CooperS Classic Car Design And developmentPicture of Mini Cooper Classic CarsCooperS Classic Car Design And development as project ADO15 (Austin Drawing Office project number 15), the Mini came about because of a fuel shortage caused by the 1956 Suez Crisis. Petrol was once again rationed in the UK, sales of large cars slumped, the market for German Bubble cars boomed. Leonard Lord, the somewhat autocratic head of BMC, reportedly decreed: 'God damn these bloody awful Bubble Cars. We must drive them off the road by designing a proper miniature car'. He laid down some basic design requirements: the car should be contained within a box that measured...
