The other factor is that although the Mini was an outstanding success,
brought home the trophies on the world's rally and race circuits of the
world, exceeded beyond all expectations etc, etc, and sold like hot cakes
for decades, it didn't actually earn the company much of a profit if any.
The manufacturing process was very labour intensive, basically a small army
of people constructed Mini's and the tooling cost a fortune to install, by
the mid 1960's the accountants claimed they weren't charging enough for them
and Ford (who were kicking themselves because they didn't have a similar
product) took one and stripped it and priced every nut and bolt and
concluded they must be losing money on every one sold!  In fact a
replacement Mini was designed for the 1970's a prototype still exists and
was built around 1968 but British Leyland took control and that got shelved
and Leyland concentrated on sorting the larger cars in its fleet out instead
(I'm glad it got shelved as it was horrible anyway).  Then from around the
mid 1970's we were all aware Leyland were working on a New Mini! (yes we've
heard it all before), anyway we got glimpses on the TV of a car with a cover
over it claiming to be the successor for years, then in late 1980 the Austin
MiniMetro (or just Metro as it became known) was launched.  Anyway this
larger mid-sized hatchback was constructed by robots, so the profits were
huge.  The Mini however wasn't axed although the range was severly cut down
and production numbers lowered because Rover wanted the Metro to succeed
because it would return a healthy profit.  Anyway the Mini was a bit
neglected in the 1980's and the range was slowly being fazed out with 1987
being the year it would finally be axed, but then new management took
control and instead of axing it they raised it's profile and started
advertising it again just to point out it was still being made!  They said
at the time that if people wanted to buy it then they would still produce it
and it may not make huge profits but it was still a good little earner and
anyway by then all the tooling was paid for.  Then in 1989 Rover threw a
30th Birthday Celebration for the car at Silverstone and people came in
their thousands and Rover were a tad surprised by the response and this
combined with the massive interest shown by Japan led Rover to relaunch the
Mini Cooper.  Then many say the reason BMW moved into take Rover was because
it's then chairman Bernd Pitchesreider (a Mini fan) was a distant cousin of
Issigonis and BMW wanted it's own VW Golf, but what they actually wanted was
a Golf type car using the Mini brand.  When Rover caused them problems, he
got sacked and Rover got dumped but BMW took the Mini name anyway,
unfortunatley after this event their behaviour towards Mini specialists
(trying to force them to stop using the name Mini) here and the fact they've
turned their backs on the original didn't endear them to enthusiasts and
that's why there's the hostility now.  But even if the BINI was being made
in Longbridge and sold in Rover dealerships, it still wouldn't be accepted
by most classic owners I don't think, well we never fell in love with the
Metro and that was designed to be the Mini's replacement, no the original
Mini was and still is unique, there's nothing else quite like it and there
never will be.  As I said, we never had it so good, for so long!

Taffy