Wizardry On Wheels 1961

Great documentary showing the design and testing of the greatest of all cars - the Mini Minor!

[@NoosaHeads]

Is everyone else as impressed as I am about how amazingly coordinated is is to get a car into production?

[@rick928]

When we had a car industry!

[@maxflight777]

Rikkie, I had the same reaction as you .....But you are wrong ! The truth is we still make about 1.3M cars a year (pre covid 2019 figures) 80% of these were exported. That’s about 30% more than we manufactured in 1962.

[@fabi57iamracer]

@@maxflight777 assemble is way different than build.

[@sh-ig9fm]

@@fabi57iamracer your right

[@ricardosuarez8023]

Brilliant! Thanks for posting.

[@absrecovery]

Rust prevention bath must have always been half full

[@theequaliser8026]

Excellent post

[@drstevenrey]

Amazing how they managed to make many many machines and still need so many men to work them. Industrial revolution by not doing the job completely. And always the inevitable snail crane.

[@jharris947]

Seats 4 but struggled with the space for one person's luggage. Didn't have a boot...it more like a slipper! :-)

[@beowulf5982]

Always remembered the Sub-Frame rotting out maybe it missed the bath or was it because of low grade imported steel?

[@fuccasound3897]

No sign of testing in pouring rain, so they missed the fact that the distributor and plug leads were on the front of the engine and prone to getting wet in a downpour resulting in the engine cutting out now and again..

[@kidnitr0]

Originally the prototypes had the engine 180 degrees the other way round, but they suffered from the carburettor icing up causing stalling iirc. The solution was to turn the whole engine 180 degrees which put the distributer at the front. Don't know about the Mk1 and Mk2, but the Mk3 had a plastic plate screwed to the slam panel so shield the distributer from rain but they were often not put back after a service.

[@maxflight777]

I quite like that shot at 12:01........ anyone who has changed the clutch on a mini will know what I mean.

[@duncanward1718]

Such a shame they got the sums wrong and were selling them at a loss.

[@weerobot]

Genius....

[@fabi57iamracer]

The company made lose in each one of those, how that could be possible?