the new car was all about. All of us had old Mini memories tucked away in our minds. The first time we'd driven one the first time