Good lecture! FYI, my understanding is that BMW acquired Rover in order to
gain
access to the advanced valve technology that Rover shared with Honda
through
their joint venture. Honda was as outraged as most of Britain that
Rover would
sold off as it was.
Cheers,
Alan
________________________________
From: G. Mugele <mewgull@sonic.net>
To: North
Bay British Car Club <nobbc@autox.team.net>
Sent: Mon, January 31, 2011
11:03:25 AM
Subject: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
Ahem...
well Greg, you have the virtue of youth; you're not old enough to
really have
this down. However, it was not as straight-forward as all that.
BMC built
the Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor at a couple plants in England
beginning in '59 or so. The Morris quickly acquired the sobriquet 'Mini" in
popular UK vernacular. Very soon afterward the Austin also became the
'Mini.'
I can only guess that the appellation was the result of how people
described
them. Anyway... as the popularity grew BMC did some badge
engineering and also
marketed the Riley Elf and the Wolseley Hornet, giving
them some hideous fins
and other awkward cosmetics. Those poor cousins were
also called Minis. Not
long after the initial introduction, BMC upped the
displacement to a throbbing
hunk of iron displacing 998cc and called it the
Austin Mini Cooper or the Morris
Mini Cooper. Those soon became simply
"Mini Coopers." Time and popularity
soon brought us many variants as well as
more and more powerful versions. Those
sporty ones were labeled with things
like 'S' and '1275 S.'
Around the time or shortly after BMC became British
Leyland, the company
formally adopted the Mini name and the cars were sold
under the 'Mini' label.
Of course by then there were variants all over the
world: Italy, Spain, Chile,
New Zealand, Belgium and a number of other
countries all had plants. Some were
factory and some were built under
license (Innocenti). I don't know who made the
Mini Moke but I suspect that
it was an official BMC product.
In the 90s BMW became the parent company by
buying Land Rover (Rover Group) from
British Aerospace. At that time Rover
Group was owner of what was left of BMC.
I suspect BMW bought Rover to cover
for the lack of an SUV in the market. When
BMW introduced the X5 they
quickly dumped Land Rover on Ford and at the same
time sold the rest of Rover
Group
(including MG) to some British consortium. But BMW decided to keep the
Mini
name and opted to build a new model. The original Mini was out of
production by
2000 or so.
The BMW Mini is related only in layout and
appearance.
BTW mine was a '61 Mini Cooper. It was grossly overpowered :)
with that 55 HP
beast under the hood. I am amazed that I survived owning
that incredibly fun
little car: it inspired spirited driving well beyond my
skills at the time.
These days, with 400+ HP engines relatively commonplace,
it's hard to imagine
that 50 years ago 100 horsepower was a real handful,
especially in our LBCs.
This concludes todays lecture.
Gerry
On Jan
31, 2011, at 8:22 AM, Greg Tatarian wrote:
> I'll let John answer to tell you
what he wants to call his MINI, but here's the
>deal on these cars (I know as
we have a 2011 Mini John Cooper Works (JCW)
>Hardtop;
>
> The car company is
"MINI", which as owned by BMW differentiates its name from
>the original
"Mini", which, short version here, was made both by Austin and
>Morris in the
UK, and other companies overseas under license during the day.
G. Mugele
mewgull@mugele.net
*** "Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things. One is
that God loves you and
you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is
the most awful, dirty
thing on the face of the earth and you should save it
for someone you love." --
Butch Hancock
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