..somebody else already said it but it was the CV's...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylfwzi4Sikk

You get most of your information from reading? 

Try reading the title of the thread. 

Look up the definition of 'comprehension' 

Stay behind after class..again.

Quote”I think most of us, certainly those of my age and those who were born before the Suez crisis and who lived in the UK at that time already knew this which is why no one stated that as a rationale for the Mini being made.”

I think you are partially correct, except that many Mini owners are not that old. Also, it was mentioned by 3 people under the title “ TECHNICAL INNOVATION “, so I’m certainly not the only one who had these thoughts.

QUOTE”I get most of my information from memory , not the internet so I may have missed a bit or two..”

I get most of my information from reading. Otherwise I’d never learn anything except old gossip. I recommend you try it ( lest we forget ).

I think most of us, certainly those of my age and those who were born before the Suez crisis and who lived in the UK at that time already knew this which is why no one stated that as a rationale for the Mini being made.

Besides, this topic was about the innovation, not the conception - and regardless of Nasser doing the nasty, Issigonis was working on a similar concept prior to the Suez crisis, the crisis simply pushed the timeline forward and revised the thinking about how the new car would look and perform.  Had Suez not happened we would probably have seen something in the range of the 1100 series in size/performance.

I get most of my information from memory, not the internet so I may have missed a bit or two but...

I hate to be a spoiler, but a few have mentioned that the Mini was just the right car at the right time. It was actually a little more complicated than that. The main reason that the Mini came into existence is because of the Suez Canal oil crisis. In 1956 the Egyptian leaders were growing closer ties to the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Sues Canal was being run buy French and British corporate powers. In the summer of 1956 the Egyptian leader seized control over the Sues Canal, and the inexpensive oil route was now out of the hands of the French and British. Blocked from using the canal because of extremely high charges for its use that the Egyptians wanted to charge caused a fuel crisis, with not enough oil reaching France and England. Fuel rationing was imposed in these countries ( as well as other countries in the area ) and the price of gas skyrocketed. This caused the emergence of the bubble car, which greatly annoyed BMC boss Lenard Lord. He then ordered Morris Minor designer Issigonis to build a small, fuel efficient car that would carry four people and it had to be affordable. This sequence of events led to the design and rapid development of the Mini. In essence the Mini was forced into production because of the Sues Canal crisis and was not simply built at what happened to be the right time.

Many of the Minis innovations have already been mentioned, but for me there are three major ones (and many minor ones too ) ; the transversely mounted engine, the rubber cone suspension ( including the hydrolastic type ) and the centre instrument cluster to make RHD and LHD cars with a minimum of tooling and labour. The comment on smoking is comical in that Alec Issigonis not only chain-smoked, but there is also the widely held ( if sarcastic ) notion that the door bins were designed in part to fit bottles of gin...Issigonis’ drink of choice. +1 Rico for an interesting discussion.

Those devices were for cigars, never cigarettes which is why they were never installed in Minis. 

Mini owners smoked cigarettes or occassionaly puffed on a pipe.

You were not allowed to buy a Rolls Royce at that time unless you did smoke cigars.

Ian: I DID say it was decades ahead!

Come on Dan, it was years (decades?) before the public became concerned about the link between smoking and cancer .. and several decades before anyone had even heard of smart phones etc...  

Although, I did have a GPS device in the 70s.  Using it in a Mini would be a bit problematic; it used punch card input and tape output ...and was about as big as a piano....

Cigar lighters (NOT cigarettes  were fitted to Works cars used by Timo M.

Minis didn’t have radios because Issi thought drivers shouldn’t be distracted (at least, that’s their story..and they’re sticking to it

IMHO the defining technical leap central to the Mini was the use of the Rzeppa joint .... although Mouton’s suspension would be hard to put aside...

Cheers, Ian

The Mini was decades ahead of the curve when it came to recognising that smoking causes cancer and death. They purposely did not provide a cigarette lighter. The added bonus was there is nowhere to plug in electronic toys such as smart phones, GoPros, GPS units, etch. that contribute to distracted driving. They did however provide ashtrays in recognition that it would take a long time to get people to stop smoking - they needed places to put their ciggy butts to avoid upholstery burns and roadside fires.

It was never meant for North America at the time it was launched, regardless of the claims made elsewhere

"Just the right car at the right time..."

For some countries.

It was also the intangibles, at the time Joe Average didn't know transverse from a transvestite and all of the other "innovations", what Joe liked was a cheap car, good on petrol/gas and easy to maintain - easy access to plugs, points and tappet adjustment. 

They touted it as getting 50mpg and being capable of doing 70 mph all day long with 4 adults aboard - advertising was a little "looser back then.

It was the right car at the right time, embraced by all, from rock stars to film stars to royalty and to Joe Average.

No one thing defined the Mini , it was all of the above, the ability to racing at all levels on the cheap and the easy acceptance of modifications.

Just the right car at the right time...

I would say it was the first cheap, high MPG, practical, 4 passenger micro car that can be driven on any road. It killed almost all of the other micro car's.

I think it's value is not that it invented the wheel ...it was the first widely available and affordable car that combined many features into a remarkable package of value for money. We got a lot more than we paid for..economy, performance, fun,...and 5 million happy exposures to an idea that arrived at just the right time in history.

The mini was not the first transverse car, what made it the race car it became? The British people and a lot of beer.Cheers

The mini had mini 'first' innovative features such as the transverse mounted engine, gearbox sharing the engine oil, etc.

it also set records related to its racing performance, production run, etc.

- What in your opinion are the highlights that led to the mini being such an icon in automotive history?