After months of denying what was widely known, BMW has announced that the Mini will indeed return to this country after 30 years.
What exactly it will look like, how it will be sold, and how much it will cost when it arrives this fall as a 2001 are still to be revealed. But the return of the famous Mini name should appeal to lots of those Boomers who enjoyed the front-drive subcompact and its famous handling ability when it was sold here in the early 60s.
The worldwide popularity of the Mini was well established recently when a panel of international auto journalists voted it into second place in the Car of the Century contest behind the Ford Model T.
"While complete details are not yet available," says Tobias Nickel of BMW Canada, "one can expect the new Mini to be a thoroughly modern interpretation of the original concept by Alec Issigonis, father of the Mini, which forever altered the world's expectation of what a small car could be."
The Mini was intended to be the smallest possible car that would still accommodate four adults and luggage -- measuring approximately 3048 mm long and 1219 mm high and wide.
Nickel explains that Issigonis was a chassis designer by background, so he "realized that he would need to use very small, 10-inch wheels and all independent suspension, which was rare in the UK at the time. However, the truly brilliant solution was to employ a transverse engine, driving the front wheels via a gear box and final drive built into the sump of the engine -- a concept that had never been tried before."