...which would have been dumb, now the MINI is brilliant, not smart and the story is now done. This riddle may seem daunting but don't lose heart read along and you will see that to solve it doesn't take any special talent and it all began with a man named Sir Alec.
Sir Alexander Constantine Issigonis, to be exact, born on November 18, 1905 in Smyrna Turkey. His father was of Greek origin and his mother was the heir to a family brewery operation on the Aegean Sea. Alec Issigonis' achievements not only earned him knighthood status from the Queen but created a vehicle that was more an interwoven part of people’s lives than simply a car, an integral part of memories gone by. 
Owners take on the role of "proud parent" more than a mere driver; they become part of this historic tapestry, a custodian of the flame. If not for the stubborn self security of one man none of us would have ever had such a car to welcome into our families. Alec was known for his self secure positions on design. He simply was not interested in designing a car by consensus. The often used statement, “A camel is a horse designed by committee" is accredited to Alec. He was a visionary that would not settle for anything less than what he knew was correct. To ask him to do otherwise would have been like asking him to add 2+2 and come up with a sum of 6. To some this attitude might have seemed overbearing but in the world today where design has slowly morphed into the "Wal-Mart" school of passive aggressive wallflower lethargy it is refreshing to think of a man who believed in an idea and followed it through to the end without it decomposing into a ghost of it’s original creativity. Alec was not new to design when the call came to design a basic car for the masses. Alec had already designed a much beloved vehicle, the Morris Minor, in 1948. 
The Minor was the perfect post war vehicle for a rebuilding British economy. The Minor became the first British vehicle to exceed one million units. The Minor struck a chord with English motorists who craved economical transportation. Alec had an unusual ability to hone in on the core of what made a great car. He looked beyond chrome and fins to the fundamental essence of driving. To understand this automotive austerity you need look no further than the man himself. Alec lost his homeland of Turkey and his father simultaneously when as a young man Alec's father died as they fled Turkey to seek safe harbors in Malta after WW1. Alec and his mother moved after this tragedy to England where Alec's father had been a naturalized citizen. Alec embraced loss at an early age. It was from these experiences that Alec began to look to the meaning of life on a deeper level. This carried over into his design work where he looked beyond the superficiality of the non-essential to the marrow of what it meant to drive. To Alec life needed to be lived to the fullest, and a full life could be achieved through a simplification of what was needed to live. In 1956 England’s support of Israel against Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal led to an oil embargo and gasoline rationing throughout England. It came with little surprise that Sir Leonard Lord, President of British Motor Company, put out the “bat signal” for the assistance of Issigonis. Issigonis answered the call with the Mini Minor, a smaller vehicle that found its design inspiration in his original BMC Minor design. He designed the Mini on a cocktail napkin 
over dinner, the simply pen sketch showed his idea for a four person car that utilized front drive, to open up the passenger area, and, an unheard off at that time, front mounted transmission placed under the engine. 
Little did Alec know that his design would transform the automotive world. Alec went to work immediately designing the fine points of the Mini. Alec visualized the Mini's size by placing four folding chairs on a conference room floor and repositioned them numerous times until his four colleagues had enough room. He placed tape on the floor around the chairs and the size of the Mini was set in place, a mathematical formula for space utilization, 4x4x10=80%. The Mini would be 4 feet wide by 4 feet high with a length of ten feet creating an interior room that was 80% that of the overall size of the vehicle. Imagine this came from a man who failed College math three times before passing and was often quoted as saying, “-math is the enemy of every truly creative man". The Mini went to a production ready prototype in an incredibly short 15 month period. At first the Mini collected dust on dealer’s lots, but soon the magic of the Mini was discovered as many celebrities began to be seen in the Mini. The overcrowding of London made the Mini "a must have" for the "lad about town" as it's ease of parking maximized “club” time on a Friday night. The purity of the Mini design was embedded with the innate stability that was created by placing each wheel only ten inches from the corners. To many it was a surprising choice among rally racers, but its wonderful driving dynamics led to many victories. What the Mini lacked in straight line power it made up for in the corners. Alec never considered the Mini a race car; his mission was far more philanthropic. He wanted a people’s car for families much like his had been. He wanted all families of all social levels to be able to have the "luxury" of personal transportation. BMC saw differently as they knew the marketing potential of aligning a vehicle with race wins. John Copper, a renowned racer and a good friend of Alec's, came in to unleash the potential of the Mini. Alec was concerned the Mini would grow above its humble mission and although he trusted his friend's ability and expertise, he was skeptical of the union. John Copper however kept true to Alec's mission and only served to further excel the brand to levels never imagined. The "little engine that could" went on to win many victories including its first victory where Pat Moss drove the Mini to victory in the aptly named “Mini Miglia". 
