MINI is celebrating its 50th anniversary. There will be an International Mini Meet in Longbridge, Birmingham August 8-9.

This will be followed by birthday celebrations at the Frankfurt Motor Show in Germany, later in the month.

On Wednesday, August 26 the owners of Mini, BMW will be honouring this success story by a special birthday stand and will bring the special edition 50 Mayfair and 50 Camden to the show.

The Mini was designed in just two years by Alec Issigonis, who also designed two more of the five best-selling cars in British motoring history – the Morris Minor and the Austin 1100.

Issigonis and his team at British Motor Corporation (BMC) were charged with combating increasing imports of inexpensive bubble cars from Germany and Italy.

His department was asked to design a fuel-efficient, inexpensive four-seater vehicle using an existing engine to regain market share for BMC.

He is reputed to have sketched some of the inspirational ideas for the top-secret project – initially called Austin Design Office Project 15 (ADO 15) – on a tablecloth.

The developed design, was first marketed as the Austin Se7en and later became known as the Mini.

The first Mini in production was shown to the press in April 1959, and by August several thousand vehicles had been produced ready for sale.

Sales were not very promising after the launch, but the iconic 650kg Mini became a hit through the ’60s, helped by its appearance in the hit film the Italian Job, starring Michael Caine.

A total of 1,190,000 Mk Is were produced.

The last Mini, a red Cooper Sport, was built on October 4, 2000 and presented to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust in December of that year.

A total of 5,387,862 cars had been manufactured.

When production of the classic Mini ceased in 2000, BMW announced the successor to the Mini, the BMW Mini.

The new Mini is larger than the classic Mini, around 55 centimetres longer, 30 centimetres wider and weighing 1,050 kg.

On April 3, 2007, the one millionth BMW Mini rolled out of the Oxford Plant after six years of production, just one month longer than it took the classic Mini to reach the same total in March 1965.