Not to worry though, here comes MINI U.S.A. vice-president Jim McDowell to smooth over customer concerns by telling CNBC that MINIs are like wives: you love them even though they aren't perfect from Day One, and can take some getting used to.
Er... seeing as my wife occasionally stumbles across this column, I've no idea what he's talking about. None whatsoever.
But perhaps MINI-McDowell has a point. After all, reliability is not the only yardstick by which we measure cars. As much as the average consumer likes to think that they're only using their head, to some extent, we all buy with our hearts.
There's a reason you don't ever get any flyers about the Toyota Corolla club's annual meet, while the Alfa-Romeo club gets together at the drop of a hat to chat about their cars.
Mind you, that might just be group psychotherapy.
So just because the gearshift knob comes off in your hand five feet out of the dealership driveway, it doesn't mean you haven't bought a great car. It's also a good idea to take the J.D. Power Survey with a tablespoon of salt too, as it only measures the first 90 days of ownership. Overall, MINI does quite well, except for the early five-speed manual transmissions.
Back in 1956, the Suez Crisis was sending European fuel prices skyrocketing. So-called "bubble-cars" ruled the roads, sipping fuel and beetling along at single-digit speeds. Needless to say, BMC (later British Leyland) was considerably upset to be losing ground to cars like the BMW Isetta and the Messerschmitt micro-cars, especially since the Luftwaffe had been bombing their factories only fifteen years before.
Leonard Lord, who is my favorite company chairman after Ferrucio Lamborghini, issued the following proactive and synergy-increasing mission statement: "God damn these bloody awful bubble cars. We must drive them off the streets by building a proper small car."
So they did. August 1959 saw the first Mini hit showroom floors, and its success was instant. The press loved the Austin Se7en or Morris Mini-Minor, as it was then called, and customers loved it even more. It sipped gas too, but it was as roomy as a cathedral and went like hell. The Mini practically invented the "go-kart handling" cliché, and quickly began dominating rally-racing at the hands of expert drivers like Paddy Hopkirk.
Style was the other big selling feature of the Mini. Without even really trying, it became a symbol of '60s cool as best exemplified in The Italian Job. Jaguar E-types and Aston-Martin DB5s were cool too, but the Mini wasn't working at it so hard.
Big engines and big egos? Who needs 'em.
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