davis jr. DaviD E.
Mega fun in Mini packages.
I
am six feet two, and my suit size is 48 Long. Among the joys of my life are small cars. Somewhere in the back issues of this magazine I can be found singing the praises of little cars, suggesting that “low mass is its own reward.” Sometimes men, shorter and in better shape than I, approach me to say, “I can’t get into these little cars. I don’t know what it is. I just don’t fit in them.” Well, Georg Kacher, the ubiquitous European automotive correspond ent, is bigger than I am, drives like a star of the old Joie Chitwood Thrill Show, and loves the Fiat X1/9, finding it roomy and comfortable. That whining complaint about the lack of interior space in the most popular small cars is somehow related to concerns about one’s own size and shape and the impression we make on entering a crowded room or driving up to the entrance of the country club. These guys are uncomfortable with the notion that they may not appear big or important enough! God help them. A Greek god could arrive on a Whizzer bike and immediately captivate every one at the company picnic. A Caspar Milquetoast could arrive in a custom ized Hummer and have the same crowd wetting themselves in spasms of laugh ter. It ain’t whatcha drive, guys, it’s whatcha bring to the driving experience. We are currently blessed with a wonderful assortment of little cars, any or all of them designed to cause sleepless nights among the members of OPEC. Any small car is fun to drive. They’re easier to park, easier to maneu ver, easier in which to perform the phenomenal avoidances that are such an important part of modern traffic. They also deliver fabulous fueleconomy numbers. The Morris and Austin Minis, grandpar ents of the BMW-built Minis that are all over the American road net today, demonstrated that a tiny little car with some serious attention to its roadholding and maneuverability can
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make you giggle until the ice cream comes out of your nose. Road races limited exclusively to BMW 700s or Mini Coopers in the Fifties and Sixties were often more exciting than the fea ture races they supported. Today’s Mini has taught an entire genera tion that fun can still play a role in a world where fun is rapidly going out of fashion. Even its innovative marketing campaign has tweaked the funny bones while supplying prod uctinformation nourishment to starving young brains—and may a tickled God rain down His blessings on BMW for that! Alec Issigonis, who designed the original Mini, was a classic British eccentric, and he
bottle of champagne to an occupant of the other. For my expatriate friend, those two speeding cars captured perfectly the London of the Beatles and Carnaby Street and the Mods. Great Britain might sink, giggling, into the sea, but, by God, it was going to be fun to watch! When the American importer of Minis raised the question of an optional automatic transmission as a means of expanding the U.S. Mini market, it was learned that the old killjoy American safety authorities would demand that the car’s automatic transmission be fitted with a park position. Issigonis fought this stipulation, arguing that the little car had a per fectly good hand brake. The meeting ended in
It ain’t whatcha drive, guys, it’s whatcha bring to the driving experience. never expected his tiny little economy car to become a cult vehicle that would spend most of its life getting its wheels driven off. He thought he had created all that extra capability to make it safer, but its owners took childish delight in driving it right through the wizard Issigonis’s safety margins, whether they were driving around a racing circuit or taking the children to the public library. An American friend, who had just moved from Southern California to London in the Six ties, came out of a restaurant late on New Year’s Eve and was startled by the roar of two Minis racing flat-out down a narrow street, side by side. As he watched, a lovely female arm came out of the window of one car and transferred a
impasse. In the next meeting, the wily Issigonis unveiled his solution to the American parking pawl problem by opening his briefcase with a flourish and producing a set of wheel chocks! The American contingent was not amused. Years ago, my wife and I had dinner with the thenchairman of BLMC, one of the later reorganizations of British Leyland—an early version of President Obama’s current collec tive solution to all of our nation’s automotive dilemmas. As a former owner of two Minis, my wife wanted to know if there would ever be another Mini. That worthy gentleman snorted into his Château Lafite Rothschild ’57 and said, “No American will ever again buy a car that is barely more than 10 feet long.”
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