Even after BMW entered the equation in 1994 the original Mini soldiered on untainted under a special agreement between John Copper and Innocenti high performance cars until October 2000. 
John Copper could not bear to see his beloved Mini left out in the field to return to the elements. It just goes to show the power of this car when after so many years it still filled a place in the heart of those who knew it best. John was in integral part in the tuning of the second coming of Mini. John was apprehensive at first to see what creation would wear the venerable name. When John and his son Mike where secretly driven to the Mini test facility they where expecting some modern “door stop” to appear before them. To John’s surprise he let out a gasp when he first saw the new Mini and said, “that’s my Mini” Ironically as if he knew that his mission was complete John Copper died one month after the Mini's final car was produced, and just after the new Mini had been released. Like a father that lives to see his daughter get married to a good man, it’s as if John has the peace of knowing that his dear Mini was in safe hands. The longevity of its design is a testament to its icon status. Wars came and went, nations where born and collapsed, the Berlin wall fell and yet the Mini remained a statement of continuity in a fluid world. It’s only styling change came in the 1960's when in an attempt to modernize the Mini they created the Clubman, and yet the regular Mini still carried on with the Clubman becoming a separate model. 
The Clubman adopted a squared off front end and retained the rest of the Mini's body work. BMC continued to try and bring out new models from time to time. A model called the 9x was one such attempt. The square “box” exuded no real personality and its prototype never made production, although it did become a daily grocery getter for Issigonis who did not want it to it to go to waste. In the late 1970’s the attempt was made one last time but the Mini lived on in harmony beside what would have been its replacement, the Metro.
What is particularly amazing is that the Mini survived unchanged even as its parent companies changed. In the United States we have become used to automobile companies maintaining a certain amount of stability. Chryslers take over by Daimler was really the first large disruption in continuity that we had seen in the “big three”. In England the auto companies never had the luxury of such stability. Originally Issigonis was called to design for Morris. When his second calling came Morris, Austin, Wolsley, and Hornet, to name just a few of its main players, had come together to form the British Motor Corporation. Each company tried to set their images apart, similar to a Mercury looking different from a Ford, but at the end of the day they where still Mini’s. The Hornet Elf grew in size by using a backpack like trunk. The luxury grade Elf even had leather seats and a wood dash much to the chagrin of Alec’s purist beliefs. Yet all in all it was still a Mini! Later BMC would undergo subsequent mergers and changes, the last of which found Mini controlled by Rover which had assumed large debt from Jaguar and Range Rover. To make matters worse Honda took a 25% interest in Rover and began to supply many of their products. As we all know Honda is no slouch at building small cars and they had their own ideas for what a people’s car should look like. For the first time it seemed as if our hero was trapped at the edge of a cliff. Mini’s numbers dwindled in its later years with the majority exported to Japan where they were considered cool retro collectables. Like a team of doctors talking about a terminal patient in hushed tones in the hospital corridor the brass at Rover concluded it was time to pull the plug. You would think that Rover’s British roots would have assured a new Mini that correctly honored its heritage. The truth was that Rover looked more towards the "letter" of the Issigonis law and not at its "spirit". They wanted to recreate the notion of a minimal car by modern standards and came up with the "Spiritual". 
The one box “door stop” design ,that had become popular in Europe at the time ,dominated with an overall theme that looked like something out of a Doctor Seuss book. 
The "Inspiration" was the vehicle in the mind of John Copper the day he approached the testing grounds. Luckily for John ,and all of us, that Mini, the Mini we all now know as the new Mini had not followed that trend but took on new life, a new life that it took a German car company to provide. So our riddle is complete the "Inspiration" was almost the new Mini, a Mini that would have followed in the same "design rhythm" of the Smart car, a design that one day Smart loyalists will look back on with the same love as the Mini loyalists today. 
The lesson is clear each car has a soul like a person and that guiding light can not be genetically changed to fit into a clean marketing agenda. A cars following cannot be measured on a spreadsheet. Each car must stay true to itself; The Mini stayed a Mini because that is what the Mini should be. So it would not have been smart for the Mini to become another "smart like" car because only the smart can be smart, and the Mini can be Mini. And so we now learn that we all must discern what is true based not on a catchy tune, or a commercial or two, but on what speaks to you. The Mini’s success cannot be seen with your mind you must feel the power of this car deep in side, and if a smile comes upon your face when you get a trace of it’s happy façade, you will now know that the Mini is the only car for you to drive down the boulevard. We now know what the Mini truly is but we have yet to learn how it‘s spark was reignited, it’s future is now determined and it’s all because of a German….. 
