Offtopic: The Mini
Today is the last day before a break so I'm going off topic as usual. Tomorrow is a Cadence Global Recharge Day (all of Cadence is shut down) and Monday is Juneteenth (a U.S. federal holiday as of last year).?If you watch the Sunday Brunch videos I make regularly (well, irregularly since some weeks I don't get around to it) you will know I have a Mini Cooper S convertible. Here's the most recent video I made in it.
The modern Mini is actually a remake of the Mini originally produced in 1959. It is still built in England but the company is now owned by BMW. If you think that the current Mini is small, then you should see it compared to its sixties equivalent.
History of the Mini
The Mini was the second major design by legendary automotive designer Alec Issigonis, the first being the 1948 Morris Minor. The Mini started production in 1959 and finished in 1967. By the way, the Morris Minor outlasted it, with production not ending until 1972, making it one of the longest-lived production runs at 23 years.
It was very small, so small that the engine would not fit along the axis of the vehicle that was normally done. Instead, the combined engine and transmission was mounted across the vehicle, with the differential underneath the transmission so it could power the front wheel driveshafts directly. Costs were shaved to the bone. There were no wind-down windows, just sliding windows. The "handle" to open the doors was actually a cord stretched from the front to the back of the door that opened the latch.?