End of road for mighty Mini - 41 years after it created a craze

Know why Mini collectors in Japan prize numberplates with 3298 in sequence? Because the numbers pronounced in Japanese are mi-ni-coo-pa. Mini Cooper. Get it?

That's just one of the many oddball stories that have built up around the Mini, the 41-year-old car that created a craze.

It starred in films, provided transport in the swinging sixties for rock stars and royalty, students and socialites, won all sorts of races on and off the track, including the arduous Monte Carlo rally ...

Now the last of more than 5.5 million Minis will roll off the production line tonight.

Yes, that's it for the Mini. At 9.30am tomorrow morning New Zealand time, workers at Rover's Longbridge plant, near Oxford, will say farewell to the car they and their predecessors at the British Motor Corporation have been building since 1959.

But there is still life after death for the old Mini - the British Motor Heritage will continue making parts and complete bodies for die-hard owners.

The birth of the Mini in the 50s coincided with a mini revolution. In London, the mini skirt would soon appear. In America, a couple of scientists had just invented the integrated circuit, opening the way for micro-electronics.

But the Mini's roots actually go back to a fuel shortage, just as the appearance of the new Mini last month coincided with a 21st century fuel crisis.

In 1956, Britain and Egypt were fighting over the Suez Canal. Once the dust settled, Britain found itself short of petrol. Its North Sea reserves were largely untapped.

The British car industry was looking for a budget model. Enter a designer called Alec Issigonis, who had designed the Morris Minor and was working for luxury carmaker Alvis.

Issigonis, an eccentric Turkish-born engineer who preferred to sketch his designs on envelopes, napkins, anything that came to hand, was hired away from Alvis in 1957 by the chairman of the British Motor Corporation, Leonard Lord.

Lord commissioned Issigonis to design a new small car. Issigonis could do what he wanted with the power train, chassis, body and interior, said Lord, but the car must use an existing BMC engine and be ready in two years.

On August 26, 1959, Issigonis unveiled the Austin Seven or Morris Mini Minor.

It was 3m long, could seat four adults, had a top speed of 110 km/h, and had independent suspension on all four wheels, a set-up unheard of in a small car in 1959. It went on sale for £497 ($1775).

The engine was mounted east-west to save space. Other carmakers had done this but Issigonis trumped them by putting the gearbox below the engine in an enlarged oil sump.

This allowed the Mini to use a four-cylinder engine where other small cars had only two. The suspension used rubber cones which stiffened under heavy loads.

A feature not appreciated at first was the handling - so superb that the Mini would become a multiple winner of the arduous Monte Carlo rally.

The Mini's main problem to start with was that it was a small car in a rock 'n' roll world screaming out for big cars with chrome and fins.

But the social changes of the 60s made the Mini - even though they leaked and the electrics would often stop at the first sign of rain.

London's trendy set, the aristocracy and film stars adopted the Mini as the perfect car about town, and it soon became popular to rich and poor alike.

In 1961 the Mini Cooper, a sports model named after former race driver John Cooper, was launched. An even quicker version, the Coooper S, followed.

But despite being Britain's most popular car in the 60s and 70s, the Mini made a loss for most of its career. In the mid-60s, Ford analysed production and reckoned BMC lost $100 a car.

It might have made money if BMC had known had to sell it, promote it, use its popularity for marketing purposes.

For example, the makers of the 60s film The Italian Job, in which Michael Caine and his bankrobbers outrun Turin police, had to buy Minis on the open market because BMC didn't want to be associated with the film.

BMC didn't understand what the spinoffs would mean. But the Mini nevertheless earned exposure money couldn't buy. The new Mini will go on sale in New Zealand in 2002.