^^what the title says.

I am interested in the history of the mini need more words
than pretty pictures. Need to understand why the mini
is so successful and in what ways it has changed over
the last 50 years and why.

cheers

I have read many many books on the history of this great (greatest?) car.

No one book covers it and there is next to nothing on the Oz operations. Peda Davis did 'write' a book 'Spot Light on Mini down under' but this is not much more than a collection of Magazine articles. It's not that good.

Watto's magazine TME, covers the Oz Mini stuff very well. He should write a book (HINT HINT).

From a UK perspective, I think the best book I've read would be 'Mini the true and secret life of a modern motor car'. Many other books tell the story through rosy coloured glasses, but this one is more balanced 'warts and all' story. It not only talks about the car but life of the times and I think this is needed to properly understand some of the technical / production / marketing descisions made. It does also go in to some detail as to why BMW bought Rover.

'Mini' (in it's various forms) by Rob Goulding is also another very good one and focuses more on the car itself than the book above, but because of this tight focus, it leaves many questions. It also covers some of the Competition history.

'The Works Minis' by Peter Browning is quite good but a bit too brief. It looks only at the major Rallies and some Races, but does not talk much at all about the Competition Department or some of the lesser known Rallies and Races (like Bathurst). Could be comfortably expanded about 5 times to fill in some of the missing gaps. It does have a list of the cars in the back of the book and from that list many of the cars ended up in Oz (where are they now).

'Metro' by Graham Robinson although not seemingly about the Mini does fill in a large part of the company history mainly during the times of Government ownership and how they had to deal with the unions and the bring of robotics to car assembly and the very tight tolerances to which this car was made to. At the time (1974 to 1980) they spent 650 million pounds (about 1.5 billion AUD!) designing and getting this car in to production. To put that in to some perspective, I remember here in about 1988 Ford Australia mouthing off that they had just spent $165 million on the latest Falcon.

'The Last Works Minis' by Brian Purves is also another good book but very sad. If you were to contemplate getting this one, read this one before Peter Browning's book. It covers the history of the 'Works' Minis built and Rallied between about 1990 and 1998.

Brooklands did publish a book, compiled by the Moke Club (UK) called 'Moke'. I think it's out of print now. This covered some of the Moke stuff but again was a compilation of Magazine articles but also included was some stuff from a few of the Moke Clubs including the bigger ones in Oz. Brief but great book.

There have been many other books that I have read apart from these, but they stand out above the others, which are also good.

Many of these books do make reference to Lord Donald Stokes and speak badly of him. I think those comments are unjust. Yes he did do a 'slash and burn' within the company and (amung other things) the Competition Dept was disolved. If anything taking the approach that he did kept the company (and the Mini) alive during the early to late 70's.

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I think the best book written on the history of the Mini - and I have read quite a lot of them - is Jon Pressnell's recent tome - Mini - The Definitive History

Although probably not perfect, it does answer many of the questions, and dispels quite a few myths. It also looks at many of the problems encountered in production and has an entire chapter dedicated to the age-old question of whether the Mini actually made any money.

Rob Golding's Mini - 30 Years and Mini - 40 years are also excellent books that delve into the development of the cars very well, and look at goings on in BMC/Leyland over the periods. Both of course are out of print. However, his latest book Mini - 50 Years is not so good, and tends to be a much more glossy, light read without the great detail of the previous efforts, and appears also be to heavily weighted to the BMW MINI - spending much of its time trying to show the new MINI as a direct development of the Classic Mini - which frankly it isn't. (don't start any anti-MINI ramblings here - I like the new MINI very much, but the bare fact it is not a development of the Classic Mini).

Graham Robson's book Mini - A celebration of Britain's best-loved small car is beautifully presented with loads of excellent studio photos of near-perfect restored cars, but includes many often-repeated errors and tends to be a bit of the Rose-coloured glasses.

In my opinion, if you only wanted to get one book on the history of the Mini, you couldn't go past Pressnell's book.

All of these (except Mini - 30 Years and Mini - 40 years ) of course are available through The Mini Experience's on-line shop http://www.miniexperience.com.au

As for a book from The Mini Experience on the history of the Mini in Australia - hint taken. Watch this space.

Cheers,
Watto.

and I'm sure quite a few others would agree.

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About time Watto , I've suggested that myself a few times and I can't be the only one who's suggested it .

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I have to agree with Watto. Jon Pressnells book is brilliant. It is quite substantial but not overloaded with useless information. It dispels many myths with quantative facts and first person recounts. It is set out logically, and most importantly it is well written and easy to read (so many auto authors get this wrong).

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Ryan Filippi
Minis In The Gong
[email protected]
www.minisinthegong.com.au

On ya Watto, Ill take 10 ov em