David Allman
As someone who had the privilege of working at Longbridge during the '60s, I can only marvel at the vision and foresight of one man, John Cooper, in creating from a volume produced small vehicle, the world conquering Mini Cooper that we all love and adore. From the film clip where he so modestly mentions fitting a Cooper formula junior engine to give 'the boys' more power. To actually make his brainchild a reality must have taken patience and resilience in those days in persuading the then BMC management to share his vision and produce that first 1000 Mini Coopers.
Thank goodness the automotive Industry of that era was not overburdened with accountants and committees that are so commonplace today. Otherwise 'my car of the century' would never have been born. Let us not forget either, the developments that I believe have come along as a result of the Mini Cooper:
1) The hot hatch - a direct descendent that came out a decade and a half later, maybe in reality the Marples Cooper S was indeed the first hot hatch.
2) Volume production of precise handling , front wheel drive family vehicles from nearly all manufacturers.
3) The new BMW generation of Mini Coopers, as the advert for a certain brand of razor shavers went, 'I liked it so much I bought the company.'
To conclude, I do hope when the history is written about the golden decade 'the '60s' as well as remembering England winning the world cup at Football and the three successive wins the Mini Cooper chalked up in the Monte Carlo Rally (I don©ˆt care a damn what the French think, we won!) we do not forget the man who was the inspiration behind and gave his name to the Mini Cooper.
