It might be the day for another mini owner to score this one and the fabulous Vanuatu all expense paid holiday prize


Damn and I needed a break too
Mike

Think you're talking about the wrong competition Mike , the Vanuatu holiday was the comp you started to see who could accurately guess your age .

I can do you a good deal on a room in Honiara on the Solomon Islands though

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Ah Yes - I saw that advert in Honiara - fantastic uninterupted views.

The guess the age comp closed as nobody got the right answer and the sponsor withdrew the prize as a result.

Mike

And most of the guesses were too rude to post ...

As for the quote , it comes from when the speaker was becoming disillusioned with the motoring industry later in life (c'mon , there's some big hints there) .

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My age shows its head again - Evan Green

Mike

No, not Evan Green

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Surely not the most holy and revered Sir Alex ???

Ian I think you need to change the title to indicate wednesday's quiz to attract more contestants.

Yes , the late Sir Alec Issigonis said that , late in his life he considered there were no true designers left , only copiers ....

Will change the heading tomorrow with another question

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He was right for his period I guess but the japanese had not become a force by then. They had some innovative cars - some very good engineering and metalurgy. Thats designing even if the body shells were fairly ho hum.

You agree ??

Possibly , at the time he had all but retired , had made the gearless mini , the steam mini and an electric one and could see nothing new . I guess he never foresaw the hybrid or where electric cars are now heading . It's hard to say really though if designing such a radical car (for it's time) from scratch like the Mini is in the same as the level of engineering finesse being done today in designing new car's and alternative power trains , or if it is that far above and beyond it . Are current designers adapting newer materials to old problems or are they starting with a new sheet of paper ?

Talk about a philosophical start to the day ...

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head...... hu-rts......... ouch.....

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Here am I sitting in my tin can far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do...



“A turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft happens and you go faster.” - Jeremy Clarkson

I remember a BMW TV advert of a few years ago where a german executive sat facing the camera saying (in english) "We dont need to make fancier cars, or faster cars. We just need to make better cars."

I agree with that and better cars includes more efficient and profitable construction, safer, confortable, reliable etc etc.

Modern cars rarely breakdown and usually they are good for their designed redundancy period commonly 300-500k kms.

I do notice Top Gear insists on raving about ultimate power figures and ultimate potential top speed. Very mixed messages to consumers who cant realistically use either.

Sorry Matt - more head hurts

Mike

Well then (stop reading now Matt or you'll suffer and intercranial implosion) , how do you categorise a truly well engineered car , something that provides cheap , relatively safe , enclosed transport to the masses (the mini , the Volkswagen beetle , the Tata Nano etc) , one that is super efficient for the user only regardless of cost (prius) or super green (the MINI Diesel is making huge claims there now) or as you said the type of stuff they test on top gear which is out of reach and useless to the average motorist (I can do 315 klm per hour , 90% of my driving is at 30 klm per hour between traffic lights which is just as well since I can't afford to drive it fast anyway ) or something with ultra high quality finish that will keep the owner happier for longer ?

Personally I think the Nano should be in the running to be the car of the next century (much the same as the mini was for last century) . While people criticise it's safety when compared to European standards , it's infinitely safer then the current alternative to the masses in India which involves fitting your family including young children onto a motorbike . It doesn't do anything for the population of Europe or anywhere else but think of what it's going to do for the people who can now afford a car . The mini did the same when it was launched as for the first time many people could afford a new car , or even could afford their first car .

The Prius gives wonderful economy and show's how technology can mate the two drive systems but whether it really is green or just a gimmick remains to be seen . It's still an engineering marvel though even if it doesn't suit everyone .

Then there's the quality argument , in Garfields book I'm reading at the moment several BMW and Rover people are explaining the difficulties in starting the MINI's construction , Rover had their tollerances that they always worked to and BMW classed them as inexcusable and demanded higher quality (I guess that show's in how good the first MINI's still look after 9 or so years as opposed to similar age Rover products ) . There were several things in the MINI's design (structural curved glass , the size and shape of the bonnet) that were just not possible unless the tollerances and quality were improved . From what I've read so far (in this book and others) the MINI may well have been doomed to failure if it was built by anyone other than BMW and their higher quality (now that's a statement that will cause some arguments...) .

While I accept that it isn't possible for someone to design a car by themselves anymore (Like Issigonis did when he drew his design , gave it to Jack Daniels and his team who then made it work) with all the different systems that are in use now compared to then , I still think being able to design something so completely different to the mainstream idea of a car at the time and have saveral of the ideas still in use 50 years later (transverse engined front wheel drive for example) is a feat that modern designers can't do .

