Dear Sir Alec,
You were the Greek God of automotive design; the architect of automotive excellence that captured the spirit of the age in the swinging 60s. You created a small car with a massive impact: the ADO15, subsequently known to the world as the Mini. The car reflected the new age of liberation and rights, as well as new technologies. You created the British car for the people: a true icon of popular culture.
Now, your electrified Mini has the chance to reflect a new zeitgeist: a car that speaks to the new environmental age. Your original Mini was born out of a response to an energy crisis in the 1950s, and now its descendant is a response to the climate crisis. The electric Mini is a fun car for a serious age.
Alec, we need to bring the early mainstream audience into the world of the electric vehicle, and the successor to your original Mini is a car that can do so with a smile. You would be pleased, Alec, that the electric Mini still has the go-kart handling that your original car, with its compact rubber cone suspension, and diminutive size, first delivered. Your successor very, very much has the spirit of fun that your initial AD015 design delivered.
Alec, work needs to be done to define EVs as joyful. At the moment, they are not, and your joyful little car is our best shot at giving drivers in the 2020s the cheery feeling of the driver’s car that you created.
The good people at MINI have honoured your peerless reputation of small car aesthetic perfection in the new Mini Cooper E, as well as the British design signature of your adopted country. This is a car with the cute beauty of your original design. You’ll be surprised by its size, though. Small is now big, relative to the diminutive dimensions that you envisaged with the ADO15.
You might be a little less pleased that this Mini’s cost is a little above the price that would appeal to the younger, environmentally conscious consumer. Perhaps you might have asked if you could create a low cost variant to reflect your initial brief from Leonard Lord, your boss at the time.
Your car delivered game changing technology with the ADO15’s space-saving transverse engine and front-wheel drive layout. You might also have been looking for a little more creative engineering innovation in the new Mini.
So, Alec, I’m sure you’d have loved the new electric Mini from MINI. You were a true innovator, and there is much that the electric powertrain and the honouring of your original elegant design that, I’m sure, I hope, you would admire. As a son of Oxford, your manufacturing home, I do.
