73.. Design and development of mini

Designed 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 U.K., 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 10 × 4 × 4 feet (3 × 1.2 × 1.2 m); and the passenger accommodation should occupy six feet (1.8 m) of the 10 foot (3 m) length; and the engine, for reasons of cost, should be an existing unit. Issigonis, who had been working for Alvis, had been recruited back to BMC in 1955 and, with his skills in designing small cars, was a natural for the task. The team that designed the Mini was remarkably small: as well as Issigonis, there was Jack Daniels (who had worked with him on the Morris Minor), Chris Kingham (who had been with him at Alvis), two engineering students and four draughtsmen. Together, by October 1957, they had designed and built the original prototype, which was affectionately named 'The Orange Box' because of its colour.

The ADO15 used a conventional BMC A-Series four-cylinder water-cooled engine, but departed from tradition by mounting it transversely, with the engine-oil-lubricated, four-speed transmission in the sump, and by employing front-wheel drive. Almost all small front-wheel-drive cars developed since have used a similar configuration. The radiator was mounted at the left side of the car so that the engine-mounted fan could be retained, but with reversed pitch so that it blew air into the natural low pressure area under the front wing. This location saved precious vehicle length, but had the disadvantage of feeding the radiator with air that had been heated by passing over the engine.

The suspension system, designed by Issigonis' friend Dr. Alex Moulton at Moulton Developments Limited, used compact rubber cones instead of conventional springs. This ingenious space-saving design also featured rising progressive rate springing of the cones, and provided some natural damping force. Built into the subframes, the rubber cone system gave a raw and bumpy ride which was accentuated by the woven-webbing seats, but the rigidity of the rubber cones, together with the wheels being pushed out to the corners of the car, gave the Mini go kart-like handling that would become famous.

Initially an interconnected fluid system was planned — similar to the one which Alec Issigonis and Alex Moulton were working on in the mid-1950s at Alvis. They had assessed the mechanically interconnected Citroen 2CV suspension at that time (according to an interview by Moulton with CAR magazine in the late 1990s), which inspired the design of the Hydrolastic suspension system for the Mini and Austin 1100, to try to keep the benefits of the 2CV system (ride comfort, body levelling, keeping the roadwheel under good control and the tyre in contact with the road), but with added roll stiffness that the 2cv was very much lacking. The short development time of the car meant this was not ready in time for the Mini's launch. The system intended for the Mini was further developed and the hydrolastic system and was first used on the Austin 1100, launched in 1962, with the mini following two years later. Ten-inch (254 mm) wheels were specified, so new tyres needed to be developed, the initial contract going to Dunlop. Issigonis went to Dunlop stating that he wanted even smaller, eight- inch wheels (even though he had already settled on ten- inch). An agreement was made on the ten- inch size, after Dunlop choked on the eight- inch proposition.