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A shame I don't get to look on the forum as often as I would like.

I knew the answers to both questions....

But, then I've recently finished reading the same book.

What did you think of the book, Ian?

I didn't like it very much. It was very negative to the Classic Mini and raved about the new MINI. There seemed to be no continuity to thy way the book was put together and frankly was very biased toward new MINI.

I don't for one minute believe everything was great with the Classic Mini, but if everything was as bad as the author leads us to believe, the Mini would never have been made, or would never have survived beyond the first couple of years, and everyone who ever worked on it would hate it.

It is interesting that the vast majority of the people interviewed for the book were still working in the factory on the new MINI and, for good reason when you consider how the industry has improved in general and at Cowley in particular, were raving about how much better things were.

There is no balance in the comments by people about how bad the old factory was, in comparing it with the overall industry at the time, or talking with anyone who actually enjoyed working there - there must be plenty of them, from the amount of affection for the Mini and BMC-Leyland-Rover, etc shown regularly by ex factory workers.

We mustn't forget that, despite appalling working conditions in all industry of the time, BMC was in the early 1960s one of the most innovative and progressive car companies in the world.

Just a shame that a combination of little profitability and an intransigent chief designer who refused to believe there was a better way to make cars than his way - both of which are symptoms of poor top-end management - and the fact that other countries, particularly Japan, were catching up, meant that BMC (later Leyland) was left behind in the development stakes, and then became a virtual laughing stock.

I also really grind when I hear people continually talking about Issigonis as the sole creator of the Mini. From what I've seen and read he drew rough sketches, often with very good detail (and don't get me wrong his concepts for the most part were brilliant and his drawing remarkable) but it was his small team, lead by Jack Daniels and John Sheppard who really got Issi's ideas into proper technical drawings and made it all work. As Daniels once said, quite rightly, to Mini World magazine, "I was the 90% perspiration behind Issigonis' 10% inspiration".

Without input from these people on improving the concept the Mini would always have had the engine 180 degrees around the wrong way, water flooding into the passenger compartment, noisy cooling fans, integral grilles (like on the van and ute), gutters that wouldn't drain - the list goes on.

Yes, Issi was a brilliant designer, but although he liked to take all the credit himself (and tell the world he was the last one-man design team, "The Last Bugatti, he often called himself) he couldn't have done it without the other guys.

Getting back to the book - while it had some very interesting quotes and a (very) little bit of new information, it is basically a Mini bashing exercise in favour of showing how much better the MINI is.

I don't think a lot of Classic Mini enthusiasts will warm to the book.

"Mini-an intimate biography", by Christie Campbell (not a woman), on the other hand, is a much better book. Although, like "Mini - the true and secret history..." it does not set out to be a nuts and bolts history of the Mini, but does delve into the social history of the times and shows why the Mini was such a success. It also looks at the development of the new MINI in an unbiased way and, thankfully, gives credit to Rover for much of the design work - showing the back and forth movement of responsibility for the design between Munich and Longbridge.

The book also looks at the rivalry, even hatred, between the new MINI and Classic Mini fraternities, without taking sides, and goes some way to explaining the reasons behind the rift. However, I had to laugh at the comment on the very last page that reads: "As MINI approached its ninth birthday in the Spring of 2009, and Mini its fiftieth, the war between the classic die-hards and fans of the 'small BMW performance car' was effectively over."

Yeah right! I take it he didn't visit IMM this year. But then the book was published before that event.

The book is certainly not perfect. Unfortunately, where the author does delve into the nuts and bolts history of the Mini he makes many of the usual mistakes. There is a Mini Time Line at the end of the book, and some of the dates are way out. BUt, that all being said, the book offers the best, probably the first, detailed look into the social history of the times of the release of the Mini, and throughout much of its history, to give a valuable insight into the marketing strategies (and where there weren't any) for both versions of the Worlds best cars.

End of rant.

Watto.

Actually I'm enjoying it Watto , more so than the "Mini-an intimate biography", that I read before it , I found that one to be just rehashing the same old myths as facts . This one is a bit more human if you will with peoples first hand experiences even though as you say , it is biased towards the MINI . I guess there's a bit more new material in this one than others .

EDIT , I guess I was a bit put off by Christies book too when he outed Issigonis as an obvious homosexual without any info to back up his claim . I know others have suggested he may have been but this is the first I've seen where he stated the fact .

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