Discovery Channel

Wheeler Dealers - Mini City 1000 at YourDiscovery.com

Mini City 1000

The Mini, everybody knows it, everybody loves it.

The perfect city car, but also a rough tough rally icon. Created by revered car designer Alec Issigonis the Mini emerged from jottings he did on a table napkin, cigarette packet or whatever came to hand.

In this charmingly low tech way he created a car which was ten feet long and yet could handle four passengers, their luggage and an engine up front. He solved this problem by creating the unique east west engine arrangement, mounting the engine transversely... and putting the gear shafts beneath the crankshaft.

Amazingly the car carried on being built, little changed, from 1959 until the year 2000 when the last one rolled off the production line.

Our car is a very sound Jet Black and a clear bargain. The key with these cars is to buy one with good subframes and a strong body. Our car has both.

The car looks a little dowdy on its steel wheels but somebody has clearly looked after it and they’ve spent money on a decent exhaust recently. This is a great Wheeler Dealers buy and there are plenty of good, cheap, things that can be done to this car which will add some value.

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MINI CITY 1000 FACTS

  • Designed as project ADO15 (with the ADO standing for Austin Design Office), the car was originally known as both the Austin Seven (sometimes spelt Se7en) and the Morris Mini Minor. In 1969, it became a marque in its own right.
  • The ADO15 used a transversely-mounted, conventional BMC A-Series four-cylinder water-cooled engine.
  • The original Mini employed front-wheel drive, which allowed for a much increased passenger space in a small body.
  • Leonard Lord, the head of the British Motor Corporation, laid out the basic design requirements for the original Mini. He decreed that the car should be able to be contained within a box that measured 3 × 1.2 × 1.2m and the passenger accommodation should occupy 1.8m of the 3m length.
  • The car featured an engine-oil-lubricated, four-speed transmission in the sump.
  • The suspension system, designed by creator Alec Issigonis's friend Dr. Alex Moulton (of Moulton Developments Ltd), used compact rubber cones instead of conventional springs.
  • The rubber cone system was built into the vehicle subframes and provided drivers and passengers with a bumpy ride. However, the rigidity of the cones, coupled with the car’s wheels being pushed out into its corners, gave the Mini its now-famous go kart-like handling.
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