Owning a classic Mini Cooper is a lot of fun.  One of the most interesting thing is that it is almost exactly the same engineering as the original Mini from 1959.  There have been some radical changes on Tink-  including moving the speedometer to the driver’s side from the center and adding the luxury of air-conditioning.  As the stories are told Mini basically looked at what they needed to do to keep selling in a market and would add that.  Side mirrors added, side turn indicators, larger tail lights, rear fog light… these were slapped on without any major changes to the design.  The radiator stayed on the left side until the late 90’s.  I have heard a couple funny stories about when BMW inspected the factory for the first time.  Like it was stepping back in time.  Having visited the factory over the summer, it isn’t like that anymore… which has caused some strife.