Here's a reply I gave to a brain dead Continental who thinks Mini's are
funny on the message board for the design quest site:-

Well James_Joule or whatever your name is, if you've seen the classic movie
The Italian Job (1969) (which you probably have and taken offence no doubt)
it's the British that's laughing at you continentals mate! And my Mini
doesn't get laughed at, most people with a brain including children marvel
at it. And as for Issigonis, he moved to Britain as a child and was educated
here, he became a British citizen for gods sake and the team working under
him designing the Mini were all British and the car was manufactured in
Britain. Ok demand in the 1960's and 1970's was so great we couldn't keep up
so component parts were sent to other countries around the world and they
manufactured it themselves. The truth is this amazing car was only conceived
to offer the British public an affordable sensible alternative to the crude
and dangerous bubble cars that littered the roads of the 1950's (one was
coincidentally made by BMW and called the Isetta!), but soon it was winning
all the rallies and races thanks to John Cooper and the Mini Cooper S and
was seen driven by top celebrities, royalty even and became the first truly
classless car and it then starred and was immortalised in The Italian Job
movie, yes this little car surpassed all expectations and was even nominated
for Car of the 20th Century and Greatest Car of All Time! It's concept of
transverse mounted engine and front wheel drive has since been copied by all
other motor manufacturers, (Issigonis showed them all how it should be done,
still laughing now?) but none have packaged it all so well. It's something
for us British to be proud of and the shape still looks great today and it's
still the ultimate car for parking/shopping and driving through towns and
cities. In fact it was so good the Germans stole the name and currently use
it to promote their rather lacklustre hatchback, which I doubt will have the
same appeal in 50 years time! Want all the Mini facts? Look here:
http://minis.freeservers.com/

He then went on to say in a separate post how toilet paper should be put
forward as a great design, so I replied by telling him "yes then you could
use it to wipe your mouth because you talk a load of sh.t!"

Taffy

GTA the game is produced by a British company and is one of the most
successful game series of all time. Regardless of what you think of the
content, you can't argue with the stats, and the games (again regardless of
content) are pretty amazing.

G