Mini 1959-2000

When it was launched in 1959, the Mini stunned the world with its ingenious compact design. In this book, Mini expert and fan Peter Barker tells the full story of the classic Mini through the decades, from the 1950s to the millennium. Drawing on interviews with the original designers and engineers, he provides the inside story of how the Mini was developed. From the 1960s when the Mini became a cultural icon, boosted by its starring role in The Italian Job, through the sensible seventies, when the Mk 3 was launched as well as the Mini Clubman and 1275 GT, to the eighties and nineties, with the launch of the Mk 4, when the Mini was still a cool choice as well as an economic one. After the millennium, the classic Mini's spirit would live on in the all-new BMW Mini. Featuring unique interviews with the Mini's original designers and engineers and accompanied by both archive photography and photos from the author's own forty-year collection, this book is an essential and fitting tribute to one of Britain's most famous and best-loved cars.