The Mini's official 50th Birthday is this Friday.................
Quote:-
"Happy birthday, Mini! It seems astonishing to say it – you are 50 years old. But like many an ageing celebrity there is some doubt about when you actually first came into the world.
It could have been in July 1957 when your creator, Alec Issigonis, thrashed the very first prototype around the British Motor Corporation's factory at Longbridge, Birmingham – and his boss, the gruff Sir Leonard Lord, barked: "Build the bloody thing!"
Or was it on an August day two years later when you first went on sale to a baffled British public? No.
As Mini aficionados know, your real date of birth was May 8 1959 – when the first official production machine came off the line at Cowley, Oxfordshire. Mini: happy 50th birthday - Telegraph BBC - Oxford - History - Mini Memories! 
Happy Birthday Mini 
